Spider’s black eyes went to my female. “Are you okay, Gracie?”
She gave him a weak smile. “Yeah, I think I’ll be okay.”
“Okay, good. I’m glad.” He gave her a forced smile and started to turn away.
I reached out and caught his elbow. Spider’s eyes widened as I took a step closer and lowered my voice. “It was Bubbles that was beating Raven. Get someone to watch her. If they take her to the hospital, they follow. I don’t want her out of our sights. When this is over, we can deal with her, but I don’t want her trying to make a run for it.”
“Fucking hell, man. Are you sure? Bubbles?” His eyes went to the fire truck where I’d seen the sheep sitting just a little while ago. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about it. Just deal with your female and then get over to the hospital.”
I waited until Spider had walked away before turning back to Gracie. Pulling her tight against my chest, I buried my face in her hair again. “Baby, I’m so glad you’re okay… You are okay, aren’t you?” I pulled back enough to examine her eyes. “Do you need to go to the hospital? Do you need a doctor?” Oh fuck. I hadn’t even thought that she might have something wrong with her.
Her smile trembled. “I’m fine. I just kind of fainted when I saw them bring Samson out.”
“God damn, baby. I love you so fucking much.”
Her entire body stiffened and I realized what I’d just said. Fucking hell. I should have waited. She didn’t need to remember the first time I told her I loved her with this shit. It would taint it, make what I felt for her seem less important. I was such an idiot…
“I love you too,” she whispered and another tear spilled down her cheek. “I’ve loved you for a long time, Hawk.”
Some of my tension eased as I saw the love shining back at me in her eyes. It didn’t make any of what was going on around us okay, but it made it a little more bearable to hear her say the words. It calmed me enough to be able to deal with what might be happening right then and there with my sister.
--
The cops made leaving the bar anytime soon nearly impossible. They wanted a statement from Gracie right then and there and although I told them she needed time to deal with the shock that was still making her tremble, they asked her to retell the story all over again. I sat beside her, holding onto her hand tightly as she sobbed her way through the end and nearly threw up again at the memories of Samson’s charred body.
For me, the good news was that the motherfucker had died not long after they had put him in the ambulance and tried to stabilize him enough so they could get him to the hospital. The bad news was that Bubbles was trying to play it off as Gracie assaulting her and Raven, that my girl had been the one to beat my sister up. It took them thirty minutes to realize that Gracie didn’t have any injuries to suggest that she’d been beating anyone up and that Bubbles had defensive marks on her face and the rest of her body where Raven had fought back. But it wasn’t until the fire marshal had found the two sets of brass knuckles that corroborated Gracie’s story that they took her word for it and let us go.
The chief of the fire department told me that the fire was out but there was enough damage to the structure on the backside of the bar to make the building a total loss. We had insurance, so I wasn’t worried about being able to rebuild. It was the meaning behind this building that broke my heart a little. This had been my father’s bar. He’d put his sweat and tears and busted back into the place. It was my MC’s safe haven, a place that every one of us had called home in some shape or form since before we were actually legally allowed to drink.
I was told that I could go in and check the place out, but I wanted my brothers and Raven to see it with me first.
No one had tried to call or even text me with news about how Raven was. Slowly, my club brothers had left one by one to head over to be with Bash and my brothers. I’d ached to go with them, but there was no way in hell I was going to leave Gracie alone. When the cops cleared us to go, I put Gracie in the passenger side of the Chevelle and drove us to the hospital.
The parking lot was crowded with all the MC’s bikes. When we walked into the ER waiting room there wasn’t a place to sit. All the ol’ ladies were there with their men and even the sheep were in attendance. My sister might be a hardass, but that didn’t mean that these men and women didn’t love and respect her.
I spotted Jet, Colt, and Raider standing with Uncle Jack and Spider by the door first and rushed toward them. “How is she?” I demanded.
“No one is telling us shit. Bash is back there, but only because he threatened to beat the fuck out of anyone that got in his way.” Jet scrubbed his hands over his face. My brother had been so full of smiles when I’d first seen him again so many hours ago. Now he looked like what I
felt like. That we were walking through a fucking nightmare. “The nurses won’t tell us shit even though there has been one after another going in and out of her room. The only reason I’m out here is because that security fucker threatened to call the cops and I don’t want to upset Raven by ending up in a jail cell just a few hours after walking out of prison.”
I reached out and squeezed my brother’s shoulder. “She’s going to be okay. We have to keep thinking that.”
Jet clenched his jaw and nodded, but didn’t say another word.
It felt like we stood in the waiting room for hours. The sheep produced coffee from somewhere and pushed cup after cup into our hands. Someone started handing out sandwiches, but I couldn’t eat and neither could my brothers. One person after another offered me a seat, but I was too restless to sit. I tried to get Gracie to sit, but she said she needed to be beside me so we stood there silently holding onto each other.
It was close to midnight before Bash came into the waiting room. His face was pale, his eyes shooting lightning in a way that freaked me the fuck out, but his lips were lifted in a grim smile as he grabbed hold of Jet and hugged him. “She’s going to be okay. She has a broken right cheekbone and her left wrist had to be set. There wasn’t any internal bleeding like they thought but they were worried that she was going to miscarry. After they did an ultrasound and made sure that the kid was okay, they decided she was going to be fine.”
My body suddenly felt weightless with relief. Raven was going to be okay. My little niece or nephew was going to be okay, too. I felt my eyes sting for the second time that day and buried my face in Gracie’s hair to hide my tears of relief.
Raven
My face felt swollen and achy, my wrist one big throb. The nurses had offered me pain meds, but I’d been so scared that they would hurt my baby despite the assurance that it wouldn’t. Pain I could deal with; hurting the little guy nestled so snuggly under my heart I couldn’t.
Bash had just left me to go assure my brothers that I was going to be okay. For a few minutes today I hadn’t been so sure if I was going to make it or not, but I was seriously thankful that wasn’t the case. Grimacing, I tried to push the memories of the day out of my mind, but I couldn’t get the picture of Bubbles getting me on my back and trying to beat my child out of me from flashing through my head.
I had no idea where that bitch was right now, but as soon as I could get out of bed I was going to put a bullet through her head myself.