I started to get out of bed, and as my feet touched the floor and I began to stand, a loud boom sounded and the building shook. For a split-second, I thought it was an earthquake, but it didn’t last long enough to even qualify as an aftershock.
My heart dipped, and I got this sick feeling in my stomach that didn’t have anything to do with morning sickness. I didn’t know why, but I started running.
Raider hadn’t left yet. I could catch him, kiss him again before he went to my house. I just needed to see him again.
The front room of the clubhouse was in chaos as everyone tried to get outside. All around me, I heard people screaming, crying, yelling.
“Matt’s truck!” one of the sheep was screaming from her spot at one of the windows that looked out into the parking lot. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
No. No, it couldn’t be. Raider was supposed to be in that truck. He was …
No.
I pushed through the masses, shoving anyone who didn’t get out of my way fast enough with a strength that I didn’t normally possess. The closer I got to the door, the more I could smell the smoke and other fumes coming from the explosion everyone was continuing to yell about. My heart was in my throat, which was probably a good thing, because it was holding back the bile that kept threatening to escape.
Outside, the crowd was no less chaotic. Black smoke filled the air, making it hard to breathe or see. Sirens in the distance told me that the fire department were on their way. Everyone was surrounding the fiery mess that had once been Matt’s huge-ass truck. The MC brothers were trying to get close to it, to help whoever was still inside. I could make out the outline of at least two people in the front seats through the dense smoke.
God, please. Don’t take him away from me.
“Raider!” I screamed, knowing he was in that truck. He was gone. God had taken him from me. “Raider!”
“Quinn, get away from there,” someone commanded—I thought it was Colt—from behind me, but with everyone else screaming and crying, I couldn’t tell who it was. “Quinn, the fumes are bad for the baby.”
“Quinn!” another voice was shouting at me. “Dammit, girl. I’m going to tan your hide if you don’t get away from that truck.”
“Quinn.” I thought I heard Colt yelling my name.
“Raider!” His name cut my throat to shreds as I screamed. My knees were starting to go weak, and I knew I was going to pass out. I couldn’t breathe. My heart had stopped beating, eviscerated with the explosion of Matt’s truck.
Strong arms came around me, taking all my weight as my legs gave out and I started to fall.
“Quinn,” a rough voice that sounded like Raider’s was at my ear, but I didn’t trust my ears.
He turned me around, and I looked up through my tears.
His face was covered in black ash, but underneath, I could see how pale he was. His breaths came fast, as if he had been running around. His eyes were glazed from the sting of the smoke.
But it was him. He was there, safe, holding me.
“Thank God you’re alive,” I cried, holding on for dear life. “I thought I had lost you. I thought—”
“I’m okay, baby. I’m here.” He kissed my cheek, then my lips. “I go
t you.”
For several moments, he held me as relief soothed some of the ache in my heart. I was shaking, but so was he. I had nearly lost him, but he was safe.
So, who was in the truck?
Without realizing what I was doing, I glanced over at the burning truck. No one could have survived that. No one.
“I was going out the door when the bomb went off,” he told me, following my gaze. “Tanner and Warden were in there.”
The relief at knowing Raider was okay disappeared at the loss of two men I had known all my life, who I had loved and considered family. They were both gone. There was no way either could have survived the blast that had rocked the clubhouse, let alone the flames that were now melting the vehicles closest to it.
The blare of the sirens intensified and, moments later, two trucks pulled into the compound. It was all a blur with the smoke and everyone running around, but the sight that caught and held my attention, that would haunt me until the day I died, brought tears to my already wet eyes.
Bash was holding Matt back as he tried to get to the burning truck where his brother was still inside. Bash, the big, mean looking president of the Angel’s Halo Motorcycle Club, had tears streaming unashamedly down his face as he fought to keep his cousin back.