Page 34 of Sparrow

“Wait!” she tried to call through the grunts. It hurt. Her face and neck throbbed as she tried to avoid hitting her cheek against any of the out-of-state men.

Just as she got to the center of the fighting circle, she heard the click. Standing behind the two Odin’s Fury cuts, she locked eyes with Bowie, who aimed his Glock at Jacob. She couldn’t move. Even her heart felt as though it stopped in her chest.

Another click drew her attention, a man pointed what looked like an old revolver at Bowie.

“You shoot my boy, there is gonna be hell to pay,” a man with a southern accent drawled in the most casual of ways.

Officially, this had gotten out of hand.

“No one puts unwanted hands on club property,” Bowie growled before glaring at the man training a gun on him. “Whoever has, this is the consequence,” he said before flicking the safety back on his gun and putting it back in its holster.

The other man kept his gun on Bowie. Sparrow looked over the man with the fu-manchu. Turn the clock back a few years, drop maybe forty pounds, and he was a dead ringer. WithVice Presidentstitched onto his cut, she assumed him to be Jacob’s father.

Club property.

The phrase finally caught up with her. Bowie thought Jacob hurt her. He said she was Ohio’s property. Fuck. He thought he needed to protect her from Jacob. Of course, he did—he didn’t see him as a true brother. “Bowie!” she yelled.

“You two fuckheads get in church,” the Ohio president ordered, oblivious to her call for him.

An older man with a gray beard matching long gray hair turned behind Bowie and headed for the room, the sacred room. Jacob and Pipes followed the club president.

She tried to follow. She didn’t want anyone to be shot. She wanted to stop it all, but she couldn’t. The sea of Odin’s Fury cuts blocked her path. Bowie had made this club business now, and she couldn’t interfere with club business. Right?

Once the door to the meeting room closed, after quite a few side steps, the circle of men around her broke up. Spreading out, they formed small groups here and there. Seeing her opportunity, she charged for the door to church.

“Hey.” The soft voice drew Sparrow’s attention as Jacob’s father approached.Texwas stitched above his officer patch. “My boy didn’t do this to you,” he declared.

She looked beyond him, trying to find a path around him. She didn’t have time to chit chat. She needed to make her way to that room where the men went.

“I raised him better than that. My Ol’ Lady will be the first to tan his hide if he even thought of it.” His tone grew in anger as he got closer. The twang did nothing to lessen the fury.

“Tex, man,” someone said in an attempt to intervene.

“Fuck off, Clark. I wanna know why she’s pointing the finger at my boy.”

“She’s not,” Clark, the man from Bowie’s office, shouted.

He didn’t bump her, but she could feel his presence. She sensed that he had put himself between her and the advancing Tex. She needed to move past them.

“Then why the hell is he in there?” Tex shouted. “All she has to do is talk, tell ’em who did it. Fuck, don’t tell ’em, just tell ’em it ain’t Romeo.”

“You want another brother facing down a gun?” Clark snarled.

“I want the shit who fucked up her face to go to Nástrond,” he growled back. “And that ain’t my fuckin’ kid.”

“It wasn’t Jacob.” Sparrow finally found her voice.

Chapter 22

Romeo

Shuffling into church, Romeo flopped down onto the chair facing the door with a groan. The soreness in his chest when he inhaled hinted toward a cracked rib, but he couldn’t be sure. Either way, nothing he could do about it now, so he ran his hand over the injury tentatively so as not to aggravate it.

Keeping his focus trained on Pipes, he watched the sweating man take a seat opposite him. Resting his elbows on the table, he narrowed his eyes at Romeo. The biker sat back in the chair and turned his focus toward the two presidents in an attempt to show just how little regard he had for the junkie.

The pathetic piece of shit should burn for what he did. Sparrow wasn’t just some bitch. She was a fucking club daughter. Didn’t that mean fuck all in this shit hole of a club? Bowie had screwed shit up more than anyone thought if that wasn’t crystal fucking clear.

Resting his gun on the table, Bowie placed his palms down and bent over the head of it. His glare cut from one man to the other, but he said nothing. Monty stood to his right, his arms folded over his chest with his chin high. His own black eyes shifted left and right as though assessing the two young men.

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