Page 53 of Ace

Rattler and Beast came into the room, quickly followed by Shadow.

“Your woman okay?”Rattler eyed up the bloody mess on the carpet.

“A few bumps and bruises, but she’ll be okay.Joker can check her out.”

“She did a fine fucking job on that asshole.”

“She did.I’m damn proud of her right now.”I made sure Emma heard me.“That’s one piece of shit that’s not going to hurt anyone ever again.”

“Good shooting.”As always, Beast used as few words as possible, but they conveyed his approval.

“You want me to open a line to our friends to let them know how it went?”Shadow phrased the question carefully, but I was done with hiding shit from Emma.

“Send the Feds a message to let them know it’s done.I’ll talk details with them later.”

“Will do.”Shadow turned and left the room.

I rested my chin on Emma’s head and inhaled her sweet scent.I could have lost her tonight.But I didn’t.Hell, we didn’t lose any of the guys.I had a cut on my leg where a knife had bit through my leather chaps, but the bleeding wasn’t all that bad.Joker could throw a few of those butterfly strips on it for me.A couple of the guys had minor wounds but only one required a trip to the hospital.I credited the element of surprise coupled with good old-fashioned teamwork for the lack of casualties.

As if she could read my mind, Emma’s lifted her head, her hand going to my thigh.“You’re hurt!”

“Not a big deal.Joker will take care of it.”

Emma sat up straight, her face drawn in determined lines.“Take your pants off.I want to see how bad it is.”

Behind her, I could see Rattler and Beast grinning like idiots.Apparently watching their President get ordered around by a woman amused them.I glared at them.

“How about we do this up in my room?”I lifted her chin with one finger.

She pursed her lips.“Okay.”She slid off my lap and waited for me to stand up.“Anyone else hurt?”

Didn’t look like she planned to waste any time feeling guilty over killing a man.That boded well for when we had the talk about the future.Our future.Not saying she’d have to do it again, but the possibility was there.

It also pointed to the fact that she understood the difference between the law and justice.The law would have that asshole out on bail in under a day.Justice made sure he’d never hurt anyone again.

“Tiny took a strike to the ribs.Flak jacket stopped the bullet, but the impact bruised his ribs up something fierce.Blast went down with his bike on top of him, so he’s pretty bruised up.Going to have to rest up for a week or so while he turns pretty colors.Nothing too bad though.Deuce is the worst hit.Took a nasty slash to his face.Those guys were fond of their knives.He’s in emergency getting it stitched up.Missed his eye, but not by much.”

“He’ll be okay, though?”

I felt a twinge of jealousy at the concern in her voice.Yeah, I was that far gone.Like a caveman, drag her home by her hair and lock her up just for me gone.Of course, she’d kick my ass if I even tried to lock her down, so I just shrugged.“It’ll probably leave a scar, but he’ll be fine.It will give him something to brag about at the next club party.”

I took her hand and shouldered our way past Rattler and Beast who seemed to be fascinated by her quick recovery.I twisted my head back as we headed out of the door.

“You guys might want to do something about the carpet.Bloodstains ain’t coming out of that one.”

We climbed the stairs in silence, holding hands like we’d been doing this for years.When we entered my room, Emma closed the door behind me with a gentle click.“Get those pants off.”

* * *

Emma

In my head I knew I should be more worried about having killed a guy.Hell, I could go to jail.Or worse.Did Georgia still have the death penalty?Self-defense was a good reason, though, right?Ace told the guys to clean up the mess.Did that mean they were going to hide the body?Or dump it somewhere?Did that make them accessories to murder?I didn’t want to get anyone else in trouble.

I took a deep breath and ordered myself to ignore the whole shooting thing.Ace and Riptide would take care of it.That’s what they did: they took care of things, and they protected people.

Some punk had sliced Ace’s leg.I needed to make sure he was okay.The dead guy would still be dead tomorrow, and frankly if I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t do it any differently.It had been him or me, and I wasn’t ready to die yet.I had too much to live for.

Ace.I had my future with Ace to live for, and no two-bit pimp was going to take that away from me.

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