Page 639 of The Tempted

“Yeah, well, he needs to get over it. It’s not like I don’t have good intentions when it comes to her but, he wouldn’t know that because he’s too busy being a bitch.”

“He’s too busy fighting a war to even consider what kind of man you’ll be to his daughter,” he argued. “But he’s decided that your life matters, whether it’s to him or her, I don’t know but that’s one reason I’m here,” he paused, ran his hand over his head before continuing. “The Dragons came after us,” he informed me.

“How bad?”

He blew out a breath, rolling up his sleeves and glanced down at the ink that covered his arms before he lifted his eyes back to mine.

“Stryker, how fucking bad?”

“We lost Bones,” he muttered.

I stared at him in shock as I dropped onto my cot and processed his words. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a fallen brother. You start to think your club is invincible and nothing will ever get you down. Then something like this happens, you lose one of your own, and you realize everybody bleeds. We all die and none of us are ever safe.

“They attacked us at the compound, got us good, Pipe was expecting a shipment of automotive parts and when the truck pulled into the gates we thought it was the delivery. They opened fire, Riggs’s baby mama was there…”

“Oh God,” I groaned.

“She was hit and would’ve been again but Bones stepped in front of the second shooter and took the bullet for her,” Stryker continued. “Bones didn’t make it out of surgery, they delivered the baby, kid was born three pounds and was put a respirator.”

“And Lauren?”

“Took her awhile to come back to the land of the living but she finally got to meet her boy,” he said, taking a seat on the john across from the bunk.

“Jesus,” I muttered. “How did Riggs not lose his fucking mind?”

“Man, I don’t know but, shit, he stepped up. He didn’t leave that hospital for a second, if he wasn’t sitting with his woman then he was holding his baby—telling him stories about the mom he didn’t meet yet and the uncle he never would.”

I brought my hands up to cover my face, processing what he said and thought about Bones and Riggs’ friendship. We all talk about brotherhood, call one another brothers by choice but those two, they were tight, they were a younger version of the old Jack and the old me.

“Tell me we got them. Tell me we made that motherfucker pay,” I growled, dropping my hands back to my sides.

“It’s taken care of,” he confirmed.

“How?”

“We waited because Jack wanted to give Riggs the respect—Sun Wu nearly took out his whole family, it seemed only fair he’s the one who put Wu in his grave. We hit his club as planned but Riggs had a different plan, one he concocted with Bianci. They took out Wu personally.”

“Shit,” I ground out.

“Yeah, it’s been fun.”

“What about the Corrupt Bastards?”

“Riggs went up to see them, that guy Boots met with him and for a hot minute we thought he struck a deal with them but then all this happened and Boots never reached out which leads Jack to believe he was never going to take the offer to begin with,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “So that’s still a live wire we have to kill.”

Boots wouldn’t take a deal. I offered him a sweet one. If he agreed to something with Riggs it was only because the prick knew he made a mistake using Lacey as a pawn in his game. That motherfucker is trying to back pedal his way out of the shit he put himself in. He probably heard the news about what went down with the Chinese and thinks Jack is too preoccupied to make a move on him, and with me doing a bid that fuck thinks he’s safe.

Wrong.

“Going to ask you one more time and this time you better answer me. What are you doing here?”

“Got a message for you,” he revealed.

“Yeah, I bet you do. Give it to me,” I ordered, watching as he walked towards the bar and checked to see if the coast was clear before turning back to me.

“You need to get yourself transferred to Otisville. As long as that kid you fucked up is half dead there isn’t anything Jack can do. Lacey gave her testimony to the cops but that douche bag Brantley squashed it. There’s only one way out but in order for that to happen, you need to be in Otisville with Vic Pastore, that’s where the connections are.”

“The lawyer is coming here tomorrow to meet with me and discuss a deal from the district attorney,” I commented.

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