Page 65 of Everest

“Talk.” Riggs is already on his feet.

“Men shot up Jonny’s. They took London.” The words feel like broken glass in my throat. “Catcher is down. Jonny says it’s bad.” I swallow hard.

Suddenly, everyone springs into action, rapidly checks their weapons, and approaches the door, each step fueled by urgency as Riggs barks orders. “Nova, Kiwi. Stay here. Lock this place down tight. If there’s any activity outside this clubhouse, shoot first.”

The air is thick and charged with the pressure you feel in your chest before lightning strikes as we burst through the clubhouse door. No one speaks. We’re all locked in and focused. Me? I’m riding a razor-thin edge between fury and control while my pulse jackhammers in my throat.

I throw my leg over my bike, start the engine, and twist the throttle, kicking up gravel and dust as I pull away. Leaving the clubhouse in my wake, my brothers behind me, our tires scream against the asphalt.

By the time we roll up to Jonny’s, the scene is a damn war zone of flashing red and blue lights. We park our bikes where we can and push through the building crowd just as Catcher is being hauled out on a stretcher, with an EMT actively performing CPR. My boots hit the pavement hard as I rush toward him. His cut is soaked through, red blooming across his chest and abdomen. There’s so much of it. His skin is pale and he looks like death.

The first responders waste no time loading our brother into the back of the ambulance and taking off.

My stomach sinks as I stand with Riggs, Wick, and Fender, our eyes fixed on the ambulance’s taillights.

“He’s a fighter. He’ll pull through,” Riggs says, but uncertainty lingers in his tone. There’s something unsettling in the air, an unspoken fear that clings to us all like a heavy fog as the ambulance disappears.

My gaze drifts and lands on Jonny sitting on the curb, hunched and clutching a blood-soaked towel to his forearm. His usually neat white hair is stained red, plastered to his forehead. His glasses are missing, and his lip is split.

The three of us push through the crowd that has gathered. I crouch in front of Jonny. He spots us. “Footage is in the back of my office. PasswordWhodat.” He holds out a key. “Office door is locked,” he says.

Riggs grabs the key, passing it to Fender. “Get the footage.” He looks down the sidewalk, and I shift my attention to a cop he’s locked in on. “Wick, you and Everest stay with Jonny. I’m gonna buy Fender time to get what we need,” Riggs says and walks away.

Jonny hangs his head. “I’m so fucking sorry.” He looks up at me, then stares past me with a glassy look in his eyes.

My hands curl into fists so tight my knuckles pop.

Another ambulance rolls onto the scene. I stand slowly, rage pulsing in my veins. I don’t speak as the EMTs approach us. I’ve got nothing against Jonny. He did what he could. My anger is directed at the men who took my woman and are the reason my brother is fighting for his life.

“You hear these motherfuckers say anything. A name?”

Jonny squeezes his eyes shut, attempting to remember any detail that will help give us direction. “I’m sorry, no.” Jonny is loaded onto a stretcher, but before they roll him away, he grabs my arm. “Make them pay,” he says, his voice taking on a darker tone.

Wasting no more time, Wick and I slip past the yellow tape and enter the liquor store. Inside, it looks like a scene out of a movie—nothing I haven’t seen before, but it hits differently. There are collapsed shelves throughout the store, bottles of liquor shattered, broken glass everywhere, and the linoleum floor is covered with a thick layer of red. Near the register,slumped in another pool of blood, is the guy Catcher took down, his mask half off his face, and a bullet right through the temple.

A few seconds later, we’re crammed into Jonny’s office at the rear of the store. Fender has the security footage pulled up with a multiscreen feed from the store. He’s hacked into the city and parish traffic systems in another window. We watch in horror as the scene unfolds on the computer screen. My heart races, and a cold wave of dread washes over me when I see my brother being shot. As the chaos continues, my eyes fixate on my woman fighting for her life before being taken. A knot tightens in my stomach. Then, Fender focuses on time-stamped images from the traffic cams.

“There.” He points. “The same van headed east. I lose them after they leave the main roads.”

“Where’s the last ping?” Riggs asks.

“Industrial zone. There are no cameras out there. Just warehouses, junkyards, and this.” He clicks a thumbnail, pulling up a satellite image of a dilapidated, abandoned hotel busted and surrounded by cracked asphalt and overgrowth.

“That’s the old Admiral Inn. It’s been vacant for years, used by squatters, drug deals, and it’s a known sex trafficking drop point.”

My pulse spikes.

“Then that’s where we look first,” Riggs says.

We head to our bikes, and a short time later, we roll up on the old, ground-level hotel. The place looks like a graveyard, long abandoned, half swallowed by weeds and rot. The air out here is heavy, stagnant, and sour. Thick with something vile. Worst of all is the silence. We dismount fast, weapons drawn.

“We clear it room by room,” Riggs orders, his tone leaves no room for argument.

Wick breaks off toward the back of the building. Riggs moves south. I head north, weapon drawn, heart thundering, and London on my mind.

I enter the first room, the hinges creaking, and step inside. The stench of mildew, mixed with rat feces, hits me first. My boots crunch over broken glass and used needles. The room is empty. There’s nothing here but a reminder of how far people can fall. I move on to the room next door. There’s a stained mattress on the floor, restraints hanging from an eye hook on the wall above it.

That sight alone nearly drops me to my knees.

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