Page 28 of Hell & Back

By the time he got back inside, Bellamy and the others were in the front of her store talking to two police officers. He smiled behind his hand as he witnessed all four women trying to talk at the same time, arms flailing and all. Harper’s crying just added more to the already chaotic mess. By the time the police officers had their stories, he could clearly see how frazzled they were and more than happy to be done with the interviews.

Now, he needed to get the women, including Martha and Cathy for now, to the clubhouse, get it locked down, then meet his brothers at the cabin, or what they liked to call Hotel Pain.

KYLIE

Kylie sat at her desk watching Tuck lounge on her couch, scrolling through his phone. Having him here doing something so mundane as that warmed her heart. She’d come so close to losing him that if she could find some way to keep both of them with her at all times or maybe mirochipping them, she could rest easier. Darren being kidnapped by the Phantoms only served to prove life was way too fragile.

She mentally scolded herself for ever thinking about trying to keep them at her side. They would balk at the idea the same way she would. She released a frustrated sigh and told herself to get back to work. She was trying to run down leads on where the Phantoms might have taken Darren.

Raised voices coming from the common room startled her, causing her heart rate to jump. With all the horrible crap going on with the Phantoms, the first thing to come to mind was thatthey were being attacked. Then it registered the voices she was hearing sounded a lot like women and they were all talking over each other. “What the?” She looked to Tuck and saw he was as confused as she was.

Tuck frowned and dropped his feet to the floor. It took a little effort, but he managed to get himself up and moving with the help of his cane. He wasn’t quick enough to hide his limp or how heavily he was relying on his cane. He’d had physical therapy this morning for the first time and the soreness in his leg was to be expected. She thought that he was doing too much. He disagreed, saying until they found Darren, he didn’t have time to sit back and wait for his leg to heal. At least the gunshot wound to his side was healing nicely and not giving him too much trouble.

“Stay behind me,” he motioned for her to follow. Since Darren was taken, no one was taking any chances. Frankly, she was surprised Race hadn’t locked everyone down.

She almost bumped into Tuck when he stopped at the end of the hallway. She wasn’t sure what they were seeing. It was chaos. Race was trying to get Bellamy, now seven months pregnant, to have a seat on the couch. From the looks of it, she didn’t want to sit down. She was talking animatedly with her hands, saying something about her shooting a man. What? At the same time, Martha was standing at her granddaughter’s side, also speaking loudly at Race. To his credit, he hadn’t yelled at them to all “shut the fuck up.” He was getting close to doing just that if the redness in his face and his pinched mouth was any indication.

Cathy, an employee at Bellamy’s store, Bling, was also here. That didn’t make sense. Shouldn’t someone be at the store right now? Kylie glanced at the clock above the bar and saw that it was definitely time for the shop to be open. Had something happened at the store?

Calliope took a seat in one of the recliners with Harper asleep in her arms. She looked a little frazzled. Where was Jackson?

Off to the side and a little closer to where Kylie and Tuck were standing, she heard Dagger say, “It’s okay, Ginny girl. Once we deal with the one we caught, we’ll get all the shops up and running again.” He had her wrapped tight in his arms, holding her head to his chest. Kylie had never heard Dagger talk so soft and sweet to Ginny before. She always found him to be more of a loud goofball, always poking the bear with the other brothers. This side of him was sweet and she wasn’t sure what to do with that. From what she’d heard being around the Sons and their families, Ginny was always considered the more serious, responsible one with a spine of steel. Whatever happened had to have been bad.

Bellamy wandered over to Dagger and Ginny with Race following behind her with an exasperated scowl on his face. “They can fix your salon first, Ginny,” Bellamy smiled and patted her arm.

“Are you sure?” Ginny’s smile wobbled as she fought not to cry.

“Absolutely. You have a schedule you need to keep and my clients can order online from my store if they want something before we reopen Bling.”

“Come on, baby. You need to have a seat. You’ve been through a lot and I’d feel better knowing you’re taking it easy.” Bellamy must have seen that Race needed to take care of her, so she nodded and waddled over to the couch where Martha had already taken a seat. She was talking to Cathy who sat in one of the chairs diagonal to her.

Tuck took Kylie’s hand in his and headed for Race.

“Ginny, why don’t you go join the other old ladies?” Dagger’s shoulders relaxed as she tipped up on her toes and kissed him. He watched her make her way to the group, sitting on theloveseat. Dagger’s expression turned hard as he refocused his attention on Race. “This is fucking shit,” he growled.

“What’s going on, Race?” Tuck asked when they joined them.

Kylie had never seen Race look so angry.“Ink Envy, Bling and Ginny’s shop all got shot up.”

“What?” Tuck couldn’t believe it.

“Yeah.” He motioned for him to follow him to the bar.

“Baby, why don’t you go have a seat with the other old ladies?”

She didn’t want to go sit with the other women. She wanted to go to the bar and find out all the details the men were going to keep from their wives. Instead, she kissed his cheek and found a seat on the couch with Bellamy and Martha. She looked everyone over and was happy to see no one had any injuries. At least there was that. “What is going on? Someone shot up your businesses?”

“Yes. We heard gun shots coming from the direction of Ink Envy first and before we could register what was going on, there were gun shots coming through the front windows of Bling. Thank God we were all in the back in the break room. Before it even sank in that we were hearing gunfire, someone was kicking in my back door. He had a gun out and I guess he was coming after us. I don’t know if he intended to shoot us or take us. Regardless, I shot the asshole first.”

“You shot the guy?” Kylie shouldn’t be surprised. Bellamy had practically ripped a teenagers testicles off after he posted lies about Races, daughter, Liza, online. She also got involved in a gunfight trying to protect the girl from human traffickers.

“Yeah. I wasn’t taking a chance he might shoot one of us and I only shot him in the shoulder. Grandma Martha got a few good hits in with a broom and Cathy held a spray bottle of bleach in his face and told him not to move.” Bellamy smiled ather coworker. Cathy giggled and shared a look with Bellamy and Martha.

“Wow. Look at you all pregnant and badass.” Kylie thought she might want to be the other woman when she grew up.

“Yes, and Race doesn’t know whether to be happy I can take care of myself or be pissed that I have to,” Bellamy shared with them. “Anyway, after we had the jerk face down on the floor, Jackson and Dagger came in through the broken door and Race and Chris came in through the front.”

“I’m so glad everyone is okay.” After everything with Tuck and Darren, she wasn’t sure she could handle much more. “How are you holding up, Martha?”

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