Raw: The Ultimate Mc Collection (135 page)

Harley smirked, his voice laced with sarcasm.

“Goodbye, Sergio,” he said quietly.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Mason

My heart soared when I saw Rebel.  It took all my strength not to rush over and pull her into my arms, ensuring she would be safe for the rest of her life.  There was no way in hell I was going to let anyone ever touch her again, and I was filled with gratitude just to be in the same room with her again.

But I couldn’t.  Not yet.  First, we had to deal with Sergio.

When I saw the twitch in Harley’s jaw out of the corner of my eye, I knew this wasn’t over.   And I knew it wasn’t going to end without blood on the floor.

The only question was whose blood it was going to be.

I had known Harley since we were kids, and there was one thing that never changed about him.  He never let someone get away with betraying him.  He was never one to start a fight, but he would never walk away from one that someone else started with him.

And he never lost.

Not once.

Sergio didn't know that, and I’m sure he wasn’t a fearful man, either.  But he was definitely underestimating Harley if he thought he was going to walk away from this unscathed.

When I heard the disdain and seething anger in Harley’s voice, I knew it was going to go down now and that he had no intention of watching Sergio walk out of this warehouse.

And I was right.

I shoved Rebel behind me as soon as Sergio turned to walk away.  Harley took two steps after him, and pointed his gun directly to the back of Sergio’s head.  The click of Harley’s gun echoed loudly, the only sound in the warehouse.

Sergio froze and then everything seemed to happen in slow motion after that.  

Instead of slowly turning around as Harley instructed, Sergio jerked around quickly, using his elbow to hit Harley in the face.  Harley’s gun went off as he fell to the ground, at the same time that Sergio’s man shot in Harley’s direction, missing him.

I only had one thing in mind, and that was to keep Rebel and Harley safe.  She had moved away from me, instead of standing behind me, and I dove in front of her, my gun exploding loudly as I shot Sergio’s man before he could take another shot in Harley’s direction.  He turned towards me, his gun exploding at the same time that I hit him.  He crumpled beside Sergio just as Sergio fired his gun in my direction.

I didn’t feel it at first.  

Rebel was screaming behind me, and a loud thump echoed in my head as my body fell hard to the ground at her feet.

That’s when the burning started.  A wet, hot heat radiated through my body and I began coughing and choking as blood began pouring out of my mouth.

The sound of footsteps running away, and the tears falling down Rebel’s beautiful face as she held me in her lap, were the last things I was aware of before I drifted away into unconsciousness. 

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Harley

I fucked up.

My exhaustion, my anger, my pride, my frustration — all of it got in the way of any clear, logical thinking I might normally possess — and I fucked up.  Bigger than I had ever fucked up before.

As Rebel and I sat outside of the clubhouse, I was chain-smoking and pacing, shaking with fear and worry and the sick feeling of doom settling deeply in the pit of my stomach.

“Rebel, this is all my fault.  I’m so sorry.  I’m sorry I’ve been such an awful brother, and I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all this.  I should have taken you away, I should’ve done so many fucking things differently, and this is all my fault.”

I walked over to her, pulling her shaking body into my arms.  She was covered in Mason’s blood, and the look on her face was pure shock.  

“We’re going to get through this.  We’re going to get through it together.  You just stay strong, Sis.  I promise you, everything is going to be okay.”

I felt like the worst person in the world.  What the fuck was I thinking putting the two people I loved most in the world at risk like that?  Mason and Rebel were the only real family I had left, outside of the brothers of the club, and it was my job to protect them.

Not open gunfire within ten feet of them because I couldn’t control my fucking anger!

I should have waited.  I should have let Sergio walk out of the warehouse and dealt with him later, with the force of the entire MC behind me.  Or, I should have just shot the weasly prick in the back of the head without saying a word as soon as he turned around.  

But I hadn’t.

And instead, everything had gone so horribly wrong so quickly.  And it was all my stupid fucking fault.  After Mason went down, I chased Sergio, gunning him down as he ran away, his body falling in a bloody heap outside.

“Shhh, Harley, stop it.  Stop blaming yourself,” Rebel said, her arms wrapped around me as we waited.

“I love you,” she whispered, melting in my arms.  “He’s going to be okay, right?”

“Yes, honey.  Dr. Bob’s going to take care of him.  He’s going to be good as new.  Mason’s the toughest guy I know, Rebel.  I promise you, he’s going to be just fine.”

I had called Bob, our doctor, as soon as I could.  Sometimes we needed to call him in emergency situations when we couldn’t go to the hospital.  If I took Mason to the hospital, the cops would have been on us in five minutes.  We rushed Mason back to the clubhouse and he met us there, bringing an assistant and closing everyone out of the back bedroom as soon as he got there.  They hooked Mason up to an IV, and set to work.

We kept Bob on a hefty retainer for his discretion at times like this, and tonight, I knew he was worth every penny.  If he could save Mason, I would have given him everything I owned. 

When he saved Mason, not if.  If wasn’t an option.  He had to save him.  

I had to keep faith.  For Rebel’s sake.  For Mason’s sake.  Fuck, for my sake.

I couldn’t live without Mason.  He was my best friend and as far as I was concerned, he was going to be my brother-in-law, too.

He had taken a bullet for my sister.  A bullet!  There was nobody in the world that would have done that.  No, Mason was a better man than anyone else I knew, and living without him was just not an option.

The fact that he had lost what seemed like galloons of blood in that warehouse was not lost on me, and I was tortured by visions of his blood pouring out of the gaping wound in his chest.  Dark red, seeping wounds flashed in the back of my mind as I kept trying to reassure Rebel and convince myself that he was going to be okay, all at the same time.

He just had to.  I wouldn’t accept anything else.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Rebel

The shaking was what I remembered most from that night.  

A deep, uncontrollable shaking that began at the deepest corners of my body, and radiated outward, until it wasn’t just my hands that were shaking, it wasn’t just my thighs, or my feet, it was every inch of my flesh that was quivering in fear.

The other thing I remember is the blood.  So much blood, more than I had ever seen in my life.  Mason’s blood.  And I was covered in it.  It was thick and sticky and dried quickly, congealing in streaks and splotches on my clothes, hands and face.  

Hours later, when I had finally taken a shower, it took long moments of scrubbing under the scalding hot water before I could get it all off of me.  By that time, the shaking had subsided, and I stood under the pelting hot water, watching the blood mix with the clean water and swirl down the drain at my feet.

I never expected things to turn out so badly.  When I made the decision to go to the warehouse that day, just to harmlessly watch Mason and Harley, I never imagined in a million years that Mason would be the one to pay for my childish mistake.

I felt like the worst person in the whole world, filled with the deepest regret and shame I had ever felt.  

All I could think about was how I was ever going to make it all up to him.  How I could ever convince him to forgive me.  Not just Mason, but Harley too.

I knew Harley blamed himself, and I felt awful about that, too.  I had barreled into their lives and turned everything upside down with my immature bullshit, and I deserved to be banished from their lives, no matter how much I loved them.

Harley and I had waited up until dawn, our hearts wracked with worry as Dr. Bob worked on Mason for hours.  When he finally came out to talk us, the sun was rising in the distance.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” he said solemnly.  “I removed the bullet from his chest.  It missed his heart, thankfully, but it nicked an artery on the way in, and we won’t know if he’s out of the woods for a while.”

“Can we see him?”  Harley asked beside me.

“You can go in and see him for a second, but he’s still sleeping and I don’t expect he’s going to wake up for a while. He’s going to need a lot of rest while he’s recovering.”

“Dr. Bob, thank you so much,” Harley said, shaking Dr. Bob’s hand vigorously.  

“It’s my pleasure, Harley.  Mason’s a good, strong man, he should pull through.”

I sighed in relief, grabbing Harley’s hand and pulling him into the room where Mason was.

His eyes were closed and he looked almost peaceful.  The room was filled with medical equipment - tubes and cords snaking around the floor at our feet as we stood at his bedside, staring down at him.

I grabbed his hand, and planted a kiss on his forehead. 

I gasped with joy as his eyes fluttered open.  His gaze went from Harley to me, and he smiled weakly.  

“Hey,” he whispered.

“Shh!” Harley said, “don’t talk, bro.”

“What happened?” he mumbled, his eyes darting around to take in his surroundings.

“You took a bullet, Mason.  You saved Rebel’s life.  You’re a hero,”  Harley said, his voice shaking.

“Are you two okay?” Mason asked.

“Yes, we’re fine, sweetheart,” I replied, stroking his hair and smiling at him through my tears.  Maybe he was going to pull through after all, I thought.  Maybe, somehow, some way, I would get a chance to make up for all of these mistakes.  Maybe if I loved him enough, it would cancel it all out somehow.

“Mason, listen, brother,” Harley said, “Dr. Bob is taking good care of you, and you’re gonna be up and back on your bike in no time at all.  I promise you.”

Mason’s eyes fluttered closed again for a second, then groggily he opened them once more, looking first at Harley, and then shining his gorgeous green eyes on me again.  I had never been so grateful to see a pair of eyes in my life.

“Rebel…” he said weakly.  

“Shh! Don’t talk, it’s okay.  We’ll have plenty of time to talk later,”  I leaned in and kissed his forehead.

“Rebel…” he said again, his voice barely above a whisper.

“What, my love?”

“I’m so…s-s-sorry,”  he struggled to get the words out, but when I realized he was apologizing, I cut him off again.

“Mason, no!  You have absolutely nothing to apologize for.  This is all my fault! Not yours, not Harley’s.  If I hadn’t been irresponsible and sticking my nose in your business, none of this would have happened.  No - don’t think for a minute that I’m going to let anyone else take the blame for this.”

“Rebel…”

“What is it, Mason?”  

“I was only going to apologize for bleeding all over you,” he said slowly, trying to smile.

I looked down at myself, and realized I must have been quite the sight.  Covered in blood, with hot tears streaking down my face, I realized that for the first time in my life, I was thinking about someone else instead of myself. 

I didn’t care that I was covered in Mason’s blood.  

I didn’t care that I had made a complete fool of myself.

I didn’t care that I was so far away from having my shit together that I couldn’t even see what my future looked like from here.

All I cared about was that Mason was okay, that Mason knew I was there for him, that Mason knew how much I appreciated his courage and that no matter what happened, what our future looked like together, that I loved him with all of my heart.

And I always would.