26. White Walls Caving In

Chapter 26

White Walls Caving In

S abre

I was the one now numb, sitting in the waiting room chair, staring again at the fucking white wall. They'd wheeled Grace back to the abyss, and naturally, there were no updates. I had tried to get the older woman behind the waiting room desk to tell me something, anything, but she shot me down every chance.

Pretty had taken pity on me and tried his best. He had walked up to her and handed her a coffee. I didn't know what he had said, but it had worked. There was nothing in the system except that Grace was there. The woman had assured Pretty that she would inform him as soon as there was an update. It'd been over an hour.

The sound of motorcycle engines reverberated off the walls of the waiting room, and our heads instantly turned to look out the large window at the back of the room. The rest of the club was here, and I could finally get answers.

I stood and tapped Grizz on the shoulder. His eyes focused on the bikes that were parked and stood. I'd taken it easy on him as we waited, but this was club business, and he was still my vice president. He needed to be present for whatever was about to go down.

Thunder stood. He wasn't a club officer, but he'd been around long enough to know that he was going to be put in the hot seat, and he better have had the answers that I wanted to hear. He'd preferred to wait until the rest of the club was here. It probably was a smart move on his part.

Heading towards the parking lot, I saw my brother stop and speak with the volunteer again. He must have told her we were heading outside because I saw his finger point towards the doors. She nodded feverishly and gripped his forearm before letting him go. She'd never been that nice to me.

As we walked towards the bikes, the regular brothers dismounted, nodded at me, and slinked off to the waiting room. Count and Cyph were the only two who stayed seated with their bikes still running. Whatever had gone down was bad. This conversation would need to be masked underneath the sounds of the engines.

Count shifted in his seat directly facing me. "Did Thunder tell you what went down?"

"I am asking you what the fuck happened."My tone showed that I didn't want to hear any fucking bullshit. I planted my feet shoulder width apart and crossed my arms over my chest.

He detailed everything, from the time I had texted until they'd loaded up to drive here. There had been no flaws in their execution. If I'd been at the clubhouse, I would have done the same, and I couldn't fault him.

"We took Chef to Bear's, since she's a retired nurse. The wound isn't bad, but she'll have to dig the bullet out and bandage him up. He'll live. Couldn't tell the paramedics that we had a gunshot wound, so Chef hid until they were gone. That's why I sent Thunder with the ambulance."

"No, you did well, Count." I lowered my eyes and rubbed the back of my neck. I took a minute to calm down. My heart raced, chest tightening with anxiety. I needed an update before I lost my shit.

"Pretty?" I asked my brother. "Is the volunteer going to call us if something changes?"

He nodded. "Delores and I are good friends. I remind her of her late husband. She said she'd send someone out here if there was a change, even though she's not at liberty to give me any information." He rolled his eyes.

"Fuck. How long is that going to take?" I was getting frustrated with this whole situation.

Pretty shrugged. "I don't know, but my work is already done. You're welcome. "

"I doubt it's a coincidence that all of us are here at the hospital. What happened to you guys on the road?" Count stepped in, trying to diffuse the mounting tension.

"We didn't know Pulse had made the U-turn until the brothers behind the car started yelling. From what we can figure out, he was trying to kidnap the women. They actually saved themselves and jumped out of the moving car."

"What? Pulse didn't jump?" Cyph asked.

"No, Tef strangled him with her belt." Grizz was proud as he puffed out his chest and raised his eyebrows. "That's my girl," he said with a slight tilt of his head.

"Scrub made the arrangements to have them airlifted here from the scene. He's been with them ever since." Scrub was the only brother who had direct permission to work outside of the club. He'd applied at the county hospital right after med school so that we would have an in for situations like this. There had been a few ER visits over the years, but this was the first time we were seriously going to cash-in. It was hard not to text him every two seconds to check in.

Cyph yawned for the third time since we'd been standing out here.

"Have you slept?"I asked him.

"It doesn't matter." He yawned again.His eyes were red-rimmed, and he constantly rubbed them in between the yawns.

"Do you remember anything about Pulse's background check?" I didn't want to put pressure on him, but this was serious. We needed to know what we were dealing with.

"No. It was standard stuff. Broken home, like most of us. Did some not-so-nice things but nothing that we couldn't handle. He might have had some college, but I am not sure. It wasn't enough to flag him." Cyph yawned again.

"How did Pulse get behind the wheel of the car? Did you tell him he was driving, or did he ask?" Count asked me.

"I threw the keys to the car at him and told him to drive. He was in the clubhouse when I was passing out assignments, and I didn't think twice about it. Pulse was our best prospect, and if he'd survived a few more months, we would have patched him in."

"How did the cartel know that the club was going to be split?" Wreck broke into the conversation. Wreck was imposing on a good day. He wasn't the largest brother in the club, but he gave off the most menacing vibe. My brother didn't know when to shut up, but Wreck hardly spoke. If he did, we paid attention.

"Go on," I told him.

"Count said they drove two blacked-out SUVs down the street with a machine gun. They planned that, but how did they know who would be in the clubhouse?"

Pretty tucked his hand in the crook of Wreck's arm. "They might not have. It could have been a lucky guess," he popped in.

"Nah, they had a general idea of the numbers, even if they didn't know who exactly. Think about it," Grizz said, staring off into space. "They hit Aunt E's last night, and I bet they ransacked the place, looking for us when it was all over. When they didn't find anyone, they hit the club. Someone's running the show and quickly regrouped."

"What if Pulse tipped them off?" Thunder tried to lower his voice, but it still bounced around us.

"Yeah, where do you get a machine gun that quickly?" Count asked. He counted on his fingers. "It would take me at least three phone calls and a favor to get one."

"Seriously? I can probably name that tune in under two," Cyph said, yawning again.

"Well, the next time we need one, I'll let you handle it." Count laughed.

"The machine gun doesn't matter. They had plenty of time to get one, or they had it and just waited. I want to fucking know what happened in that car." Grizz let out a low growl. He was coming back to life .

"Until one of them is awake, I wouldn't bet on that happening soon. They're going to need time to heal, and Aunt E isn't going home. She probably doesn't have one left," I said.

"Tef's not going back to her condo either." Grizz stamped his foot and crossed his arms over his chest. All of us just looked at him, trying to see what he saw. No one wanted to tell him that Meredith would fight him tooth and nail.

"Something's not right with this," Wreck popped up again. "If Pulse tipped them off, why did they not search the clubhouse? They could have come in and fought their way to Flo. They're after the baby."Wreck caressed Pretty's knuckles.

"If Pulse was working with the cartel, why did he need Meredith? It was Meredith they were after. We took Aunt E with us for safety," Pretty followed up.

"I can answer the one about why no search. They wouldn't have been able to penetrate the gate without a battering ram, and even then, it wouldn't have broken open. When Sabre took over as President,"—Cyph looked over at me—"it was one of the very first upgrades that we made, and I keep up with the software so that it's not outdated."

"Ah, so that's why the upstairs looks like a fucking pincushion. They only shot at the middle because the gun could only hit the first floor," Count said.

"I can answer the one about Meredith. They need a baby, and as long as she was pregnant, they would take either or both." Grizz sighed and pulled the tie from his man bun to redo it. It was a telltale sign he was jittery.

"How did they know she was pregnant?" Wreck said. "You didn't even know."

"I don't think any of us will truly know what their plans are or how it all connects until we personally have to deal with them. Don't forget, we have a club girl now involved in all of this. Luna didn't wake up this morning and decide to shoot Jig. That shit was planned," I said.

"Maybe he let her in on his plans, and she took it upon herself to seize the moment. You guys were trailing the rest of the club into the vault," Count said to Thunder. "If she had been quick enough, she could have eliminated all of you and taken Flo. What do we do now?"

"Nothing. It's not like we can call the cartel and ask what's up," I said. "For now, we wait to see how the women pull out of this." I shuffled my feet and looked at Count. "What did you do with Luna?"

"Pebbles hit her pretty good, so she was out when we threw her in the same cell as Jig. Zook is standing guard to make sure that she doesn't get any bright ideas." Count smirked. "I left a few of the men with the club girls. They wanted to come, but we couldn't have protected them on the backs of our bikes if the cartel had hit us on the road."

I was shaking my head when I noticed Pretty nod to someone behind me.

Standing in the doorway was the volunteer in her pink coat, flagging us down.

There must have been an update.