Loving Nicole (13 page)

“Fuck, Boss, what’s going on?” Freak asks, as Bull, Frog, Dancer, and Hawk come running.

I look at Bull. He’s club enforcer I know, but he’s also the one Nicole trusts the most, besides me and Crusher.

“I need you to go after Nicole, get the other women and take them all to the club. Get Six and the prospects and put the club on lockdown. Don’t let her leave, Bull, she’s going to want to. You can’t let that happen.”

“Boss…,” Bull starts to argue. I just shake my head no.

“Please man, she’s not thinking with her head right now.” I’ve never said please to one of my brothers before. Fuck, other than it having to do with Nicole and sex, I don’t think the word is in my vocabulary.

Bull must understand how desperate I am. He nods, slaps me on the shoulder. I toss him my keys to the Tahoe I drove this morning.

“Take Frog with you.”

He nods and starts to turn away.

“Bull?”

“Yeah, Boss?”

“Keep her safe.” He gives me a grim smile, takes the keys and tosses them to Frog.

“I got my truck. I’ll pick Nic up. You get the other girls and get them to the club,” Bull tells Frog and I agree. I need everyone safe and accounted for.

“I’ll go help Hawk settle the crowd and have the girls meet me out front. We’ll be there in thirty or forty minutes at the most,” Frog says. Bull waves in acknowledgment and then takes off.

“I want Kavanagh found, and I want him found like yesterday. You feel me?” I tell the other men. They nod in agreement. “Freak, you’re in charge, do whatever you have to do, call in any marker, make a deal with the fucking devil himself! I do not care, but I want the fucker under surveillance by nightfall. Hawk, go with Frog, shut the wedding down and make sure the women are back at the club, safe. Dance, you’re with me.” I turn away ignoring everyone else, still clutching the box in my hand.

“Drag, man, what the fuck happened?”

I shove the box at him.

“He sent Nicole a present! Dani’s motherfucking finger! I want him found then I’m going to kill him!”

“Fuck…”

“Yeah.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I got a plan. He thinks he has brought us down and has Nicole and Dani where he wants them. I’m going to let him think he’s won.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I’ll explain on the way back to the club. Any luck finding Crusher yet?”

“No, man. Freak has a few of the new prospects out searching for him in the usual haunts, he’ll show soon.”

“Let’s hope so. I need him but only if his head is clear.”

“Well, that box ain’t going to help.”

I don’t argue. I know it won’t.

“Where’s your ride?” I ask. “You can drive while I fill you in on what I want to do to trap this fuck-wad.”

“Parked beside yours, man.”

I let him lead and glance over my shoulder, one last time, in the direction that Nicole disappeared to. I hope Bull can keep her from leaving the compound. I know she has it in her head to go to Kavanagh, and that can’t happen.

We pile into the Tahoe. I watch through the windshield, as Freak, Hawk and Frog walk back towards the main chapel. The sight of the church hurts me. Fuck, Nicole may never talk to me again.

My phone rings and I look at the number on the display.
Shit.
I wonder what other fuck-ups happened today.

“Yeah motherfucker, want to tell me where you’ve been?”

“Drag, listen quick man.”

Crush’s voice comes over my phone, there are pops and crackling in the line and I can barely make him out.

“Where in fuck are you? Do you know what went down today?”

“Do…. Use… today…”

“What are you saying asshole, I can barely hear you?”

“Man… Car… Just now… got Dani but …”

“You got Dani? Fuck, man your signal sucks. Where’d you find her? We’ll…”

“Listen can’t…. you got to….use it today…get Freak to…”

The phone goes dead with me holding it in my hand.

What the fuck?

Dancer starts the vehicle up and Frog walks by with a slap on our hood. He climbs into my vehicle as I turn back to Dancer.

“What was that?”

“Crusher, I couldn’t make out what he said, he said he had Dani… but he was trying to tell me something. Shit man, I couldn’t make a…”

I don’t get the chance to finish my sentence. The world erupts as pain hits me everywhere all at once and in all directions. An explosion blasts and heat rocks through the air.

Nicole

I
t’s that moment
when you think life has reached rock bottom. That very second you feel part of you shrivel in despair. I’ve hit the bottom. There’s no way I can feel worse.

I am wrong.

I leave Dragon behind. It hurts to look at him. I told him all along, but I can’t let him shoulder the blame. I went through with it, knowing that Michael would retaliate if I went against him. I just didn’t want to hurt Dragon. I wanted to be his wife. I was
selfish
. Is Dani still alive? Did the bastard kill her? I’m so engrossed in my thoughts, I’m not noticing anything around me. Which is a shame. I’m sure a bride with a stomach that looks like she swallowed three watermelons whole, hoofing it down the sidewalk of downtown London just as it starts to rain (which by the fucking way is just a cherry on top of a sundae) is a sight to see.

I scream when I feel a hand clamp around my shoulder. I expect to see Dragon. Part of me is disappointed when I don’t. Which is crazy, since I walked away from him. Instead, there is Bull looking down at me.

“Need to get you back.”

“I’m not getting married today, Bull,” I argue, my voice is almost as hoarse as Bull’s.

“I know. We still need to get you back to the compound where it’s safe.”

“I told Dragon we shouldn’t have done this,” I whisper looking down at the ground.

“A man can’t bow down to others in this world, Nicole. You do and you’re weak and you lose it all.”

“So you do things that hurt people in your lives and say the hell with it because of pride?” The thought of Dragon being that way pains me.

Bull puts his hand under my chin, pulling my face back towards his.

“If men like Dragon don’t stand strong, more than just Dani would suffer, Nicole. Drag carries a heavy load.”

“She could be dead, Bull.”

“Nothing Dragon could have done, would change that, Nicole. You two needed to come to him sooner. A man can only work with the hand he’s dealt.”

I look at him and I know what he is saying, but I don’t have to like it. Still, I know he’s saying the straight up truth. If I could go back, I would talk to Dragon the minute we first got Michael’s note.

“Let’s get in the truck. It might not be safe here.”

I nod, following him like a lost lamb. Once we get settled, he starts the truck and turns on some music. We drive down the road in silence. Bull doesn’t talk much and I can’t function enough to talk. If I close my eyes I can still see Dani’s finger. The bastard took the time to clean the finger and wipe any blood around it. He placed her pinky finger into the box, like a fucking trophy. Was she alert when he did it? Did she know?
God, is she breathing
?

A fire truck passes us with its sirens on and pulls me from my morbid thoughts.

A few minutes after that an ambulance and a rescue squad truck go by.

“Wonder what happened?” I question out loud.

Bull remains silent. When we pass two more emergency vehicles, I notice he is watching them in his side mirror. He still doesn’t say anything. So I shrug it off. Maybe I’ll hear what happened on the news tonight. If I even stick around. I figure Michael will contact me. Do I go to him? If I don’t will he kill Dani? Has he already? If I do, he’ll kill both of us. Unless…I manage to kill him first…

Bull’s cell phone rings and distracts me before I can continue planning. I need a plan…

“Yeah?”

“Fuck! Who’s hurt?”

“We’ll be right there!” Bull yells into his phone and immediately starts cutting into the opposite lane to make a U-turn. He swerves yet again before our turn is complete. This time he cuts back in our original direction and lets out a stream of cuss words that would make a sailor blush. “Fuck! I need to be there! Yeah, okay but you better tell me the minute you know something you son of a bitch.”

He growls, tossing his phone onto the empty part of the seat between us.

“Bull, what’s wrong?”

“There was an explosion at the church…”

“Oh no! Bull, we have to go back!”

“I can’t the cops aren’t letting anyone in and I’m supposed to take you home and keep you safe until…”

“Screw that! You can turn around or I can jump out and walk back!” I argue.

Bull seems to have a war with himself, but in the end, decides to turn around. He flies, heading for the church. I know we’re breaking new speed records getting there, but it seems like we’re crawling. As we approach the church, I can see smoke and police cars blocking the road. Blue and red sirens are going crazy and there are uniformed cops standing in front of squad cars, blocking the main entrance. It’s far enough away that I can’t get a good look. I take off running, my arms cradling my stomach. These damn heels keep me from being able to get any speed, so I kick them off. I reach the cops and they try to hold me back, but by this time I can see Dragon’s Tahoe and the one beside it—or what is left of them. They are charred and smoking and one of them is still burning. The flames are engulfing the seats on the inside. You can make out nothing, but the heat, even at this distance, is stifling. I scream trying to get through. I need to find Dragon… I need, oh God, I
need
to find Dragon.

I feel a new hand on my shoulder and the ones around my chest lose some of their rigidness. I could get away now, go to the cars. I could, but Bull’s voice and the pain in it stops me.

“Nic girl,” he says and his words are quiet, but they reach the haze I’m in, and I am in a
haze
. I don’t even know half of what I’m feeling, I have no idea of anything around me. I am in
shock
. I look up at him, and the pain in his eyes pierce my heart. Standing beside him is Dancer, his face black, cuts scattered across his face. There are bandages seeped with blood on his hands, but it’s his eyes that pull me in. Dancer has these brown eyes that have always caught my attention, but now there is something else in them. Something I don’t want to see. So, I turn from them. Looking at Bull, praying for something different from him. I shake my head back and forth in denial of words not spoken aloud, but that are heavy in the smoke filled air.

“Nic, girl…,” he repeats again. With just those two words, Bull pulls me in. His gruff, quiet voice sinks deep into my heart, and the dam breaks. The tears that were streaming down my face are nothing compared to the sobs that rock through me as I collapse against him.

“No!” I scream out in anguish. “No,” I moan against his chest. The single word extending out as if it was the longest word in the English language. Bull tightens his hold and keeps me from falling to my knees. “Dragon…” I cry out again.

“I’m sorry, Nic. I’m so fucking sorry.”

I don’t know who said that. I don’t even care. I’m too lost in misery.

I’m too…
lost
.

Crusher

T
here is a
limit to what the human spirit and body can bear. I watched it accumulate for years with my mom. She was broken. She was dead inside way before her old man dealt the final death blow. So seeing Dani now curled in a corner, her face unrecognizable. Her body so beaten, so bruised and bloody that she looks as if she has been hit by a semi-truck—my heart stops.

I wasn’t honest with Dragon. Maybe, I should have been. If I had told him how far I went to get the smallest glimmer of information from the rat he was planning on letting loose, what would he have done?

Would he have congratulated me, patted me on the back? Would he have told me I did a good job? Somehow I highly doubted it. So? I kept shit to myself, buried the body out in the forest away from hiking trails and set about finding Dani.

This Kavanagh’s patsy we captured, did indeed know next to nothing. He let something slip though, as I was branding off anything that might be used for identification purposes. Whoever hired him, it wasn’t Kavanagh himself. It was someone different and in one of their conversations the man had mentioned an old Tobacco Barn on Route 11. That small morsel of information allowed me to finally give him what he had been begging me for. Death. I thought about waiting to see if it panned out, but truly he didn’t know anything else and I was running out of things to torture him with.

Part of my stomach twisted at the shit I did to him. Then I would shrug it off and picture Dani and what I knew was happening to her. I don’t know how I knew she hadn’t got away,
I just did
. Sometimes her face in my thoughts would be overshadowed by that of another—a woman from my past I couldn’t help. So, I know I’m not acting rationally. I can’t stop it, and most of me just doesn’t give a fuck by this point.

I did take the time to bury the body, even though a huge part of me didn’t want to. Then I hightailed it out to the old barn to see if there were any signs of life. Now, I’m standing outside of the barn peeking through a large crack. Dani, and to be honest I can only tell it is Dani by the mass of thick brunette hair, is curled in a half ball. She is so beaten, swollen and bruised it doesn’t even look like it could be her. Her thick half-curly, brunette hair says it
is
though, even if it’s caked in dirt and blood. Off from her are three men in suits standing and talking back and forth like they don’t have a care in the world. I start to go in immediately and take them all out at once. It doesn’t matter that there are three of them and only one of me. I have surprise on my side. I even start to do it, when I hear one of the men talking…

“I planted the bomb in Dragon’s vehicle. It’ll go off when he takes it out of park.”

One man hits the guy who just spoke up on the back of the head.

“It didn’t go off earlier today.”