Page 133 of Bloom: Part 2

“Is Max…” I whispered.

Crowe stopped in front of me and swung, his fist connecting with my gut and knocking the wind out of me. I stumbled back into a table, clutching my stomach as pain radiated through me.

“You son of a bitch!” Crowe roared, throwing a crumpled envelope at my chest. It hit me and fell to the floor. “This was on Max! A fucking letter from Bloom telling me what you two were planning. I wasn’t supposed to see it until after you left. You were going to take him away? Just like that? Without telling anyone?”

I swallowed hard, guilt twisting in my gut as I straightened. “Crowe, I—”

“Just who the fuck do you think you are?” he thundered, his voice shaking with barely contained rage.

“I was trying to keep him safe,” I snapped. “To keep all of you safe.”

“Bloom hasn’t been safe since the moment he laid eyes on you. He’s been risking his neck for you since day one. He’d have been better if he’d stayed in Riverton and not met you. You should stay the fuck away from him.” He stepped toward me again, but Bay barred his path.

“Crowe, this isn’t you talking, man. You know he’s been taking care of Bloom. You’re just upset about Max. Calm the fuck down. Everyone’s tense, man, but now’s not the time to lose our heads. How’s Max?”

“I don’t know because no one at the hospital tells me shit, and I had to get out of there before I did something dumb and barge into the operating room to see him.”

“I’m sorry, man.”

Crowe pointed at me. “And to find out this POS would have actually left with Bloom and never returned?”

“Crowe, Logan was just protecting Bloom.” Grimm placed a hand on Crowe’s shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t forget that Bloom made the decision to go with him.”

Crowe turned on him, narrowing his eyes. “You knew?” His voice cracked.

Grimm glanced at me, then back at the other biker. “Yes.”

Crowe took a step back, forcing Grimm to drop his hands. “How can you side with him?”

“I’m not taking sides. It wasn’t my business to stop him.”

“You had to have known I wouldn’t agree with this.”

“It was the only way to keep him safe from my family.” I moved around Bay, not needing him to shield me. So I’d miscalculated and Dr. Simms was the one we should have been guarding against, but I’d had no intention of hurting anyone. It just couldn’t be helped.

“You better find him,” Crowe said, his voice cold and deadly. “And when you do, I need the fucker who did all this alive so I can teach him the meaning of fear. Find him, Doc, or it’ll be hell to pay. I will not lose them.”

He stormed out, leaving the room in stunned silence. I picked up the letter and, with trembling hands, unfolded it. His handwriting was messy, incredibly hard to read. He had terrible spelling, and some of his letters were the wrong way, but there was no mistaking what it was—a good-bye to Crowe and his brothers.

“Don’t take it to heart,” Grimm said to me. “Crowe’s emotional right now because of Max. You did what you thought was best for everyone at the time. Let’s keep digging for clues.”

We returned to riffling through the boxes. The room buzzed with quiet activity: papers rustled, items clattered against the table, and muttered curses filled the air whenever someone came up empty-handed. My focus was laser-sharp, my mind drowning in a relentless loop offind him, find him, find him.

A grunt broke through the din, and I glanced up. Whip stood stiffly, rubbing at his lower back. “I’ll be a permanent hunchback if I don’t sit soon,” he muttered.

“Quit whining.” Noose stepped up beside him. Without hesitation, he slipped his hand under Whip’s shirt and rubbed slow circles over the small of his back, his movements casual, almost absentminded. Whip didn’t even flinch, just leaned slightly into the touch with a grunt of appreciation.

I froze, the scene pulling me out of my single-minded determination. The biker caught my gaze, his expression unreadable. There was no shame on his face, no embarrassment, just a steady, challenging stare as though daring me to say something.

I didn’t. I had bigger things to worry about.

“Guys, wait,” Bay said. He had his hands in the second box and carefully pulled out a folder. “There’s something here.”

We all crowded around him. He flipped it open, revealing a stack of documents and photographs. The top page was marked with a symbol—a geometric design that looked like a maze, simple yet unsettling. Beneath it, in bold letters, were the wordsThe Mnemosyne Order.

I picked up the folded paper on top, smoothed it out, and read softly,

“We are the architects of memory, the weavers of truth and illusion.In the labyrinth of the mind, we hold the keys to the past, present, and future.We pledge to uncover the depths of human perception, to reshape what was, and to define what will be.

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