He fought against the heaviness of his limbs and managed to open his eyelids. The first thing he saw was a tube attached to his arm, and that’s when the memories came back.
Fucking Carlos in the club. He and his goons had Lily. Shot him. He’d remembered that. It hurt. A lot. He was sure he was a goner. You didn’t survive a bullet wound to the chest.
And when he’d lain there, the life seeping out of him, he’d been scared. Terrified. Not at meeting the reaper; that was something he’d expected ever since he’d patched into the Sons.
Everyone was living on borrowed time. Putting a patch on and a gun every morning just made it stolen time.
Someone was stealing it back.
That also didn’t scare him.
It was the fuck’s words that echoed in his brain before the pain had exploded into his chest. It was the gloating smugness that had been behind those words that haunted him before Carlos tried to turn him into a ghost.
He’d been ordered to go to the strip club to get accounts or some shit. A prospect job, surely, but he’d go. Because he knew, and Cade knew, he’d take any fuckin’ excuse to go there. Or to find some reason to burn the place to the fuckin’ ground in order to stop Becky from taking her clothes off for money.
Yeah, she was good at it. Had a fuckin’ talent for it, like she was born to it.
But she wasn’t. She was born for more. So much fucking more. To conquer the goddamn world with her fire and beauty, and to bring him along for the ride.
She was born to be his. He knew that. He’d known it since he’d fuckin’ met her. He just had to wait for her to realize it.
He’d been brainstorming ways to speed up that particular process—whipped cream featured heavily—when he ran into Lily. Then he ran into trouble. Big fucking trouble. Trouble being Carlos and his fuckin’ goons ambushing them in the deserted strip club in the middle of the fuckin’ day.
Biggest of trouble being the last words Carlos had said before someone plugged him with a bullet.
“I’m afraid Rebecca won’t be coming to the phone right now.”
Then there was nothing but white-hot pain.
The memory was like an electric shock to his limbs. He tried to move but it was beyond a struggle, like someone had attached cement blocks to his arms and legs.
“Easy, brother,” a voice warned.
Lucky glared at his best friend and struggled against his hold, but he was weak. Apparently getting shot took it out of you. It was laughably easy for Asher to push him back to horizontal.
“Lily?” Lucky asked with concern, memories of the club coming back in a flash. Not just Becky in danger, but Lily.
Asher’s jaw hardened and Lucky’s form tightened. If anything happened to his best friend’s wife, it would haunt them both for the rest of their fucking lives. Lucky would blame himself for the rest of his fucking life.
“She’s good,” Asher reassured him.
He allowed himself to sink back into the lumpy bed.
“You get to her in time?” Lucky asked.
Something worked behind his brother’s eyes. “Not exactly,” he said, his voice thick.
Lucky sensed the heaviness in the air. It made him more than a little uneasy. “What happened? Obviously the big guy upstairs, or downstairs, has bigger and better things planned for me, hence me being awake and still stronger than you,” he teased. “What did I do? Drag my bloodied body to Carlos and snap his neck?” he asked hopefully.
Asher shook his head but didn’t smile.
Lucky was unnerved even more.
“Brother?” he probed.
Asher sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “After they shot you, they tied Lily up, set the place on fire,” he explained, his voice flat.
“Fuckers,” Lucky hissed.
Asher nodded. “Lily managed to get free. Dragged your lazy ass out of there before you could get barbequed.”
“Lazy?” Lucky repeated. “I’d been shot. I deserved a cat nap. Tell me Lily’s okay.”
Asher’s eyes darkened. “She’s good. She got a burn on her hand. It’ll scar.”
Lucky could feel his brother’s fury; it mingled with his own. “Please tell me they’re dead. And that you left one for me to play with. And that Becky made sure whoever was stupid enough to try and catch her is sterile.”
There it was again, that look. It was something more than his woman’s life being threatened, though there was plenty of fury on that score. Something else hid behind Asher’s cold eyes.
Something that turned Lucky’s own blood.
“Not exactly,” Asher said.
Lucky sat up, grunting at the effort. “Tell me,” he gritted out.
Asher eyed him. “How about we wait until the bullet wound isn’t quite so fresh?”
“Fuckin’ spit it out,” Lucky ordered.
“I tell you, you gotta trust that the club’s got it covered.”
Lucky nodded.
“Need your word.”
“Fuck, you’ve got my word. You know I’d trust the club with my life. Spit it out. I need my beauty sleep.” He could feel darkness edging closer to the center of his vision.