Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
Callow
"Everything okay with that?" Fallon asked when I made my way back into the clubhouse.
Sabrina's tears were still wetting through my shirt. I swear I could still feel the way her body vibrated with sobs as I held her.
I'd only ever heard one other person cry like that in my life. When someone had seen his best friend get shot while we were on a mission.
Sabrina had clearly been holding those feelings in for an unhealthy amount of time. It was good that she'd had a chance to get it out. And, in my opinion, that her kid got to see that there were repercussions for her actions.
"Yeah. She's not going to the cops. She just wants to try to figure out what the fuck is going on with her kid."
"Okay. That's one less worry," Fallon said, sucking in a deep breath.
"How's Perish?" I asked.
"He's gonna be alright. The medics got the bullets out. They're gonna be checking in on him every day to check for infection. He's got some pain meds in his system, so he's good for a while."
"Here," Croft said, coming walking over from where he'd been sitting at the bar, bent over a piece of paper. "This was the one I saw," he said, turning the paper to show us all a really fucking realistic sketch of a man's face.
That was a skill I didn't think any of us realized he had.
"Familiar to anyone?" Fallon called as Croft waived the picture around for everyone to see.
But there was no one who'd ever seen him before.
"Alright. Well, someone knows this fuck," Fallon said, reaching for his phone and snapping a picture. "Everyone take a picture and make the rounds to your families, friends of the club, shit like that."
"What about Bon and his crew?" I asked.
"Already got a quick call out to ask if their people were okay," Fallon said.
"And?"
"One guy is… not doing great. They dunno if he's gonna pull through. Two others, including Bon, have wounds but nothing life-threatening. But they don't have any fucking idea if it was us or them who were the target."
"Do we need to worry about the wives and kids?" Rowe asked, likely very worried about his whole litter of children.
Fallon, also a father of several kids, held out his hands. "I can't give you an answer about that until I know more. I mean, yeah, tell your women and the kids who are old enough to be careful, be on the lookout for anything weird. But I don't think we need to move anyone in here or up to Hailstorm just yet.
"I mean, if any of your girls or kids are freaked, the doors are always open," he said, waving at the clubhouse. "But right now, we're into research mode."
There was some discussion of who was going to go where, and then a large chunk of the men headed out, leaving six of us, not counting Perish, around the clubhouse to keep an eye on things.
"Alright, come on," Sully said, more serious than usual as he walked up to me with a bottle of peroxide and a plastic container that served as one of our first aid kits. "You've been all stoic and shit for long enough," he said, kicking out a bar stool for me to sit on.
The bleeding had stopped on its own but, yeah, it needed to get cleaned out if I didn't want an infection. So I sat and rolled up my sleeve as Sully set his things on the bar top.
"Feels like old times," he said in that more serious voice again. Likely seeing him back on a base somewhere, getting patched up by medics. Or, in lieu of that, kneeling on some dirt floor as one of his buddies did some battlefield medicine because it wasn't safe enough to get some actual medical attention.
"What happened when I went to get the kid?" I asked.
"Nothing of note," he said. "The twins took off into the woods. Didn't want to return fire if they were between us. Nave and I ducked for cover. The other crew did the same. Then I'm assuming the twins closed in on the guy or guys, so they ran. That let us get Perish, and the others get their guys. Not much to tell."
"We should have scanned the woods," I said.
"There was no reason to assume we'd be shot at. It might not have had anything to do with us. We haven't had any kind of active threat in a while."
"Yeah," I agreed, still not able to shake feeling responsible, since I'd been, for all intents and purposes, in charge.
"So, got some alone time with that hot mama, huh?" he asked.
"If by ‘alone time,' you mean she cried all over me, then yeah."
"What'd she have that kid when she was twelve?"
"Seventeen."
"Dad in the picture?"
"Locked up."
"And you're here instead of wining and dining her because…"
"Because she's got her hands full with her kid and doesn't need—"
"Actually think that's exactly what she needs. Pretty as all fuck. But wound like a top. Gonna burst with all that pressure. Might be good if she got someone to… release it," he said as he wiped the remaining peroxide and blood off of my arm. "Maybe I—"
"Keep your fucking hands off of her."
That got a smirk out of him as he slapped the bandage on my arm.
"Thought that was the way of it."
"There's no way of it. Her kid just keeps ending up here. She keeps picking her up. That's it."
"So, if I called in a bunch of club girls tonight to party, you'd take one back to your room?" he asked, then shot me a smirk when I didn't immediately answer. "Thought so," he said.
"Don't invite any girls," I called to his retreating form. "Fallon doesn't want any activity around here until we know what's going on."
"That leaves me more time to create my slideshow," Sully said.
"Slideshow for what?"
"Why the club could use, nay, requires , a hot tub."
"Pretty sure wanting to get drunk with a bunch of topless girls isn't going to be the argument you think it is."
"That's only slide one," he said, smiling as he walked backward toward the hallway. "There are mental health benefits, injury recovery benefits. The list goes on and on," he said before disappearing down the hall to his room.
With a sigh, I took myself down to the basement then climbed up the ladder to the glass room on the roof, looking around the grounds, at Navesink Bank as a whole.
It was interesting how life worked. How I went all the way around the globe. Only to end up back where I started.
What can I say? I guess… sometimes you just know someplace is home.
I was about to head back down the ladder when the phone buzzed in my pocket.
I reached for it absentmindedly, figuring it might be Fallon filling everyone in on what he did, or didn't, find out.
Only to find Sabrina's name on the screen.
There was a trill of excitement until I reminded myself that she was likely texting about Daphne.
But it wasn't that.
At least not in writing.
All it was was an invitation.
Meet me at She's Bean Around Friday at seven?
Fuck yeah, I would.