Page 33 of Savior

The corner of the counter near the stove was smeared with blood. It ran down the lower cabinets and had pooled on the carpet.

Home invasion.

A burglary gone wrong.

The cash on the table mocked every one of my plausible explanations. The text I’d received hadn’t come from my father, but from whoever was responsible for this.

I shuddered with the realization that Lauren was right. The Sons hadn’t disappeared. They’d been lying out of sight in the tall grass, just waiting for the next opportunity to strike.

And it was only a matter of time before they came for me, which meant I was going to have to break my promise to Bear.

If the Sons wanted a war, I’d give them a war.

Chapter Seven

Grey

Awareness settled over me, ringing loudly in my ears and pricking the backs of my eyelids even as my body fought against it; urging me to stay in a state of unconsciousness until I was healed. Saint might’ve wanted me alive, but Cobra was doing everything in his power to send me to the Reaper.

It was payback, for the things I’d done to Manny; the ways I’d forced him to stay alive until Celia was ready to put him down.

My fingers brushed against cotton sheets, and I breathed a shallow breath of relief that I was no longer lying on the cold concrete floor. Reluctantly, I opened one eye, and then the other before taking in my surroundings.

I was back where I started—a hell made up of complete white. My nose wrinkled at the medicinal stench in the air, more evidence that I was going to be kept on the brink of death for as long as it suited them. I slowly turned my head to the side to see that my bruised and cut left wrist was back in fabric restraints while my right was in a sling, securely fasted to my chest.

A wave of nausea washed over me as I tried lifting it, leaving me to guess as to whether it was broken or simply dislocated. I tried swallowing past the lump in my throat, immediately wincing at the soreness. The ringing in my ears intensified, along with the urge to cry.

Even if I did make it out alive, I had no way of defending myself when my shooting arm was being held together with bandages and a nylon hammock.

The room suddenly fell silent just as a familiar voice dryly noted, “Well, this all looks fuckin’ terrible.”

Ignoring the jolt of pain in my neck, I lifted my head and stared disbelievingly toward the center of the room. “What the fuck? It ain’t possible—I gotta be dreamin’.”

“Well, that sure as fuck ain’t the greeting I expected,” Slim said with a laugh, pulling a metal folding chair up alongside my bed. “The fuck have you gotten yourself into this time?”

“But, you’re… you’re dead,” I spluttered. “I saw you lyin’ in the goddamn casket!”

He jerked his head up and down. “Yeah, I’m still fuckin’ dead. From the looks of it, you are too. Jesus fuckin’ Christ, I leave you alone for three years and look at you!”

I fell back against the mattress with a heavy sigh, somehow comforted by the confirmation that I’d lost my goddamned mind and was now chatting with the ghost of my best friend.

“Yeah, well, I’m still sober,” I said as I watched him crack his knuckles. “Don’t that count for somethin’?”

His eyes wandered down my neck and chest before coming to rest on my arm. “Maybe if you weren’t tied down to a fuckin’ bed, we could celebrate. Tell me, how the hell did you end up in this mess, Jamie?”

“I don’t know… just lucky, I guess.” My eyelids grew heavy, and I blinked, fighting the urge to give in to oblivion. I’d spent years wishing that I could hear the sound of his voice again. I wasn’t letting myself fall asleep now. “They—the men who did this—they call themselves the Sons of Death—”

He let out a rough bark of laughter before leaning back in the chair. “Well, they ain’t mincin’ words, are they? I guessSons Who Like Stabbin’ and Shitwould’ve been too long to fit on a kutte.”

“You know,” I groaned. “Don’t remember you bein’ this funny while you were alive.”

“Oh, you just weren’t payin’ attention. I was a fuckin’ hoot. Ask anybody—well, fuck. Guess you can’t exactly do that, can ya? Tell me about these bikers. What do you know about them?”

I ran my tongue over my teeth, still tasting the blood from where I’d bitten down on it while being hung. “You remember us lookin’ for the pricks that hurt Celia?”

He nodded. “Yeah, you ever catch ‘em?”

“All but one. From what I can gather, Cobra started the Sons—met up with someone named Saint, and they fuckin’ dismantled my club from the inside.”

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