Page 25 of Queen of Spades

“Where are the others?” I demanded, catching up to him at the bottom of the stairs. He pulled out his gun and checked that it was loaded as he headed for the garage door, and a sour feeling filled my gut. “What happened, King? Where are they?” I finally had enough and grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around. “Erik, fucking answer me!”

“They went to the beach to surf, all three of them. Someone put a bomb in the Jeep,” Erik explained, his voice hoarse ashe broke away and continued out to the SUV. I beat him to the driver’s door and climbed inside, because it would be a frosty day in hell when I’d let that idiot drive me anywhere. My heart was pounding in my chest, and my hands slipped on the steering wheel as a cold sweat crept over my body.

“Are they alive?” I rasped, slamming into reverse and nearly clipping one of the men patrolling around our house as I sped out of the garage. Gravel kicked up as I turned sharply and drove toward the gate.

“Jesse saw it in time; they weren’t in the car when it blew,” Erik replied, and I felt my chest unclench just a little bit, my foot on the gas as I sped toward the main road.

“Are they at the beach still?” I asked, a million other questions waiting their turn.

“They hid out with Trevor, and Sparrow got there first. She’s taking them to the tavern,” Erik told me. I turned right at the corner and floored it, the engine making unhappy sounds as I accelerated down the street. So, at least one of them got hurt, that was why they were going to see Wren. Who was it then? Not Grace, they would’ve gotten her away from it first. Levy would obviously throw himself in the way to protect her, and Jesse… he was close enough to find it, so he was close enough to get hurt…

“Why did you let them leave?” I snarled at Erik, my fingers gripping the steering wheel as I swerved around an idiot hatchback. Erik scoffed at me, and I glanced over to glare at him.

“They aren’t prisoners, Anders. None of us are. And no one expected Doug to use a fucking car bomb, not when Grace was around,” he muttered, and I rolled my eyes.

“Jesse goes there all the time. His Jeep is bright fucking orange. They probably didn’t even see Grace and Levy, they were just trying to kill him,” I snapped back. Sometimes I thought it was only his luck that had gotten him this far, because it sure as shit wasn’t his brain.

I jerked the steering wheel roughly as I turned down the side road that led to Sparrow’s tavern. Her crew was out in full force today, bikers wearing her patch littered the street, lounging against their bikes and eyeing us as we drove past. Erik sent her a text to let her know we were close, so nobody tried to stop us when we pulled into the parking lot and came to an abrupt stop outside the door.

I was out of the car and at the door before Erik had even set foot on the ground. A large and immensely hairy fellow greeted me with a scowl, barring me from entering.

“Get the fuck out of my way, I’m one of King’s men,” I snapped, and he crossed his arms over his chest, refusing to budge.

“Roe, you expecting a math tutor?” he hollered over his shoulder, and I wrenched my driving glasses off my face, trying not to crush them as I shoved them in my pocket.

“Anders, calm down before someone else shoots you,” Erik bit out, joining me finally. Scruffy seemed to recognize him at least, and stepped aside, smirking as I glared at him.

“Back here, babe,” Roe called out, and we followed her voice toward the storage room. My gut twisted as we walked in and saw Levy face down on the table, his back a motley of burns and cuts.

I crouched beside him, my hand dropping to his hair as the air rushed out of my lungs. He twisted to look at me, wincing as it shifted the skin on his shoulders, a soft groan slippingout. Grace was sitting on the nearby couch, and Jesse was stretched across it, his bandaged head resting in her lap, facing away from us.

“Kitten, are you hurt?” I asked, quickly scanning her for injuries. She shook her head, and I could tell she’d been crying.

“No, Levy was behind me, so he got the brunt of it,” she murmured, swiping her hair out of her face. “Then a shop window blew out—that’s what caught Jesse in the face.”

Erik swore softly and moved over to the couch, stroking Jesse’s hair with a tenderness that made my stomach clench. My gaze dropped to Levy, watching Wren try to clean a particularly deep gash and prepare to suture it. Every time she lifted her hand from it, more blood pooled and spilled down his back. I pressed my hand close to the wound, and the blood slowed as I concentrated on the source of the bleed, willing it to seal closed. The effort left me winded, but Wren sighed in relief and grabbed her suture kit off the table next to her, preparing the needle. The first touch of the needle to his skin had Levy’s hands clenching on the edge of the table, and I glared at Wren.

“Don’t you have anything for the pain?” I demanded, and she shot me an incredulous look.

“Of course I offered him something, he said no,” Wren muttered, shaking her head as she pushed the needle back in, moving quickly and efficiently.

“No pain meds, really?” I growled, stroking Levy’s hair as he twitched under my hand.

“Gotta stay sharp, so I don’t… fade,” he gritted out, and I swore under my breath, resting my hand on his neck as he groaned low in his throat. I didn’t ask permission, and thatwas probably rude, but I focused on the blood flow to his brain, reducing it just enough to get him to lose consciousness. It wouldn’t stop the pain, but at least he wouldn’t be awake for most of it. Levy went slack on the table, and I stood up, the world tilting ever-so-slightly as my own blood rushed out of my head. A rough hand caught me, and I jerked away, glaring up at the large bearded man from earlier.

“One of the Boogeyman’s crew men was spotted at the pier, but he slipped away before we could catch him,” he announced, and Sparrow snarled.

“We shouldn’t go home tonight,” Erik muttered. “Not if Doug has escalated to blowing shit up.” He clenched his fists and started to pace, which was not very effective in a room this cramped and full of people. “We’ll find a hotel and camp out until we get a plan in place.”

“We can’t go to a hotel right now, not with Jesse and Levy full of fucking holes,” I snapped, running a hand through my hair. “We’ll draw too much attention, and we can’t secure a public space.”

“The safehouse then,” Erik suggested, and I rolled my eyes.

“No, that’s for shit really hitting the fan and us getting separated. Plus, it doesn’t have supplies to keep us going for more than a day—two, at most. It’s a relay station, not a fortification,” I muttered. Erik stopped right in front of me, his hands loose at his sides even though I could feel the anger rolling off of him.

“What then, Anders? What’s your brilliant goddamn solution to this? We have two men down, a crazy fuck gunning for us, and our crew is scattered across the city, fighting ambushes from every direction!” he exclaimed, and Grace flinched in her seat, her eyes wide and desperate.

I had to do something, I had to fix this somehow. I ran through the possible options again and again, each one worse than the next. The only option left that had any chance of working was…

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