Page 3 of Brick's Retribution

The second I open it, eucalyptus hits me straight in the face. I guess Ruby thought it would help with the smell.

I waste no time shredding my clothes off and head into the bathroom, turn on the water, and step inside.

The hot water pounds against my skin, washing away the dust and grime of the road.

I stand under the spray until it runs cold, then towel off and pull on the clean clothes.

My reflection in the steamy mirror looks like a stranger—hollow eyes, scruff that's well past a beard, dark circles that make me look a decade older than my twenty-eight years.

I run a hand over my head, thinking about what I’ll be doing tomorrow.

Babysitting cartel royalty isn't what I signed up for when I asked to prospect with the Reapers Rejects MC, but the club is the only real family I've got, and family means doing what needs to be done.

My hand finds the folded piece of paper in my pocket—my ritual before every run.

The photograph is creased and worn from looking at it every day: Lashes and I, her wide smile revealing the gap between her front teeth, her eyes bright.

It’s not right that she isn’t here, in the club, partying with everyone else downstairs.

I sigh, knowing we’ll find her and trust that Amara has something in the works.

But she's gone, taken by Sally and sold into a sex trafficking ring.

I tuck the photo away and finish getting ready.

I’m fucking exhausted but I'm too wired to sleep.

The club is still pulsing from the party, but I head to the club's small medical room instead.

Honestly, I’m not in the mood to celebrate anything, and this is my domain—the place where I'm most useful if you ask me.

The organized shelves of supplies—everything from bandages to surgical tools to prescription meds—provide a small comfort.

I've always been good at fixing things, at making broken people whole again.

It's what drew me to medicine in the first place, that and my past.

I wasn’t really given the option to not pick up on a few things.

I take inventory, restocking what's low, organizing what's scattered.

The automatic task settles my mind, just as it did when I was a kid, organizing my mother's pill bottles after my father went to prison.

My father.

The thought of him brings a familiar ache.

Fifteen years behind bars for armed robbery, a desperate act to keep debt collectors from hurting his family.

Now that I’m an adult, I think it was understandable, but it destroyed our family.

He couldn’t find a job, and we were going hungry.

My mother spiraled into depression and addiction.

And I learned how to dress wounds, administer medication, and eventually, how to shut down emotionally.

The medical room door creaks open, and Boulder's massive frame fills the doorway.

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