Page 42 of Striker's Yield

“Let her go, Tony,” I order, fighting the urge to look at my woman. To make sure she’s okay. To assure myself, she’s whole.

“Not going to happen.” Tony takes a step back, moving him and Autumn closer to the vehicle.

“Your operation here is done,” Brass announces, coming to a stop next to me. “Let her go, and let’s be done with this.”

“Autumn is mine. You aren’t taken her away from me. I’ll kill her before I’ll let you take her from me again,” Tony threatens, pressing the gun tighter into Autumn’s side.

“I’m not yours, and you aren’t doing anything to me,” Autumn shouts. It’s only then that I meet her eyes for a brief second because she moves. When she does, I feel my heart stop.

Autumn grips Tony’s hand holding the gun, and forces him to squeeze the trigger. The gun goes off, and he lets her go as she falls to the ground.

“No,” Tony screams and goes to his knees.

Before he can touch her, I’m there, tackling him to the ground.

“I’ve got her,” Brass yells, talking about Autumn.

Fists pummeling into Tony’s face, all I can see is Autumn and her fighting him. I don’t see him. It doesn’t even phase me he’s not fighting me. Nothing stops. I keep pounding away, distorting his features until Twister and Horse pull me off him.

“Come on, brother, he’s dead. Your woman needs you,” Twister remarks, cutting through the haze in my head.

I release a harsh breath and nod. “Where is she?”

“Brass, Dragon, and Burner are with her.” He jerks his chin toward where the vehicle Tony was trying to put her in had been. “They took the Hummer.”

“How bad?” I squeeze my eyes shut and take another breath, shaking my head.

“They’re heading to the nearest hospital,” Horse utters, slapping a hand on my shoulder.

“I can’t lose her,” I admit to them.

“We know,” Twister says, his voice getting a raspy note. “You’re not gonna lose her. She’s a fighter. You saw she fought him.”

“She’s a survivor,” Thorn says, coming to join us.

Rage, Hades, K-9, Red, Badger, and Gadget all stand from their seats, nodding their agreement.

“She’s not just a survivor, she’s a fighter,” Hades remarks, looking past me to the house. “She was trying to escape.”

Twisting, I look behind me and see the sheet rope, and I shake my head. “Fuckin’ hell.” I follow them up to where they start. “She was scaling down from the third floor.”

“Let’s finish here and get you to her,” Twister states.

“Yeah.” I need to set eyes on her.

“We’ll finish clearing the place, Prez,” Rage mutters. “Striker needs to be where Autumn is.”

That I do.

All that matters to me right now is making sure she lives. Autumn has sacrificed enough. She’s lost even more. She needs to stop losing, and if she makes it through this. I’ll make sure that shit stops once and for all.

Before heading to the hospital, my brothers forced me to clean up and change. It’s a damn good thing I still had a pack in my saddlebags with a change of clothes from the last run I’d gone on and hadn’t taken it out yet.

I didn’t waste any time in getting to the hospital. In the waiting room, I find my brothers sitting, waiting to hear something.

Brass is the first to get up and meets me halfway. “They took her back. We haven’t heard anything just yet. We told them her husband was on the way,” he reports. “I already called Athena. She’s on the way with Autumn’s folks and Lila.”

I nod and take a seat. There’s nothing else I can do for the time being. All I can do is wait for the doctors to come out and give me news. I don’t like it. I’ve got a lot of patience, but when it comes to finding out if Autumn is okay, if she’s going to survive this, I’m nearing my limit. I need to know she’s going to live.

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