I thought we were clear. I thought we were in the black. But the second I hit the deserted road that led straight to our other compound, a man cruised out of the shadows and pointed his bike toward me. He quickly drew a gun and pointed it at us as we rushed him head on. And without thinking, I pulled the gun off my hip and aimed it at his head.
Before putting one bullet right between his eyes.
“Tanner! No!” Summer exclaimed.
The man collapsed in the middle of the road on top of his bike and I had to swerve in order to miss him. Summer cried behind me, and I did my best to try and calm her down as we raced by the man’s dead body.
“Try not to look,” I said.
“You killed him!” she shrieked.
I peered over my shoulder. “Yeah, before he killed us.”
She pointed. “Look out!”
A gunshot rang out and zoomed by us, and I wondered who the hell taught these idiots how to shoot. The pain in my calf was practically gone due to the adrenaline coursing through my veins, and I aimed my gun in front of me before I took out the man at his knees. We sped by, and with each Black Nutsack asshole that popped out of the woods, I wondered if they had already found our compound.
I wondered if our only other safe place had been compromised.
This isn’t good. None of this is good.
As I holstered my gun, I stuck to the left side of the road that was covered in the most shadows. As each deserted mile fell behind us, I grew more confident that those dickheads hadn’t made it down this far. The street got more and more narrow, and when the guard rails disappeared I knew we were close.
But the entire time I was worried about my brothers that I had left behind to deal with the carnage at the clubhouse.
Just get Summer to safety, then you can go back.
By the time we pulled up to the suped-up warehouse, a thought occurred to me: we still had those three crew prisoners tied up in the basement of this place. I cursed softly to myself as I inched beside Brooks’ bike. One of the lights was turned on way at the back of the place, so I hopped off my bike and offered Summer my hand.
It didn’t shock me when she didn’t take it, though.
Silently, we made our way through the front door. The outside of the warehouse was pretty unassuming. Some of the metal was rusted. A couple of places on the roof had caved in. There were even a couple of downed power lines that covered the broken and battered concrete parking lot that used to be the shining feature of this place.
But when we walked inside, Summer audibly gasped.
“Holy shit. This place looks amazing,” she whispered.
I chuckled as I closed the door behind me. “It’s a work in progress. But it’s got most of the common creature comforts everyone likes.”
“Like beer, for instance,” Brooks said as he came around the corner.
I turned to face him. “Where did you drop her and Cheyenne’s stuff?”
Brooks paused, his beer not quite to his lips. “Is that her name? Cheyenne?”
I smiled. “My daughter? Yeah.”
He nodded. “Beautiful name. I bet she’s equally as precious.”
“You’re damn right, she is,” Summer said.
I sighed. “Can you point me to her room? I want to make sure she gets settled in before I go back to the clubhouse.”
Brooks drained his beer and shook his head. “I’m going back. You stay here with her.”
“But Brooks. I can—”
He held up his hand. “I said what I said. You stay here with her; I’ll deal with getting the rest of the guys and their families here safely.”
Summer stepped up in between us. “Then, you should know that Trigger-Finger over here killed one man and maimed another because they were camped out in the woods lining the road that runs straight to here.”
Brooks narrowed his eyes. “Is that true?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but they were still four miles back.”
He drew in a deep breath. “All right, I’ll put together a patrol to scour the woods once everyone is under one roof. But for now, you take care of her. I’m going to go get the other guys and their families.”
As I watched Brooks march between us, heading for the front door, hatred pooled in my gut. I hated that Brooks was going without me. I hated that Summer had gotten involved with this. I hated myself for being such a talkative fucking drunk and I hated the fact that Chops had pulled the wool over all of our eyes.
We should have taken him out a long damn time ago.
“So, uh, where’s our room?” Summer asked.
I whipped around to face her. “Our room?”
She nodded. “You know, me and Cheyenne.”
Hope drained from my heart. “Oh.”
She furrowed her brow. “You gonna take me there so I can shower? Or…?”
I crooked my finger. “Follow me. We’ll find it. There’s only so many rooms in this place.”
As we weaved our way down the confusing hallways of the sprawling fifteen-thousand square foot warehouse space, I thought back to my high school days. When I turned eighteen during the middle of my senior year, I ended up becoming a prospect for the Dirty Misfits. At the time, I didn’t think anything like this could have ever happened to us. We got down and dirty, and everyone was afraid of us. They bowed to us like kings, and I had been high on the power for months after I pledged just after graduation.
And at the time, I thought I was badass enough to take care of Summer all on my own.
But now, with her following closely as we scoured the rooms for her things in the middle of the woods, I wondered if Summer not showing up at our meeting spot was the best thing she could have done for us.
It pained me to even think it, but maybe she saw something in all of this that I hadn’t at the time.
Especially now that her and our daughter were both at risk.
“Found it,” Summer’s shaking voice said.
I turned around and saw her standing in the doorway of one of the more luxurious rooms. It had a king-size bed in it with its own ensuite bathroom, and I knew it was one of the ones that was suped-up with both a walk-in shower and a massive tub. I helped build these rooms with my bare hands a few years back. We all thought Hyde was insane for wanting to purchase the place and make it a back-up compound for our crew, and my tongue filled with words I needed to chew on now that we were forced to use it.
But Summer’s shortness of breath pulled me out of my trance.
“Summer, you have to breathe for me.”
She shook her head and slapped her hand over her heart. “I—I-I-I—I can’t. Tan—ner. I—I can’t—”
I scooped her into my arms and walked into the bedroom. “In and out. As steadily as you can.”
She shook her head as her body trembled. “No. I can’t. It hurts. So much.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped my arms around her, trying to fend off the panic attack that we both knew was coming. I buried my face into her wild hair as she tucked her own against the crook of my neck, and her ragged breathing worried me. I rocked her softly side to side, cradling her like a child as her hands gripped tightly to my leather jacket.
Pulling me closer every time she thought I was about to move.
“Don’t let me go,” she said breathlessly.
I kissed the top of her head. “I never did.”
I kept whispering how sorry I was as she struggled to breath. I knew there was nothing I could do except comfort her and be there for her while she worked through them, but it didn’t make it any less difficult of a pill for me to swallow. I had caused this. I was the source of this. And in our history, there had been a time where I was the cure-all for this kind of panic. Where I had been her safe space instead of her trigger zone.
Just more proof that we shouldn’t be together.
“There we go. Just like that. In… and out.”
Summer finally took her first big, uninterrupted breath, and relief rushed through my veins.
“There’s a good girl,” I whispered.
She whimpered softly. “I’ve missed you calling me that.”
I kissed her sweating forehead. “I’ve missed you being my good girl.”
She swallowed hard before she sat up, and when her eyes met mine the words simply tumbled off my lips.
“I never wanted you to get pulled into this mess, you know.”
She nodded quickly. “I know, Tanner.”
“I never wanted you to be in danger or be scared. I thought I could protect you from all of this all those years ago.”
She cupped my cheek. “I know.”
My forehead pressed against hers. “I hate seeing you so scared like this.”
She sniffled. “I don’t like seeing you this way, either.”
Our noses nuzzled softly together before she pulled her head back. “What about Cheyenne?”
I lifted my head. “What about her?”
“What if they find her before we pick her up tomorrow? What will they do to her?”
I pinned her with a stare. “They won’t get to her. Not on my watch. You have my word on that, okay?”
She sighed. “I still need to make some phone calls.”
I stood and placed her on the bed gingerly. “There’s a SAT phone we have in case of emergencies. I have to call Finn first for an update, then you can make your calls. But they have to be less than thirty second, all right?”
She nodded. “I can do that.”
“Great. I’ll be right back. You gonna be okay for a few minutes by yourself?”
She laid her head on one of the pillows. “Yeah, I’m just gonna slip under these covers really quickly.”
I grinned as I stepped out into the hallway. “You do that.”
Once I was far enough away from her bedroom, however, I broke into a dead sprint. I powered through the door that led into the panic room we built at the very back of the warehouse and I stepped inside before yanking the SAT phone off the wall. I placed a call to Finn before I held it to my ear, hoping and praying that the man picked up.
And when he did, I couldn’t speak quickly enough. “Is everyone alive? Where are you guys?”
His bike engine revved before he spoke. “We’re good. All is good. Once Brooks showed up, they realized they were outnumbered and retreated.”
I sighed. “Thank fuck.”
“You need anything? We’re about to hit the main road now.”
“Actually, I do. Can you and Porter break off from the rest of the pack? I’ve got somewhere I need you guys to be.”
“Sure thing. Where we headed?”
“The house where my daughter is having her birthday sleepover.”
Then, Summer’s voice appeared behind me. “I can give him the address when he’s ready.”
I slowly turned around and found her leaning against the doorway. “I’d appreciate that.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Nothing to be worried about, huh?”
I clenched my jaw. “You just have to trust—”
“All right,” Finn said, “ready when you are with that address.”
Summer walked up to my side and rattled it off before Finn and Porter confirmed that they were headed to the location. I gave them explicit instructions to stay out of sight, but to keep an eye out overnight and make sure that no one rolled up to pluck Cheyenne from her bed in the middle of the night.
And after I hung up the phone, I handed it to Summer. “That conversation clocked in at twenty-eight seconds.”
She took the phone from me. “I won’t be any longer than that. No one ever picks up the front office phone. I’m just going to leave a message saying that I have the flu, and I’ll request another week before I start.”
I nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
And as I brushed past her, wanting to give her a bit of space to place the call she needed, I perched outside and timed her phone call.
Just to make sure I didn’t have to cut the power to the SAT phone in order to preserve the sanctity of our location.
