“I want that bitch dead!”
Bizerk paced back and forth in the small living room with a bandage covering part of his face. Vicious was glad that the bullet had only grazed him. He didn’t know what he’d do if something happened to Bizerk. The remaining men of the Double Guns sat around, waiting for the next move. Vicious drank a beer and watched his partner, silently applauding the spitfire who had finally had the strength to kill Shantel. Bizerk had been in love, but Vicious hated the cunt, mainly because Bizerk loved her. He hadn’t wanted her on the raid, but Bizerk had thought she’d be an asset. Now, he was extremely glad she’d been in the right place at the right time to get herself killed.
“You should be focused on how our foolproof plan was anything but,” he commented. “How the hell did they regain control of the generator?”
Bizerk spun and marched up to him, standing nose to nose. “My girl is dead, Vicious! How can I possibly care about what the hell happened?”
“Because we don’t want it happening again, do we?”
“I want that Chink dead,” he repeated, his tone flat and absolute.
“Fine. Let’s think about our next move, and I promise you can have first dibs on killing the Asian bitch.”
Bizerk nodded and resumed his pacing. “They’ll probably be at the hospital. We should attack there.”
“What, now?”
Bizerk shrugged. “Why not? They won’t be expecting it. What they will expect is for us to lick our wounds and give them enough time to gather their strength. You heard Romeo, he’s going to come gunning for us. This way we can keep them off guard.”
Vicious thought about what was probably happening at the Men of Hell compound. He had no doubt that Romeo now knew who was behind all the attacks. He’d lost three men tonight, not including Bandit, his inside spy. It had been Bandit’s job to cut the power and make sure the backup power generator couldn’t be restarted, giving them the tactical advantage with the night-vision goggles. And since the floodlights had come on, well, losing Bandit was a huge loss to his plans. When he’d met the man in a bar in Omaha, he’d taken it as a sign that it was time to leave his club and start his own. Bandit had painted a good picture. An
easy
picture. Just eliminate the two men running the Men of Hell and the rest would fall like dominoes since Romeo had killed the last president in cold blood. This night should have ended with only two men dead—Romeo and Boone. Bandit had assured him of Romeo’s inability to rule and Boone’s inability to care, but the Men of Hell hadn’t fought like a group on the cusp of imploding. They’d fought as a club, together, watching one another’s backs.
Bizerk was right. They couldn’t wait. Right now, the group was probably divided with some at the hospital and others stuck talking with the cops. It would be relatively easy to infiltrate Bair Memorial and find out where the Men of Hell were being treated because people usually saw two or more bikers and grouped them together. If they took out the wounded men, that would further weaken Romeo’s ranks and morale.
“All right,” he said and set the bottle of beer on the counter. “We’ll do it your way. The fewer men the better, so everyone else get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll start rethinking how to get Romeo and Boone.”
* * * *
When the ambulance arrived at the emergency entrance, Chloe jumped out of the cab and rushed around to watch the hospital staff take out Wrench. Dr. Pinder looked surprised to see her.
“Victim was shot approximately thirty minutes ago,” she told him, completely focused on Wrench’s gurney being lowered. “Epigastric area, maybe upper umbilical. The bullet is still inside. I applied sterile gauze and had him hold pressure.”
The EMTs began spouting off blood pressure and other vitals, as a weeping Petunia came out of the ambulance last. As soon as she saw Chloe, she wiped her eyes and drew in a deep breath. Chloe gave her a supportive nod before rushing behind Dr. Pinder.
“I would like to scrub in, Doctor,” she said as they hurried down the hallway.
“You’re not on duty.”
“No, but his wife trusts me,” she said. “They’re my friends.”
“All right,” Dr. Pinder replied.
Chloe shot off to the locker room to change into scrubs and get the OR prepped. She didn’t have a lot of time.
She quickly gathered all the items she thought she might need for an open stomach surgery, including the wrapped sterile instrument cases, before hurrying into the operating room. She saw Susan prepping as well, but ignored her. Her focus lay entirely on helping Wrench. The last thing she wanted to do was have to go out there and tell her new friend that something bad had happened to her husband.
Wrench was put under and the exploratory surgery began. They had to retrieve the bullet and make sure there wasn’t any internal bleeding. Several hours later, Dr. Pinder sewed him up, and for the first time, Chloe took a relieved breath behind her mask. Wrench was going to be fine. The bullet had ripped through the top part of his stomach but had missed his spine by centimeters. He’d have to take it easy for a few weeks, and eat squishy foods, but barring anything unforeseen, like a nasty infection, Wrench would make a full recovery. He was damn lucky.
As he was wheeled out, Susan stepped up to her. They’d worked the whole case as civil co-workers, pushing aside any personal difficulties in favor of what was best for the patient. But now, Chloe eyed the nurse and waited for her to say her peace.
“You’re a psychopath who has no business dealing with patients,” Susan said, her voice a little distorted by the stitches still in her tongue. “But you’re a damn good surgical assistant. You have a level head and you cared about this man. I’m going to keep my eye on you and if you do anything to harm someone else, I won’t hesitate to write you up. And I don’t care if you threaten me or not.”
Chloe narrowed her gaze but Susan didn’t flinch, although she did swallow nervously. It took guts to say that, and Chloe gave a nod of acknowledgment. Susan turned and left the room, her back ramrod straight.
Chloe couldn’t help but smile at the woman’s courage. It took balls to stand up to a bully, and Chloe realized her actions had been exactly that. Not nice and definitely not those of someone who had her shit together. She didn’t make excuses for her actions, but she knew she needed to work on her anger issues.
The question was—did Romeo and Dax really want her for herself, or for the eroticism she brought to the table? She wasn’t stupid. She knew the picture she painted because she’d worked hard to paint that canvas. After her childhood, the last thing she’d wanted to be as an adult was a victim. That word was almost as bad as obsessive. The shrinks had told her that she could be dealing with post-traumatic stress the rest of her life but she’d given them the finger on their suggestions. Perhaps it was time to reevaluate things. She didn’t think she could do psychiatrists again, but maybe she should tell Dax and Romeo about her last tangent. Just thinking Nathan’s name had shame filling her.
She placed the used equipment into the surgery cart and pushed it to the sterile processing room before heading out to find Petunia. Since it was early in the morning, the hospital was a dark echo of itself, relying on the bare minimum of energy to give the illusion of rest. Of course, a hospital never rested, not fully, and it gave the place a creepy quality she’d never thought about before.
Much to her surprise, Boone and Petunia stood talking with Dr. Pinder. When she walked up to them, Wrench’s old lady reached out and hugged her. It felt odd to have someone so thankful to see her—to have a friend—and it made Chloe’s heart flutter with happiness.
“Dr. Pinder tells me I can’t see him right now,” Petunia said.
Chloe met the doctor’s gaze over Petunia’s shoulder, and he shook his head.
“He’s resting in the post-anesthesia care unit right now,” Chloe told her. “The PACU nurses will take excellent care of him.”
Petunia pulled back, but held onto Chloe’s hands. “Will you look in on him, please? I’d feel better with someone I know checking on him.”
“I will,” she promised. “I’ll do that before I leave for the night, okay? You should go be with your kids. Alleviate their worry.”
“Thank you, Chloe.” With one more squeeze of her hands, Petunia let her go. She bent and grabbed her purse off a chair. “I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?”
“Sounds good. Get some rest.”
Chloe watched her friend leave. She glanced at Boone with a raised eyebrow.
“Are you done?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ll stay until you get dressed and take you back to the compound.”
“What about Petunia?”
“Her mom is coming to pick her up.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, give me about ten minutes.”
He nodded.
She and Dr. Pinder left the waiting room.
“You should become a nurse,” Dr. Pinder said. “Or a doctor.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t have the long-term patience to be either. I like helping people, but I don’t like the bureaucracy of the medical field. Goodnight, Doctor. Thank you for letting me scrub in with you on this case.”
“Anytime, Chloe.”
They parted company and she made her way back through the darkened halls to the PACU area. As she turned the corner, she saw two big men wearing leathers up ahead and her insides froze. They weren’t Men of Hell members. She knew most of them and these two weren’t wearing the MOH cuts. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She followed them, thankful that her sneakers were silent on the floor.
The hospital had the bare minimum security since it had never had a situation arise where it needed more. Bair wasn’t a huge city and the crossroads were a parallel highway heading east and west. Chloe’s gut tightened and she knew who these bikers were before she even looked at their faces. Vicious and Bizerk had come to finish off some type of vendetta, and she couldn’t waste time trying to find a lone security guard who was probably hanging around some nurses’ station.
The two men headed to PACU. She had to protect Wrench. So while they walked to the main entrance, she turned and ran onto the surgery floor, taking a moment to grab a sterile preloaded scalpel from one of the OR rooms. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
At the recovery room, she peeked into it from the side window and saw the two nurses huddled together as one man held a gun on them. The other man stood next to a sleeping Wrench. She opened the scalpel package and held it behind her back, then she pushed open the door.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
The man beside Wrench’s bed jerked and spun. She immediately identified him as the man who had been pissed at Shantel’s passing. His evil face darkened as he recognized her.
“You!”
He took a step toward her, just as she wanted. Her plan was to lure him out of the room and run like hell. A security guard would be useless, but maybe a fire drill would rouse enough people to spook them out of the hospital.
“No, Bizerk! Finish it,” the other man ordered.
Vicious, she presumed.
“Don’t you want to hurt the person who killed your precious Shantel?” she taunted. “She was my first kill, you know. I thought I would feel remorse over taking a life, but, surprisingly, it wasn’t hard to swallow when it was
that
bitch.”
With a roar of rage, Bizerk lunged for her. Chloe was small and quick. She ducked and burst out of PACU, running for all she was worth. Right behind her, heavy footfalls chased her. She might be fast, but he was determined, and a hand grabbed the back of her shirt to halt her. The momentum carried her around, spinning her, and they both went down in a heap of tangled limbs. Chloe slashed with the scalpel and it caught him in the neck, the extremely sharp blade slicing his skin open. Blood splattered across her face. He yowled again and she kneed him right between his thighs. He rolled off her, cradling his groin, and she thought she was free, but the next instant, a hand grabbed her shoulder and she looked up into Vicious’ furious face. He smashed a fist into her cheek.
Darkness claimed her.
* * * *
Boone sat in the waiting room, head back, resting. He stared at the ceiling. He’d known what Romeo was going to try to pull right before the shit had hit the fan. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he was going to try to abdicate. Dumb fuck. He’d really thought Romeo was made of sterner stuff, then, when the lights went out and the club came under attack, he saw a side of the younger man he’d never seen before.
Romeo had become a leader.
Away from all the shit that clouded his mind, Romeo had instantly assumed the role Wheels had believed was tailor made for him, and damn if he hadn’t agreed with the old president in that moment. Perhaps there was hope for the Men of Hell after all.
As he contemplated getting some gross hospital coffee, footsteps rushed by, down the hall, snapping him to attention. He surged to his feet and glanced out of the waiting room, down the darkened corridor, to see two security men running in the direction Chloe had gone. He rolled his eyes. Shit. When was Chloe
not
causing trouble?
He followed. Only, when he got closer, he saw a couple of nurses gesturing, crying, and they screamed when they looked at him. He held up his hands, showing that he wasn’t armed.
“I’m waiting for Chloe Matsumoto,” he said cautiously. “I’m her ride.”
One of the nurses took a deep breath. “They took her.”
Ice poured through him. “They
who
?”
“S-some people like you,” she whispered, gesturing to his leather cut.
“Bikers?”
She nodded. “One held a gun on us. The other was going to kill the patient. But Chloe… She stepped in. Got them to chase her. She
saved
him. Saved us!”
Oh, shit. Shit!
“Which way did they go?”
The nurse pointed to the emergency exit, and he ran, hoping like hell that he could catch up with them because he did
not
want to make that call to Romeo. The roar of a motorcycle drowned out his thoughts and he spied them peeling out of the parking lot. Chloe’s limp body draped the back of one of the men, and Boone wasted no time, running to his bike. He straddled it, started it up and took off after them. His only concern was making sure he kept his eyes on the bikes. If he lost sight of her, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Chloe wouldn’t live much longer.