Page 26 of Roxy's Independence
“Then let’s ride,” Python growls, standing up, pocketing his wallet as he twirls his keyring on his finger, the keys hitting together as they slide around the keyring and the sound pierces my ears.
“I’ll stay here with Easton while y’all go and check on her,” Roxy offers.
“Thank you,” Python says, his voice hoarse.
It was unanimously agreed upon that first we’ll drive by and see if we can get a read on what the situation is. If we get an ominous feeling, we’ll stop and knock. We’ve driven around the motel twice, trying to see if anything looks suspicious—and it does. The window in the back has a spiderweb chip in it, as if a fight took place in the bathroom since it’s one of those small, square blocked windows that are above the showers.
We pull back around the front, all of us shutting down our motorcycles. The curtain to his room is askew, hanging off the rod at an odd angle. Python’s face is like a puzzle I don’t have to put together because I already know what the picture will reveal.
As the club doctor, it’s my duty to go check the room and see if Kinsley is in there and if she is, if she’s alive and kicking or if she’s deceased. My gut is on fire, I have a deep seated feeling it’s going to end up being the latter alternative. It’s too quiet. Too still. First, I’ll peek inside the window and see if there’s any danger still lurking inside before I wave the others over.
Dragon swings his leg over the saddle and nods at me. He tosses his hand up, holding the others back as he and I walk overto the window. When we lean in and catch the scene, my jaw drops to my chest. It looks like a bomb went off. Blood coats the walls, you can see handprints on several sections of the painted drywall. Drag marks line the carpet. It’s the part of a feminine forehead and blonde hair that has my attention. I don’t have to see the woman’s face to know who it is.
“Brother,” I gasp out.
“I know,” he rasps. “I’m gonna call Brick. Get him to call his contact in the department and see if we can get the cops out here and do this the legal way. I don’t want any of our DNA in that room so we stand down until they’ve arrived and start their investigation.”
“This is so fucked up,” I grumble, closing my eyes. “Python’s gonna freak the hell out.”
“And when he loses his shit, we’ll be right there for him,” Dragon sighs, pulling out his phone and walking to the side of the building.
Butcher walks over, placing his hand on my shoulder, and leaning around me to take a look inside. “Shit,” he hisses. “Murder/suicide?”
“That’s what I’m thinking, but I can’t officially confirm that without a report. It’s a damn bloodbath in there, Butcher. It’s going to take the crime scene investigators a while to go through all of the evidence and come to a conclusion on what happened in there.”
“Python’s being held back by Wrecker and the rest of the guys. He already knows something bad happened here, but I don’t think he needs this visual to haunt him,” Butcher tells me.
“No, he doesn’t,” I concur. “Her ghost will always plague him; he’ll convince himself that this was his fault.”
“Not even making her his old lady would’ve prevented this from happening,” Butcher surmises. “Fate can be a bitch sometimes.”
“That she can be,” I agree with him wholeheartedly.
“Let me through! Get your goddamn hands off of me!” Python roars in the background. “That’s Easton’s mother, I have a right to see her!”
“No, brother, not like that,” I hear Wrecker say, trying to reason with him. “She wouldn’t want that to be the last image you have of her. Close your eyes, brother. Remember her smile, hear her laughter, feel her peace because that’s what she has now.”
“No! She can’t be gone, Easton needs her!”
The wobbling scream that echoes through the night as Python hits his breaking point, shatters my heart.
I feel his sorrow in my soul.
Rolling my eyes upward, I say, “Dammit, Kinsley. You should’ve never come here with how unstable he was.”
I know she can’t answer me, but fuck, her ex was out of his mind. She should’ve given him time to cool his jets before approaching him and trying to give them both the closure they needed. I suspect that she would’ve gone back to him, her love for Macon ran deep.
Joceline was right, he didn’t have love for Kin, he was stuck in the past and obsessed. Unfortunately for Kinsley, that type of obsession was deadly.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Roxy
The guys ralliedaround Python last night, refusing to leave him by himself even though that’s what he begged for them to do. Their outright refusal had him angry, he started tossing things around in his house as if he was a human tornado, funneling around and destroying anything in his path. That’s the reason I brought Easton home with me so that he wasn’t forced to witness his father’s mental breakdown.
I know that Easton is probably the only thing that can comfort his father, but babies feel every ounce of what you do and he didn’t need to have that tumultuous emotion dragging him down. He’s going to be confused enough as it is not having his mother. He’s sought her out a few times already, he was fussy before conking out, and it’s all I could do to not burst into uncontrollable sobs because I didn’t know how to soothe him. That’ll come later. I’m so damn mad at myself, because as a doctor, I should’ve known this is how this would play out—Joceline did.
