Chapter 3: Rebel
The last week had both flown and crawled by for me. It had flown because I was busy helping at the garage and the other business locations for the club. I worked from dawn until well after dusk. I dropped into bed exhausted every night, hoping I’d be too tired to think about Madisen. That hadn’t worked. I still thought about her and beat off more than once a day. I was masturbating more than I did as a teenager, which was saying something. If I kept it up, my cock would be raw soon.
The week had crawled by for me, as I fought not to go over to the bakery to see her. I knew my resistance was weak. I refused to do that to my brother. Maybe I needed to talk to Bull about having someone else manage the bakery with her instead of me.
I looked at the clock. It was two in the damn morning on Saturday. I needed to get some damn sleep. I flipped over and worked to get my mind to stop thinking. At some point, I must have won the battle because I jolted awake to someone pounding on my bedroom door. The clock said it was five in the morning. Shit, three hours of sleep. I was going to kill a brother. I jumped up and jerked it open. It was Joker and Ajax, and they were frantic.
“What the hell is up?” I growled.
“Outlaw just got notified of a fire alarm at the bakery. We’re headed over there. Wanna come with us?” Joker’s words blazed through me. A fire alarm? What in the hell caused that to go off? Another thought struck me. Madisen should be there baking for the day. I nodded and turned to grab my clothes and boots. In less than five minutes, I was dressed, and we were out the door to our bikes. Bull, Ace, and Demon were waiting for us. We took off toward town.
As we got closer to the bakery, we could see lights and smoke. Coming around the bend in the street, we saw the street was filled with a fire truck, an ambulance and two police cars. My heart dropped to my feet. God, I hope Madisen was the one to call them. Joker had said he tried her phone but got no answer. We roared to a stop beside the squad car.
The police chief gave us a chin lift. He was cool. He’d known Bull and the club for years, and he stayed out of our business. He suspected we didn’t always do things on the legal side, but he ignored it as long as good and innocent people weren’t hurt. We swung off our bikes and went straight to him. He shook Bull’s outstretched hand.
“Hey, Joe, what the hell’s going on here?” Bull asked.
Joe Scarelli looked worried and pissed. “We got a call about a fire at the bakery. We arrived about ten minutes ago. By then, the fire was getting pretty big, and the place was full of smoke.”
“Where’s Madisen? She’s the baker and should be here. Did she call you guys?” Bull asked. Chief Scarelli shook his head.
“No, she wasn’t the one to call, but she was here. We found her in the main part of the bakery, unconscious on the floor.” His words sent fear skittering down my spine. She’d been hurt? Unconscious? I looked around to see if I could see her. Bull and the others cursed.
“Is she okay? Any idea what happened?” Bull growled.
“She’s in the ambulance.” He pointed toward it. I held myself back from running over to it. The chief sighed. “Bull, it isn’t good. Someone set this damn fire.” We all looked at him.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because the reason we found her inside was because the back door was blocked by the dumpster and the front door was chained shut from the outside. Someone deliberately locked her inside the damn bakery and lit it on fire. They wanted her dead.”
His statement caused me to roar in anger. The others were cursing and looking at me. I headed for the ambulance. Bull and the others were on my six. I rounded the back of it and looked inside. Lying on a gurney was Madisen. Her face was covered in soot and she seemed to be delirious. An oxygen mask covered her mouth and nose. The paramedics were putting in an IV and talking to her as they checked her out. She was trying to push them away and pull off her oxygen mask.
The two paramedics looked up at us. “How is she?” I asked with a tight knot that was hurting my gut. One of them shook his head.
“We need to get her to the hospital. We need to go.” He pulled the door shut in our faces and the ambulance pulled away. I swung around to stare at Joker. He looked concerned, but that was it. Bull had stepped away to speak to the chief. I stomped over to Joker and got in his face.
“Why in the hell didn’t you go with her? You should have been watching her!” I yelled at him. He gave me a surprised look. I shoved him. Demon, Ace, and Ajax stepped between us. Bull looked over at us and frowned.
“You fucking didn’t even get in with her! What kind of man are you?”
Joker scowled. “What the fuck is your problem, Rebel? You think I’m not worried about Madisen? I’m very worried. Not sure why you’re giving me hell for not going in the ambulance. They wouldn’t have allowed me.”
“They fucking would have if you’d spoke up and told them the truth!”
Bull came striding over to us. “What the hell is going on with you two?” he growled. Before I could answer, Joker did.
“Rebel’s losing his damn mind because I didn’t go in the ambulance with Madisen. He’s spouting some shit about how they would have let me if I’d told them the truth. What is the fucking truth I was supposed to tell them, brother?”
“That you’re her goddamn man! They would have let you ride along if they’d known you and she are together. What the fuck?”
He froze and looked at me with his eyes wide. I wanted to shake him. I must have moved toward him, because Bull grabbed my shoulder and quietly said, “Calm down, Rebel.”
I didn’t want to calm down. I wanted to rip Joker’s head off. I could guarantee you, if she was mine, there would be no way they’d have not let me in that fucking ambulance. It was all I could do not to go racing after them.
“Rebel, I don’t know where you got the idea Mad is my woman. She’s not.” I charged around Bull and swung at Joker, hitting him in the mouth.
“So, she’s fine to fuck but not good enough to be your woman? What the fuck? I never thought you’d be that way, Joker. Not with a woman like her.”