That was the moment everything changed. The moment when everything slowed down and happened in a blur.
I heard the sound of the bullet as it ripped through the air and thrust into Mirabella’s forehead. I saw her eyes widen and then go vacant as her body went limp. I grabbed her to stop her from falling, but the weight of her lifeless body dragged us both down to the sidewalk. I felt the thud of the pavement beneath me and the scrape of my skin against the concrete. I looked up and saw Cade and Jacob pause on the pavement, and then all of a sudden sprint toward us, Jacob’s face twisting in terror as he bounded along the street. When he reached us, he fell to his knees and grabbed his wife, crying as he tried to scoop her skull up from the concrete and piece her head back together again.
Cade tried to shield me from the invisible gunman. He ripped his gun from the back of his jeans, scanning the buildings that towered above us. It was like everything was happening in a vacuum where there was no sound. Everything was slowed down and muted. Blood whirled in my ears and my brain spun, trying to understand what had just happened in the silent scene unfolding before me. Then, quite suddenly, the sound returned and Jacob was screaming, and screaming, his heartache spilling onto the sidewalk like the blood from his dead wife’s open skull.
People ran toward us from all directions, and Cade shoved his gun back into his jeans. He crouched down, his face pale, his eyes bright.
“Are you hurt? Indy, are you shot?”
I looked at him, dazed and confused, and shook my head. I tasted the familiar metallic taste of blood on my lips but knew it wasn’t mine.
Suddenly, there were so many people. So many. But I felt too stunned to move. Jacob pulled Mirabella from me and cradled her in his arms. He petted her face as he cried, and clutched her motionless body to his chest. Her eyes were half-open and dull, staring unseeing out at a world that had erupted into chaos. With a sob, Jacob pulled her tighter to him, and her arm slid free and fell limp to the concrete.
Mirabella was dead.
Cade pulled me into his arms, and even in my stupor I knew it was so he could protect me from any more bullets.
A siren broke into the confusion. I raised my shaky hands to my face, they were covered in Mirabella’s blood and all I could do was stare at them as I slowly descended into shock. Cade held me tight. “It’s okay,” he said. But he was wrong. It wasn’t okay.
Someone had just shot Mirabella and her unborn baby dead.
CADE
That night, a melancholy descended on the club.
Mirabella’s death shook us all. Bull called a lockdown the moment he heard about the shooting, and everyone immediately associated with the club was ordered to the clubhouse. For the night, at least. Club members. Wives. Girlfriends. Kids.
Extra security detail was called in to protect the club.
While the old ladies and other family members united in the clubhouse, Bull called chapel. All OC members, plus a few charters still lingering in town from Irish’s funeral, were in attendance. Except Jacob. When the police had tried removing Mirabella’s lifeless body from his arms, he had really lost his shit. He’d fought them off with his fists, his strength, and finally, his Glock. It took three cops to take him down and an EMT to sedate him. Now he was sleeping it off in St. Gabriel’s.
Fuck.
A few inches.
That’s what I struggled with more than anything. And I felt like a real dick. But a few inches to the left and it would’ve been Indy lying dead on that sidewalk and me sleeping off sedation in the hospital. The thought made me sick. I banged my fist against the table and the sound reverberated through the room. Talking stopped.
“We’re under attack,” I said, my teeth gritted and nostrils flared. “For whatever reason. Someone is out to hurt the club. Isaac. Irish. Now Mirabella. And Tex, too. There is no way his death was a fucking accident.”
“Buckman said the FBI are now involved,” Bull said, and the room rumbled with the response of twenty-three Kings and their opinions about law enforcement.
“Pretty quick of them to get involved,” Vader said.
“They’re saying Isaac and Mirabella’s deaths are serial killings.” Bull turned his head in my direction, but he had on his glasses so I couldn’t see if he was looking at me. “They’ll look into Irish and Tex.”
“So we just wait around pulling our dicks until they do something?” Cool Hand asked.
“I’m sure law enforcement will be all over the murders of three bikers and an old lady,” Griffin added sarcastically. Since Isaac’s death he seemed to have aged another ten years. “I want justice for my son. For Irish, Tex, and Mirabella.”