I didn’t hear the car start up as we exited out the broken door of the warehouse, my body shaking with so much adrenaline and rage that my logical mind was struggling to keep aholdofit.
Ash’s last words repeated over and over in my head, and despite what she said about Anna forgiving me, I couldn’t stop Anna’s face appearing in my mind. It was her face as she was telling me about her and Ash. The way she lit up as she pointed out the stars. The way she smiled and spun on the grass. The pain on her face as Ash broke herheart.
My feet sped up over the pavement as I exited into the chilling winter sun and our bikes glinted at me, parked neatly inarow.
Ash was the daughter of a dark politician-controlling family, and sacrificing her had just saved my club. But Anna wouldn’t forgive me. She wouldn’t forgive me for making this hugemistake.
Mistakes are forgivable if one has the courage toadmitthem.
Fuck.
My feet came to an abrupt stop on the ground, my eyes bearing down into theconcrete.
“Boss?” came Lamb’s tight voice frombehindme.
Fuck.Fuck.Fuck!
“Wolf?” Jasper called a moment later when my silencecontinued.
“This is a mistake,” I growled, shaking my head as I turned to look at my brothers’ faces. “This iswrong.”
“What do you want to do, boss?” Lamb stepped forward, and with him, the echoing sound of the safety of his gunclickedoff.
Another click followed as Jasper met my eyes. And then it was Polo. Then Ripper. Then Hunter. Moon. Pick. Roy.Talon.
Each one of them looked at me, and I could see it in their eyes. It would be the same look that was reflected inmyeyes.
Fuck.
“Let'sgo—”
I didn’t even have time to finish my sentence as I heard the resounding crash of gunfire echo across thewarehouse.
I was sprinting as fast as I could back to the warehouse, my gun by my side, grabbing the hole-filled door and tearing it off its hinges just as the car’s engine rumbled throughtheroom.
I watched in slow motion as Ash’s straightened body crumbled to theground.
“No!” I bellowed, my roar echoing through the room as I saw her father’s headsnapup.
He didn’t even blink as he handed his gun back to his goon, and before I could even raise my gun, he was in the car and slamming thedoorshut.
My brothers came up behind me, guns firing at the lesser members hanging around the sides of the warehouse, half of them having disappeared in the moments we wereoutside.
I lifted my own weapon and fired, the recoil burning my hands as I popped off shot after shot at the black SUV as it squealed away, the bulletproof glass deflecting each bullet as I ran in theirdirection
Lamb came up beside me, his gun aiming with that deadly precision as he aimed lower on the car, but the car made it to the open gate just as Lamb popped a tire. It swerved, slamming into the side of the wall, chewing up the metal but not stopping as the driver regained control and the car spun out ofsight.
I reached Ash in what must have been a few seconds but felt like so much longer. I dropped down to my knees, seeing her shirt soaked in blood as her chest was spilling it. Her eyes were already closed, her chest still, and her face slack as she lay in a pool of her own blood. The red was so stark against her pale skin that I hesitated to look down at her,stunned.
Lamb, beside me, wasn’t so shocked as he grabbed her shirt with both hands and tore it straight down the middle. The thick blood clung to the material, and just for a few seconds, we had a clear view of the six bullet wounds riddled across her chest before blood oozed up out of them and coveredherskin.
Lamb slung his cut aside, the leather smacking against the concrete floor as the gunfire silencedaroundus.
The other brothers rushed over just as Lamb pressed his shirt to the wounds, soaking up the blood before dropping his head to her chest, the side of his face being coated in a sheenofred.
The only sound was the cold wind cutting through the holes in the metal walls as we all waited in a never-ending moment for Lamb to open his mouth. I prayed, for the second time in the last decade, that we got here in time. That we had achance.
I wasn’t thatlucky.