“ToBeAlone”—FiveFingerDeathPunch
When we walked through the door of the clubhouse, we were fucking tired and sore. Everyone welcomed us home, but again they seemed off. Fuck, I really hoped shit wasn’t gonna stay like that. If so, I might as well have stayed in Flagstaff.
“Way to do an Iron Butt. I’ll leave that shit to you youngsters,” Kicker said with a chuckle.
“Not like we wanted to, but if we wanted to outrun the weather, there was no choice,” grumbled Raptor. The prospect behind the bar handed him a cold beer as he dropped to a barstool.
“Goddamn, how can you do that?” Phoenix grumbled. “My ass hurts watching you do that!”
“Your ass hurts? What the fuck did you guys do on the way home?” Squirrel teased.
Raptor shot him a glare, I rolled my eyes, and Phoenix flipped him off. Sabre snorted as he sat next to me.
“Prospect, can I get a whiskey, neat?” I called across the bar, and he nodded as he pulled down the bottle of Crown and a glass.
“Where is everyone?” Raptor asked as he glanced around. It was a Friday night, and there would usually be more people around than there were.
“Few are out on a job, Blade is off doing God knows what, and Angel is at home with Jasmine since she wasn’t feeling good,” Squirrel said, and Ghost immediately pushed him in the arm and frowned. Squirrel held his arm.
“Damn, what did you do that for?” he asked Ghost with a pout.
“What’s wrong with Jasmine?” I asked, and I swear to Christ you could’ve heard a pin drop.
“She caught a bug, and with the baby, it’s done a number on her,” Squirrel said and Ghost damn near kicked him off his stool.
My heart stuttered to a stop, and I couldn’t breathe. Finally, I sucked in deep breath and looked at Ghost. “Baby?” I asked in a deceptively calm tone.
“Chains! A word,” Venom called. My glass hit the bar with a loud clunk, and I followed my president to his office.
The world seemed to be spinning too fast. To the point where I had to reach a hand out to the wall to balance myself. My mind was reeling. I wasn’t sure which way to take what I’d heard.
“Sit,” Venom said as he motioned to the chair. He sat behind the desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out his bottle of Crown Royal XR. When he pulled out two shot glasses, one of my brows cocked up.
When both glasses were full of the golden alcohol the color of Jasmine’s eyes, he slid one to me. For a second, I stared at it. Then my gaze lifted to his. Expression locked down, he raised the glass and motioned to mine.
Cautiously, I raised the shot glass. He held his out and we clinked glasses, tapped the desktop with the glass, then downed the rich liquid. The perfect burn chased down my throat and warmed my stomach. Between that and what I’d drunk at the bar, my muscles loosened up, and I waited.
No way had he called me in his office just to do a shot.
“I have a job for you,” he said as he poured a second glass for each of us and placed the bottle back in the drawer.
“Okay,” I said. Not that a job would be unusual, but fuck, I had been back all of thirty minutes. It also didn’t warrant sharing his good whiskey with me.
“Drink up,” he said as he held his glass up again. Once we both finished, he stacked the glasses and leaned back in his chair. He stared at me over steepled fingers.
“Facet found the last of the Bloody Scorpions involved in the abduction.”
I sat up straighter. Honestly, it had been months since I left, and before then, we hadn’t had any luck.
“We need them alive.”
“What?”
“We need to get all of the information we can out of them about the operation. Once we have what we need, Angel said he’ll gladly help you with them, and so will Voodoo.”
My brows rose, and I gave him a disbelieving stare. Angel was willing to work with me. Not willing to kick my ass? What the fuck had happened while I’d been gone?
“Uh yeah, okay. That’s what you called me in here for?”