Chapter 2
1351 Words
CHAPTER 2
ISABELLE
“They came at the club.” Ozzy’s voice is thick and difficult to understand—is he missing teeth? “They shot the whole warehouse up. Only three of us made it out. f*****g three.”
Well, it looks like someone isn’t a fan of restructuring.
“Who was it?” Blade asks.
“Oh, it ain’t about me, and it’s certainly not about the Grunge. They told me to give you a message.” He points at Mack. “The girl… they took her.” His eyes are tight with pain; the flaps of his injured cheek move in a languished way—muscle damage. “And unless you find them quick, I don’t believe she’ll make to see week’s end.”
The world seems to slow, tilting in a crazy, haphazard way that leaves me feeling unsteady. Oh s**t.
The girl, or the only one I can think of that might be in trouble, is Mack’s niece Juliette, a child who has spent her whole life living with Rooster’s sister—I just discovered this fact last week when Rooster called Adeline on video chat. They definitely keep their circle small.
Mack and Blade ease Ozzy inside and close the door behind him, protecting us from the prying eyes of the neighbors. Ozzy shrugs them off as they move into the kitchen. He leans against the counter, his full weight on his elbows, and hacks; a knot of clotted blood falls from his lips and onto his shirt. The other stains on the cotton are mostly dried. I suppose that makes sense if he drove all the way from Canada, but I’m surprised he wouldn’t stop to clean up; it’s a dozen hours at least.
I follow them to the kitchen. The house has more of an open floor plan than it used to, so I can see them from where I’m standing in the living room. The clot was probably from the wound on his face; it’s so deep that I can see the shiny slip of muscle along the top ridge of the gash. He needs help—stitches. But my mind is racing. How did they find Juliette? She was hidden exceptionally well to protect her from her father, Mack’s psycho brother Jeff. But he’s dead. So why would someone take the girl?
Deeper inside my brain, another voice whispers: Again? How is this happening again?
Ryder goes to the living room window and peeks through the wooden blinds that Blade installed last week. The neighbors are more accepting than I initially expected, but I can’t imagine that they’ll be gung ho about a man bleeding to death on the porch. “No one outside; no one saw Oz,” he says. “We’re lucky they have jobs.”
But so do we—our job is to protect that child. She had a heart transplant when she was small, and the cocktail of anti-rejection meds isn’t covered by insurance—filing a claim means she can’t be hidden off the grid. So, Mack and the others have been footing the bill.
“What do they want?” I ask, and Ozzy turns my way and blinks, but does not respond except to wipe his chin. I try again: “They took her, they threatened her with impending doom by week’s end, but there has to be a reason.” If they wanted to go after Mack, they would have—he’s not exactly hidden, though he is living under an assumed since he’s still a person of interest in Jeff’s death. The only reason to take Mack’s niece is to force our hands; to make Mack do something he’d be opposed to… right?
Ozzy snorts again, but I think he’s clearing his throat. “I’m…” He mumbles something and winces. It’s clear he’s having trouble speaking around that wound on his cheek. Does it go straight through to the interior of his mouth? I squint, and I think I see the gleam of a golden crown on one of his back molars.
Fuck. We’ll need to deal with that injury first. Maybe get him a pen and paper.
“Let’s get you cleaned up a little,” I say. “You need stitches. Someone grab the whiskey.”
“You heard the lady,” Mack says, clapping him on the back, but Blade’s the one who ducks into the corner cabinet. Mack’s words are still echoing through the room when I head for the hall.
The bathroom is steamy, damp against my already hot face—the tips of my ears on are fire with stress. I retrieve my emergency kit from the top drawer, and by the time I return to the kitchen, they have Ozzy set up in one of the dining chairs next to the sink. He has removed his leather jacket and the T-shirt beneath—muscular, tattooed, and covered in small wounds of varying sizes, many of them deep enough to require attention. From… broken glass? I have my work cut out for me.
Mack has already grabbed a bunch of clean towels and set them on the countertop at Ozzy’s elbow. Blade glares—he picked the towels out a couple weeks back, a hazy gray hue. And Ryder… is he wearing my robe? It’s so short that I’m surprised I can’t see his balls swinging beneath it.
Ryder catches me looking, glances down as if he’s just now realized that he’s wearing a miniskirt, and heads for the hall. I set my kit on the countertop and snap on a pair of rubber gloves. I know my guys, but I don’t know where this dude has been.
“Hold still,” I say, dousing his face with iodine. It drips off the end of his chin, but I follow up quickly with cotton balls, scouring the dried blood from his flesh so I can see what I’m doing. “Really… really… still.”
The wound is deep, but not as bad as I thought. It sliced through in one tiny section near the back, but the rest of the muscle is intact. He’ll be able to smile again. And he should be able to talk even if it’s painful.
I slip the needle through the skin at the back corner—the deepest part. He hisses, but he doesn’t move while the first stitch goes in. I tie it off, but blood leaks from the wound. I step aside to grab more cotton.
“We have to figure out who’d want to go after Juliette,” Mack says. “Who’d want to hurt us.”
“It’s not only about you,” Ozzy replies, wincing again. He raises his fingers to his cheek as if to hold his face together, licks at the dried blood on his lip, and sniffs. “They came after us—killed our whole group, then took the girl to get to you. They’re covering all the bases. But I have no idea why, which means that Dominick was obviously into things we didn’t know about.” Dominick—the last president of the M.C. The one we killed. It’s like we’re being hunted by his ghost.
“So, what do they want?”
It’s the same question I already asked, but this time, Ozzy shrugs. I press the cotton against the side of his face. He blinks up at me with a look that is equal parts pained and grateful.
“And Rooster’s sister?” Mack asks.
He shrugs again. “I have no idea.” I feel the muscles working beneath my fingers. “But I know someone who does.”
My heart stalls.
“And who might that be?” Mack asks.
He wants to smile from the way his jaw twitches, but he thinks better of it; his face settles. “I didn’t get a name. But I’ve got the fucker in my trunk, since I figured you’d want to have a chat with him. Let’s hope he survived the trip.”
- Writer
