Page 68 of Zeke

“Then he should be safe to travel,” I interrupt. “Wouldn’t you say?”

He opens his mouth to argue with me, so I pull back my cut, putting my hand on my hip and subtly exposing the pistol strapped to my side. His eyes go wide, and he quickly seems to understand this is a threat.

“I…”

I can see in his eyes that he’s battling with himself over whether to listen to me or to go with his protocols, but thankfully, his survival instinct seems to win out. “I suppose so,” he finally says, looking defeated.

“Great,” I say with a hard smile. “Let’s get that paperwork completed so we can get out of here. Okay, Doc?”

He nods and heads back to his office as I return to the room where Savage has been watching me through the window.

“I saw that,” he says with an amused look in his eyes.

“Saw what?” I ask innocently, though I know he knows exactly what I did, even if he hadn’t been able to hear it.

“Uh-huh.” The humor spreads to the rest of his face, making him smile. “I assume we’re good to go?”

“He’s bringing your paperwork now,” I tell him, sitting on the edge of his bed and pulling away the bandage to look at the wound. It’s really angry-looking, even with the stitches holding it together. They removed the bullet from his bicep, which was a short surgery, but it left him needing a sling on his arm for at least a week to keep him from using the muscle.

“Has anyone ever gotten away with telling you no, Sweet Girl?” he asks, reaching up to touch my hair.

“Not that I can recall,” I reply before leaning over to kiss him. I feel him smiling against my lips, and we’re still locked together when I hear the doctor enter and clear his throat behind me. I turn to look at him, and he gives me a fearful grin.

“You’re all set as soon as I get the nurse to remove your IV,” he says.

“So, about five minutes?” I ask, giving him a timeline without having to say it directly.

“I…” He starts to argue but then looks around and sees a nurse walking by. He flags her down, and she comes in, looking confused. “We need to get our patient unhooked from his IV. Can you take care of that now?”

She looks at the doctor, then at us with a skeptical look. “Isn’t he still—”

“No,” Doc cuts her off. “He’s good to go.”

The nurse looks around the room again. “If you say so, Doctor.” I hear the confusion in her voice, but I don’t have the energy or time to convince her like I did the doctor. Besides, if he’d nearly pissed himself, this woman might faint if I flashed my gun at her.

Ten minutes later, we’re in the truck and getting on the interstate to head back home. Savage insists on driving first, but he gets fatigued quickly, and I end up taking over.

It’s a twenty-four-hour drive back home, but pushing the speed limit more than we probably should have in a truck instead of on our bikes, we make it in nineteen. I don’t stop to sleep the entire ride there, and when I pull down the back road that leads to the farmhouse, exhaustion creeps in as the adrenaline of the ride fades.

I barely make it out of the truck before Eli, Zeke, and Julia run out of the house to greet us. Eli and Zeke take turns grabbing me and squeezing me hard enough to pop me, and I see Julia clinging to Savage out of the corner of my eye. She’s sobbing and he’s doing his best to comfort her, despite the fact he’s the one who’s injured.

“Jesus, it’s freezing out here,” I say. It was a lot warmer in Miami, obviously. “Can we get inside to talk about everything?”

Everyone agrees, and Zeke grabs our duffels to carry in for us. Once inside, we gather in the living room, where I choose to stand for a couple of reasons. The first is that I’ve been on my ass for almost a full day. The second is that I’m worried if I sit down again, I’ll fall asleep before I can brief them on what went down.

Eli disappears before we start and comes back with coffee for everyone, handing me and Savage ours first.

“Thanks, Eli,” I say, giving him a smile. He returns it, and I’m reminded of how grateful I am for my brothers.

“So, what happened?” Zeke asks. “We got part of the story, but we were waiting for you to get home to hear the full deal.”

I look around at everyone. Julia stares into her coffee, her cheeks and eyes red. I’m sure she’s been worried sick. I would be if it was one of my brothers who had been shot. Not to mention, this was her old club we had been with, and I’m sure she knew some of the people involved.

“Well…” I say, intent on telling them exactly what happened. “When we got ambushed, I managed to take out about half the guys on my own. The rest scattered when they realized it wasn’t going to be an easy target. Wizard had been right at the front. He was the one who got the shot off on Savage, but he wasn’t expecting us to retaliate so quickly. Savage had a bullet in the guy almost as fast as he took the one in his arm.”

I watch Julia look at him, concern on her face, but she keeps quiet.

“Well, he was bleeding out by the time the other ones were either dead or running. I got enough info out of him to know we weren’t in any more danger, since he’d been the ringleader of the little ambush. The other club wasn’t coming after us again, since he’d told them we would be an easy hit, and we obviously weren’t. I think he thought we’d save him, but Savage was done with his shit at that point and put a bullet in his head.”

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