Defying Destiny (Forsaken Sinners MC Series Book 3) (20 page)

Chapter 19

Louie

Kicking in the door, the first thing I see is Harlow broken and bloody, kneeling on the ground with the fucker standing above her. And he’s got a gun pointed to her head.

I feel myself vibrate with a level of rage I’ve never felt before. I want to skin this motherfucker alive, pour acid on his exposed flesh, then watch him burn while he screams and begs for death. I’ve never felt this level of anger before. It’s so much different from when my father was murdered. I feel empowered, invincible, and almighty. I can feel power rage through my veins just begging to be released on this guy. It’s almost scary the way I feel.

But what scares me the most is the almost peaceful look on Harlow’s face. I can see the pain she must be feeling, but she also looks ready to die—ready to give up and leave me. But I won’t let her. Not this time.

I hate myself for putting her in this position. After all, it’s because of me and the club she’s here. He took her to get to us, to make the Sinners pay. I don’t know why or what they have planned, but I won’t let him take club business out on Harlow.

The man holding her by the hair turns around to face me, a sneer taking over his face. “Well, well, well. I was wondering if you were gonna show up and try to save the day,” the guy says.

Taking a step forward, I keep my hands balled into fists at my side. I don’t need him getting jumpy and pulling the trigger on Harlow. If he does, she’s dead.

“Let her go,” I growl, needing to get him away from her. I want to kill this fucker, but I want to do it with my bare hands. I want to make him feel the amount of pain he made Harlow endure.

“Now why would I do that?” he asks as if he’s confused about the situation.

“Your beef is with me and my club,
not
with her. So just let her go and deal with me,” I say, praying that he has one bone in his body that is prideful. If he is a respectable member of the MC, he’ll handle this confrontation with me, and not a woman.

He laughs, but he does lower his gun. “On the contrary, I have no beef with your club. Well, besides the fact that you took something that belongs to me. Put your hands all over it. Stuck your
dick
into it.” His sneer is back, but I’m thoroughly confused. What the fuck does he mean we
took something of his
? Unless…

“She was supposed to by
mine
, not yours! And if I can’t have her,
no one
will!” He turns around at the same time, bringing the gun back up to Harlow’s head, but I’m quicker.

Reaching behind me, I pull my gun out from behind my back and shoot him in the shoulder, which causes him to drop the gun and grunt in pain.

I move quickly toward Harlow, but he recovers faster than I thought he would. Wrapping his arm around her neck in a chokehold, he stands behind her, blocking any chance I had to take another shot at him. I can’t get to him without going through her.

Halting my advance, I keep my gun aimed but don’t intend to fire unless I get a clear shot and Harlow is out of harm’s way. I won’t risk hitting her with my bullet.

Shifting my focus to her for a second, I notice that she’s gone ghostly pale and she looks to be on the cusp of passing out. Blood gushes out of her head from a cut on her forehead and out of her nose. She seems to be having trouble breathing and both legs are bleeding from an unknown trauma. She’s not going to last much longer. I need to hurry the fuck up and get this over with so I can get her to a hospital. She can’t die on me.

“Now I can see you noticing she’s in bad shape. If I had to guess, she only has a few minutes longer before the blood loss is too much and she passes out. But the question is; will she wake up again?” he speaks behind her, pulling her back toward a workbench.

Grabbing a gasoline can, he dumps a little on her which makes her scream out as it mixes into her wounds, then starts dumping it on the ground as he makes his way toward a back door.

“Now since we’re in this little standoff, I’ll give you two choices. I can tell you want to kill me for what I’ve done to little sunshine here, but you also want to save her. So you can either come after me and exact your revenge or you can be her hero. But choose fast,” he says before shoving her to the ground a few feet where he’s standing, while striking a match and throwing it down on the ground.

As soon as the match was thrown, he takes off out the door, too quick for me to take a shot.

Flames start to take root and spread toward Harlow lying limply on the floor. With no time to go after him, I sprint to Harlow. There was never really a choice of who I would go after. The monster may have taken over my body, but I’m not about to let Harlow burn just so I can kill that fucker. There will be time for that later; after I get her out of here and out of immediate danger.

“
Harlow
! Wake up, babe,” I yell as I crouch down beside her. She’s not moving and her eyes are closed. I don’t know if she’s dead or just passed out, but with the flames making their way closer to us, I don’t have time to check. I can only pray that she’s just passed out from the blood loss and the pain of her injuries.

Picking her up, I head toward the same door her tormentor fled out of, but it won’t open. He must have locked it before he fled.

By now the fire has spread throughout the building, all the way up to the ceiling. We’re running out of time to get out of here. If we don’t make it out fast, we’ll
both
burn to death.

Running carefully with her in my arms, I try not to jar her, but my first step causes her eyes to fly open and a scream tears past her lips.

“I’m sorry, babe. But we have to get out of here quick.” I continue running but as we make it to the middle of the warehouse, the smoke is so thick she starts coughing, which causes her to cry out in pain.

“We’re almost there. Stay with me. I’ve got you.” I try to comfort her, but I don’t even think she’s hearing me, the pain too much for her to concentrate on anything else.

I’m a few feet from the door when shots start to ring out outside the warehouse. My brothers must be here and are gunning that motherfucker down. I’m pissed because I wanted to be the one to kill him, but I’m thankful my brothers are here to help. As long as that sonofabitch is dead, that’s all that really matters, I guess.

Almost to the door, I hear a big bang and the ground shakes, knocking me off balance. I start to fall with Harlow in my arms, and the building starts to fall down around us.

Landing on my side as to not crush her, I try to get back up again to make it out when something big and heavy falls down on my legs.

“
Fuck
!” I roar, pain shooting up my legs. Trying to move, I realize that I’m pinned.

Looking over to Harlow, I see her open her eyes and take in the scene around us.

“Harlow! You need to get out of here. The place is falling apart. You need to go!” I yell, trying to get her to save herself. Once I know she’s safe, I’ll be able to focus solely on freeing myself.

She looks at me with fear in her eyes, but it’s not for herself. “No. I’m not leaving you!” she says with pain in her voice, though I think it’s more from her injuries than thinking I won’t make it.

“I’ll be fine. I promise, but you have to get yourself to safety. I’ll be right behind you,” I tell her, though I’m starting to doubt that, but I’ll say anything to get her to leave me so she’s safe. I
need
her to be safe.

Harlow starts to get up onto her elbows and I think she’s going to listen and crawl out of here and leave me behind, but she doesn’t. She army crawls toward me. “Harlow! Go! Leave me!”

I frantically try to unpin myself. I need to get her out of here. She’s not listening to me.

“No! I can’t leave you, Louie. I love you. I won’t leave you,” she cries and I know we are both doomed. I can’t get free and she won’t listen to me. She won’t leave me behind, even to save herself.

I reach out my hand, determined to touch her one last time before it’s over for us. “I love you, Harlow,” I tell her, hoping she can hear more than just the words, but know what she means to me.

“I love you too,” she says around her coughing from the smoke, then her eyes close and I fear she’s dead.

“Harlow! Open your eyes, babe!” I yell, not ready to let her leave me yet.

Just then, the door a few feet from us opens and I see Toby and Blaze rush in, searching the area for us.

“Over here,” I yell, starting to cough from the smoke too.

Finally finding us, they run to us; Blaze immediately starting to move the debris off my legs and Toby going to Harlow’s side.

“Is she okay?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer me. “
Tell me, dammit
! Is she alive?” I demand again.

This time, he looks up at me with sadness in her eyes. “No!” I scream, fighting with Blaze to get free so I can get closer to her.

“She’s alive, brother. But barely. I need to get her out of here and get her to the hospital,” he says in a rush, then he picks her up and runs out of the building.

Blaze continues to work on me while I just lay there, watching the door where Toby disappeared with my girl.

“She’ll be all right, man. You have to believe that. But you need to help me. The building is still coming down and if we don’t get you out of here soon, we’ll both be a pile of charred bones,” Blaze says, his words snapping me out of my grief.

Seconds later, I’m finally free. I try to stand up on my own, with a little help from my brother, but I fall right back down.

“Put your arm around me,” Blaze yells over the noise of the building falling down around us.

He crouches down so I’m able to wrap my arm around his shoulders and he starts to drag me out of the building.

Once outside, I take in deep gulps of fresh air but end up choking on it. “Easy, brother,” Blaze says as we make our way to a van parked a few feet away, not even sparing a second glance at the burning building behind us.

I don’t see Toby with Harlow or even Mack and Jax. “Where is everyone? Did they take her to the hospital?” I ask, but one look at Blaze’s face and I know I’m missing something. “What am I missing?” I demand, needing to know what’s going on.

“Let’s get you to the hospital, man. We need to get you checked out and we have to see how Harlow and Mack are doing,” he says as he helps me into the front seat of the van, then slams the door before making his way around to the driver’s side.

When he’s inside and peeling out, I ask, “What do you mean see how Harlow and Mack are doing? What the fucked happened to Mack?” I ask, getting more frustrated without having any answers to what happened.
Mack is in the hospital?
Why?

“He was shot, Louie.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I heard shots ring out when I was trying to get Harlow out, but I assumed it was them shooting the fucker that escaped out of the warehouse after leaving me and Harlow to burn. But now he’s telling me Mack was the one shot?

“What the fuck happened?” I yell, needing to know exactly what transpired outside.

“When we got to the warehouse, you were already inside. We figured you’d be able to get Harlow out and take care of any problems, but we surrounded the building in case he tried getting away while you were saving Harlow,” he explains as he speeds down the road toward the hospital.

“He came out the back door and when we didn’t see you behind him, we knew we had to take care of him for you. But he spotted us right away and started shooting at us. We were able to take cover, but Mack was hit. It’s bad, Louie. He was hit in the back as he was dodging behind a dumpster. He lost a lot of blood and wasn’t conscious when Jax was able to get him out of here while Toby and I took care of the sonofabitch that started all of this.”

I assume by
taking care of him
, he means they killed him, but I need confirmation. I have to know he’s dead and paid for his sins.

“Did you kill him?” I ask in a hard voice. I almost hope that they didn’t so I can hunt him down and kill him myself, but I know they wouldn’t have let him get away. They would have done anything necessary to end him.

“Yeah, he’s dead. Toby was able to get a headshot on the motherfucker,” he says with contempt, angry that he didn’t get to kill the fucker himself.
Get in line
. I’m pissed about that too.

Minutes later, we’re screeching to a stop outside the emergency doors of the local hospital. I don’t like that we aren’t in our town—I feel too exposed and vulnerable—but going off of what Blaze said about Mack’s condition and seeing firsthand the condition Harlow is in, I understand the urgency to just get them to the closest hospital. Doesn’t mean we won’t have them moved the first chance we get.

Rushing inside with the help of Blaze, we find all of our brothers huddled together in the waiting room.