Page 55 of Tattooed Love

“You will set the alarms off again,” Adam said, frowning at my cigarette. I gave him a ‘shut the hell up’ look.

I pulled my phone out. It was nearly three in the morning! It took Jax over an hour to sew her up. When he was done, he had carried her up to her bedroom, which had been hours ago.

I glanced at the closed door. He had another thing coming if he believed we would just leave him in there with her.

I had watched him take his time sew her up. I had seen the protection in his eyes, as well as something else - something I had never seen in his eyes.

And I had known Jax for a long time. So it was fair to say I knew most of his expressions. But the expression on his face as he sewed Amber up – well, it was new.

Turning around, I pushed the door open. The room was in darkness, and then my eyes adjusted. Jax was sitting in a chair he had pulled up to Amber’s bed side. Sitting there with his arms crossed, his eyes were narrowed as I strolled into the room.

Adam and Tyler were on my tail, like scared puppies or something. Walking to Amber’s balcony door, I cracked it open, tossed the cigarette to the ground, and then stomped on it. Closing the door behind me, I walked back to Amber’s bed. Her face was pale, and if it wasn’t for the slow rising and falling of her chest, she could pass for a corpse.

Tyler kneeled at the opposite side of the bed from Jax, and took Amber’s hand in his.

“What are we going to do?” He whispered, stroking the back of Amber’s hand.

“We do nothing,” Jax grunted. “I’ll take care of it. It’s my fault.”

“Your fault?” I arched an eyebrow.

Jax didn’t look at me; he just kept his eyes on Amber. “They saw me with her at the mall. Clearly, they made a connection between the two of us, and after what we did the other night, Amber got serviced with my payback.”

“That was a club vote,” I pointed out. “We all made that choice.”

“And we will all be dealing with this,” Adam huffed. “She’s our sister Jax. Our flesh and blood has taken the hit. This is personal.”

Running my hand through my short hair, I took a deep breath. “He’s right. We all deal with this together. As a club.”

“Amber has been scarred because of us. She is probably going to wear that mark for the rest of her life,” Troy piped in from the door. I hadn’t even noticed him come in. I watched him step out of the shadows. “She has been marked; we all know what that means for her.”

My lips tightened as I attempted to suppress the rage within. “So what do we do?” I spoke up to the room.

“We take a club vote, pull the boys in.” Troy said firmly “Then decide on payback.”

“There won’t be payback.”

I snapped my head around to look at Jax, and stared in disbelief. He was kidding right? Us Shields wouldn’t just sit back and take this; not when one of our family had been hurt.

“We show a united front. Call all MC’s and pull in our alliances. I’m declaring a war.” Jax’s voice echoed around the room.

War. A full bloody bikie war? Over this?

“Over this?” I choked out, not meaning to speak out loud. “Why?”

“It’s been coming for a while. I had chosen to ignore the threat butThe Pythonshave been invading our runs, stealing business from us. It’s time they were dealt with.”

Jax was high up enough to declare a war, and all brothering clubs would have to follow his orders.

Everything Jax had just said was the truth, but we wanted to call this what it really was. Jax was ticked off because someone he cared about had got hurt because, for the first time, Jax actually had someone to care about, and, as luck would have it, it was our sister.

Chapter 14

Cole

“This doesn’t make sense,” I hissed at Troy as he closed his bedroom door and we were finally alone. “You and I both know what this means for the club.”

“We can’t challenge Jax,” Troy said, as he ran a hand through his hair. He pulled out a cigarette. “He’s got a thing for Amber.”

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