Page 82 of Tempting Fate

“Fuck! We need an ambulance.”

“I’ll make the call.”

Racing outside, I push through the five men huddled around the prone body of my little brother. There’s dark-red blood pooling beneath him. Zeke’s performing compressions and yelling at Dad to help, but he’s frozen, staring with blank eyes at his unconscious son. When I discover that my fiancé is struggling to manage Fret’s injuries on his own, I elbow my father out of my way, so I can apply pressure to my brother’s stomach wound and help with resuscitation.

Zeke and I work together on Fret until the ambulance arrives. Two male paramedics push us aside, picking up where we leave off. Fret has a weak pulse and is barely breathing. I’ve applied every ounce of first aid training I possess to my bleeding brother, yet it doesn’t feel like I’ve done enough.

“It’s out of your hands now,” Tank, one of the bikers standing guard over me, declares.

With a nod, I wipe my bloody hands down my thighs and watch as they load Fret into the ambulance.

Prayers seem insufficient, although I send up one anyhow.

I can’t lose him.

Not ever.

My brothers are as vital to my existence as oxygen.

After a speedy discussion, it’s decided that Charlie will go in the ambulance to the hospital with a two-bike escort. I’m forced to stay here after it’s deemed too dangerous for me to leave the compound. All around me, everyone discusses the Shamrocks’ next moves, but I’m barely conscious of their words. The only thing I can feel is the damp and sticky warmth of Fret’s life force coating my hands as I scrub them, over and over, down the dark denim that encases my thighs.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.” Zeke slides one arm under my knees and the other around my back and carries me into the closest bathroom. He kicks down a toilet lid and lowers me onto it, then grabs a bunch of paper towels. After dampening them, he kneels in front of me, pulls my right hand into his, and tries to wipe my fingers clean. “This ain’t gonna work, metukà shelì… I needa get you in the shower.”

In a daze, I scan my body to see what he means.

My jeans are saturated with Fret’s blood. My long-sleeved shirt clings to my chest. I pull my hands free of Zeke’s grip and hold them in front of my eyes. Even the creases in my knuckles are stained red. I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror behind my man’s head and drop my gaze back to my lap when I spy the streak of blood that I’ve inadvertently wiped on my forehead while I was brushing my hair out of my vision.

“Show-er,” I stammer. Zeke captures my chin between his fingers, tilting my face so I meet his eyes. “I need… a shower, pl?—”

With a sharp nod, he cuts me off to say, “I know.”

Zeke sweeps me into a bridal hold and runs through the clubhouse to our room. After he lowers me to my feet, he strips off my top. I brace my hands on his shoulders to keep my balance while he pulls my boots off, then tugs my pants down my legs. Once I’m naked, my man starts the water, and after gently tugging my hair tie free, he ushers me beneath the warm downpour.

“Know you’re gonna be pissed at me once the shock has subsided, but I needa get clean too,” Zeke announces a second before he steps inside the cubicle with me. “Cops mightn’t be far away… we need all the evidence gone.”

“It’s okay.”

My mind can hardly recall why I was angry at him, not when my little brother is fighting for his life. My anger and hurt have evaporated for the moment. I turn, sliding my hands around his sides to link my fingers at the small of his back and bury my face in his neck. I need him to hold me. I need his strength. The force with which he returns my embrace tells me he needs me just as much.

“What went wrong?” I ask.

“We don’t fuckin’ know. They pulled inside the gates, threw him out, shot him, and sped off before we could blink. We fired back, but they were too quick. Slash and Toker have gone after them with some of our enforcers.” His touch is soft as he rubs my back. In the wake of his gentle caress, the tears that have been threatening since I saw my brother roll out of the spool of carpet begin to flow. “He’ll be okay… Fret’s the most stubborn of all of us, sweet thing. If anyone can survive this, it’s him… you know he’ll wanna have this out with your father face to face.”

A small smile curls my lips upward, and I hiccup with a tiny laugh until the sobbing takes hold again.

Fret really is stubborn, his tenacious personality an ongoing joke within our family.

Hell, it’s been said that he makes me look reasonable.

If anyone can get through this, it’s him.

“Let’s wash off. We needa get back out there,” Zeke tells me when my tears slow. “Slash and the others will be back soon… plus, we needa head off the cops if they’ve been called.”

The Shamrocks compound is situated in an industrial area. We own most of the buildings around us since they house some of the legitimate businesses we use to launder the money made running guns and growing and distributing weed, but it’s the middle of the workday, and there’s no telling who heard the commotion and phoned it in.

Most so-called upstanding citizens fail to realise that the police aren’t any better than the criminals they profess to take off the streets to protect society. Of course, most people haven’t learnt the hard way how stacked against the rest of us the justice system truly is.

It’s a lesson I’ll never forget.

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