Severed Angel (13 page)

Gabe

Leaving Eve this morning was hard. I know she'll give me shit for not waking her and saying goodbye, but I want to remember that peaceful look she has on her face whilst she's sleeping. She doesn't know what's happening today, none of the old ladies do. If she'd seen my face she would have known something serious was going down today. We've all tried to keep a lid on it around our families because this plan can fuck up in our faces fast. If Eve sensed what I was about to do, I think she'd try to stop me and that's never going to happen. Once it's voted on its set, I don't want an argument before I set off,
and I save us from it by leaving quietly.

We head out of the compound on our bikes. There are two groups, the guys coming with me to the compound, the others going with Cowboy to plant the rest of the drugs at Satan's house. With a nod of the head we separate. Normally I'd be enjoying the ride,
but there's just too much at stake today. I feel like I'm going through the motions. Because of all this shit I haven't had chance to take Eve out on the back of my bike again.

Disney and his guys pull off down a side road
; we stop to wait for the signal that tells us they're in place. The text comes through less than five minutes later. It's show time. We cruise to the front of the Carnal compound; we agreed there should only be four of us, me, Dragon and a couple of prospects. We don't want to have a show of force, as far as these guys are concerned I'm here to barter for Eve's life not start a war.

The guard on the gate draws in a breath as he
recognizes me and Dragon. It's not exactly hard, I look exactly like his VP. "Never thought I'd see the day you stupid fuckers showed up here." He sneers, he's armed and makes a show of cocking his gun in my direction. Yeah, we all have guns here dipshit.

"Shut the fuck up and get my brother out here." I command, bored of his shit already. My voice sounds a heck of a lot stronger than I'm feeling. "We need to talk business."

I look the guard up and down, showing my contempt. He picks up his phone and speaks into it; from where we are outside the gates, I can't hear what's being said. He receives an answer that surprises him from the look on his face. "He'll be out in a minute, says for you to stay that side of the gates with your guns where we can see them."

It's only moments before he's joined by armed back up. I see my brother strutting towards me, arrogance oozing from him. Apart from getting a little glimpse of him that day at Frank's store, I haven't seen him in years. I know it sounds fucking stupid but fuck me we're identical. Apart from the cut he's wearing, his tattoos and the frown that is. I hold in my smile because true to plan, he walks out with what looks like the rest of his club following him.

Shit's begun.

"What the fuck do you want?" Satan struts up to the gate, his leather cut swinging open revealing the ink all over his chest. His gun hangs loosely at the end of his arm, obviously not considering me a threat worth worrying about. Perfect.

"I've come to make a deal." My voice is calm, free of emotion. He'll hate that. He's never been happy unless I was hurting.

His frown deepens. "Unless you've come to hand the girl over, we've got nothing to talk about." He looks behind me, checking whether we brought Eve with us or not.

His eyes go hard when he realizes she's not here. I notice the grip on his guns tightens. "I made it very clear I want that girl, or I'm going to fuck with every one of your old ladies and whores. I know some of your guys have kids too." He ends with a grin. I would like nothing better than to put a bullet through his fucking head right now, but that's not the plan. That would start a war and, with only four of us here, it would be a war we would lose.

"You know I can't hand her over to you, brother. That's a death sentence for her. There's got to be something we can offer to avoid that happening." I stare him down and wait. There's no way this fucker will deal, he knows it and I know it. He shakes his head, quickly looking to his President then back at me. Scalp has been the President of Carnal for a long time now
. As corrupted as his club is I was still a little surprised when he patched in my brother. If I know Satan, then I've a feeling he has something over him, allowing Satan to make all the decisions. Maybe we should have approached Scalp first.

"There's nothing you can offer me." He sneers. "I want the girl, and I want her today or I carry out my promise. The club whores around here are getting boring, same old pussy, I need something new."

There's no emotion in his eyes at all, just cold steel reflected back at me. "Severed pussy will do just as well as the whores around here." He adds.

I see Dragon give me the nod. Disney's safely out and back at the meeting point. Careful not to show the relief in my eyes I turn back to Satan. Saying the first thing that comes to my mind. "What happened to you? You broke our mothers heart you know that?"

Shit. As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I knew I shouldn't have mentioned her. His face changes in an instant. "Don't you fucking talk to me about our mother!" He yells, taking a step forward. "She never fucking loved me! It was always about you. Gabe this, Gabe that, why the fuck couldn't I be more like Gabe?" He's so angry he's spitting the words in my direction. The words he's shouting are childish, but that's where his hate stems from. He's always hated whatever I had.

He looks at me with so much hatred in his eyes, I already know what's coming next, the gun in his hand
is rising to point directly at me. It happens so quickly I don't have time to react. A burning pain hits me right in the chest and I go down. I surrender to the blackness, the sounds of gun fire and the memory of Eve's face as she slept this morning my last conscious thoughts.

***

Dragon

What the fuck just happened?

All hell let loose around here. Shots are being fired left right and fucking centre. Angel's on the ground, blood everywhere. Fuck! The only satisfaction I have is that I managed to hit his fucker of a brother, Satan. I hope I fucking killed him, evil prick.

While
our prospects lay down covering fire I drag Angel over to my bike. Between us we haul him over the tank and I get the fuck out of there. As I pull away the two prospects join me, one riding Angel's bike. Doesn't matter if we're being shot at, Angel will fucking kill me if I leave his bike. With both prospects by my side we race away. We don't get far when I notice one of them freeze and fall from his bike. Those bastards fucking shot him in the back! We don't have time to stop for him, we have to get Angel out of here. I need to get him back to Doc as soon as fucking possible. I can't tell if he's breathing or not, so I speed up and head back to the meeting point as fast as I can, knowing Doc will be there. He'd agreed to come along just in case it all went tits up, and it has.

The meeting point is far enough to be safe, but close enough that they've heard the gun
fire. The guys are milling around nervously as I pull up. Doc rushes over as soon as he sees Angel laid over my bike. Fuck, I hope I'm in time.

***

After Doc quickly looks Angel over he looks up at me, shaking his head and I stop breathing. "It's bad." He mutters. Cowboy's group was successful and has joined us. We're all quiet, waiting to hear Angel's fate. "I can't fix this here, we need to get him to the hospital now."

I look at him, not daring to voice the question but he answers anyway. "I don't know Dragon, right now it could go either way. He's lost a fuck load of blood. I've stopped it for now, but I don't know what damage the bullet's done. It's still in there and it's close to his heart."

"Fuck, get that truck over here now!" Disney's the first to respond, driving the truck over to where Angel lays bleeding on the ground. We place him in the back of the truck as carefully as we can, Doc stays with him, keeping pressure on the wound. I jump into the front seat, pulling my phone from my pocket as we race to the hospital. I turn back to look at Angel, he's deathly white, I can't see him breathing but Doc just nods. Letting me know he's still with us. Sighing deeply I open the phone, bringing up Prez's number. Time to report in to the boss.

Eve

I was pissed this morning. I woke up to find Angel had left without a word. He'd muttered something about club business last night, before I fell asleep, but I hadn't paid attention. I don't know how long he's been gone, if he's going to be gone all day or walk back in at any minute. I try reminding myself this is just sex, there's no relationship here, but it's fucking hard. The way he looks at me like I'm the centre of his world, has me melting. Nobody's ever looked at me like that, and the way he talks to me. Not just caveman biker, he talks to me like I'm a real woman. I think I've fallen big time for this bad ass biker. Shit that wasn't supposed to happen.

It's already late morning by the time I've showered and dressed and spent five minutes talking to my baby girl. I head out to see if there's any food on the go. I need to start watching what I'm eating around here, the women dish up huge meals for the members and do the same for everyone else. I don't want to be going home carrying extra weight.

I'm surprised to see Teresa eating breakfast at the kitchen counter. I'd not expected her to emerge from her hot wedding night sexcapade until much later. She nods her head in greeting, her mouth too full of frosted flakes to allow her to talk. She looks tired so I guess she was kept up all night, as she should.

"Morning." I greet her
, she gives me a mumble in response. "I didn't expect you to be out of bed yet, that hot husband of yours should have you under him having some hot morning sex." I laugh.

Teresa gives me a disgusted look. "Fucking club business." She mutters. "He's been on edge all fucking morning, won't tell me what's going on." She takes a deep breath, "He did keep me up all night though," she adds with a devil
ish grin.

Whatever's happening must be important as there's hardly any of the guys around. It's not usually busy this time in the morning, but there's normally a few guys lounging around or digging into whatever's being served. From what I can see there's only a few
prospects and Prez who's in his office.

Diane walks in, looking tired and greets us both. "Hey sweeties. Why aren't you two still in bed having hot
sex with your men?" she laughs, bumping her hip into me.

"Same goes to you." I laugh.

"Dragon was off at the bloody crack of dawn." she sulks. "He kept me up all night then the fucker woke me at stupid o'clock to say goodbye." She looks less than impressed.

I pass her the coffee I've just made and busy myself making a fresh cup for me. It seems to perk her up and she turns to Teresa. "So tell me about all the hot sex last night!"

Teresa almost chokes on her cereal, blushing. I've never seen Teresa blush before, especially not over sex. That must have been some night.

Just as she's about to spill the beans, there's an almighty roar from the office followed by the sound of smashing. We all rush out to see what's happening. When we reach the office we see the door practically hanging from its hinges, the chairs overturned. Prez is standing in the middle of the room holding the phone in his hand. His face goes white as he sees us.

"What the fuck is going on?" Teresa asks him.

"The plan went to shit." He slumps to the sofa, pulling Teresa onto his lap. "They shot him, baby." He whispers but we all hear it. "The fuckers shot him."

There's silence in the room, we're all wondering who he's talking about, and what the fuck is going on.

"Who got shot?" Diane asks, her lips drawn tightly into a grimace. Prez doesn't answer her, he doesn't answer any of us. "Who the fuck got shot, Prez?" she screams at him.

Prez looks up, seeking out my face, and in that moment I know. "It's Angel."

My legs shake and my head spins before my world goes black.

Dragon

Disney's pacing up and down the waiting room. I'm surprised he hasn't worn a path between the coffee machine and the nurses’ station. It's fucking grating on my nerves, I don't ask him to stop though, as I know he's feeling this as much as I am. All of the brothers are feeling it. The nurse at the desk looks uncomfortable, as she would with a waiting room of scary looking bikers, I suppose. Doc is talking to her, trying to find out what's happening with Angel, from the look of frustration on his face she's not telling him much.

The door
to the ER opens and a doctor walks out. His scrubs are covered in blood, Angel's blood. He spots Doc, they obviously know each other. We all stand as he moves towards us. "How is he?" Doc questions.

The doctor spouts some medical bullshit we don't understand, so we all look at Doc and wait for him to explain. "They're taking him into surgery" he tells us.
"They've managed to stabilize the bleeding, but they need to get the bullet out and repair some of the damage." He breathes in slowly. "He's not out of the woods yet. If he makes it through the surgery there's a good chance he'll make a full recovery, but right now he's lost a shit load of blood and he's in bad shape."

"He's a fighter Doc, of course he'll pull through." I reassure the guys. I hope to fuck I'm right, I can't lose Angel. He's like my brother.

***

Eve

I feel something cold on my forehead and I struggle to open my eyes. I see Diane holding a wet cloth against me. What the fuck? Then the memory comes rushing back and I gasp. Angel's been shot!

"Take it easy." Diane cautions."You dropped like a stone sweetie." She pats my arm and I swat her away.

"Where is he Prez?" I plead. "I need to see him, please." My voice is breaking. Fuck, so is my heart.

Prez gathers us together, promising to take us to the hospital. There's been no further news whilst I've been unconscious. No news is good news right?

***

The waiting room is full of club members when we get there. Diane rushes over to Dragon, gasping when she sees how much blood he's covered in. "It's okay baby," he reassures her "it's not my blood, I'm okay". Diane falls onto him, sobbing, pulling him tightly to her. I don't think she wants to let him out of her sight.

I stare at what must be Angel's blood covering him, watching Dragon pull Prez into a corner, presumably to fill him in. Shit, the look on Prez's face isn't good. What the fuck's been happening today? There's a heated conversation between them, before Prez heads back over to Teresa and me to fill us in. He draws me over to the seating area, pushing me down onto the cold plastic seat. I tense as I wait for him to give me the news I've been dreading all the way here.

"He's in surgery Eve, they've still got to get the bullet out. We've just got to wait and see what the surgeon says." He looks broken.

Teresa sits down next to me, drawing me close. It's a waiting game.

***

We sit in the hospital for hours. Nobody wants to leave, especially me. The guys head outside for a smoke once in a while, but come back in to resume their silent pacing. I stay put, too afraid to move. Some of the men have tried to talk to me, but I'm not exactly in a talkative mood right now. Even Ink tried. I haven't really had the chance to speak to him since that night. I should have really, I feel bad that I didn't spot the signs earlier, but at the moment I'm not in a place to want to sit and chat. All I can manage to give him is a weak smile right now.

Teresa stays by my side the whole time and I'm thankful. I'm clutching a cold coffee in a death grip. It's an insult to call it a coffee. It tastes more like stale cigarette ash in hot water, still it's a distraction for my hands. Diane is curled up in Dragon's lap. She's still not letting him go, I don't blame her.

Disney keeps looking at his phone, like it's going to give him the answers that we're all seeking. I wish.

Suddenly his phone sounds an alert and he signals for Prez and Dragon. I watch as they follow each other outside. I catch Teresa looking at me and she shrugs her shoulders. It figures they would go and talk away from the ears of the women.

When they return Disney has a huge grin on his face. What the fuck?

Prez pulls the guys into a corner and fills them in, they're too far away for us to hear. Whatever he says has them all smiling just like Dragon. A couple of them slap each other on the back. I'm more confused than ever. How can you look that happy at a time like this?

***

Finally a doctor comes through the doors and heads straight towards us, his face grim. He walks over to Prez and I slowly stand, steeling myself for the bad news I'm expecting.

"He's going to be okay." The doctor wastes no time in telling us. I sag with relief and Disney reaches for me to hold me up. Prez does the same to Teresa and Dragon's holding Diane close to him. "He's going to be in a lot of pain so we're keeping him sedated for now, but we've repaired the damage and taken out the bullet fragments."

The Doctor keeps talking but I don't hear him, his words have blurred together. All I can hear are the words, "He's going to be okay." Repeating in my head, the relief is indescribable. I really thought I'd lost him.

Prez motions to me to come closer."Doc here says you can go sit with him if you want."

Oh yes, I do want. Prez tells me he's only allowed two visitors, so it's just me and him following the doctor down the hallway. Once Prez has seen that Angel is fine, Dragon wants to come and check up on him. The doctor leads us down a maze of corridors before stopping outside a door, motioning us in. I slowly walk into the sterile white
room, stopping in my tracks. I hardly recognize the man lying in the bed. He's so pale, not his usual tan. There are wires and tubes everywhere. I draw in a gasp at the sight of him.

The doctor touches my arm gently. "It looks worse than it is now. The tubes should be gone by the morning as we wean him off the sedation." He motions to a chair at the side of the bed. "Go sit with him, hold his hand and talk to him. It helps."

I don't move straight away so Prez places a hand on my shoulder, guiding me over to the chair. I pick up Angel's hand in mine, holding back a sob; now isn't the time for this. My man needs me to be strong for him. I realize what I just referred to him as. My man. It feels good. I do what the doctor said. I sit in the chair, holding his hand and talk nonsense for the rest of the night.