Page 4 of Waging War
I force thoughts of the motorcycle gang from my mind. Not because they intimidate me, but because anything to do with them immediately dredges up the memory of Hazel curled up on the bathroom floor where D, Jules, and I had found her.
Juliana assured her that I wasn’t one of the bad guys, but the man whose nose I broke earlier might beg to differ.
The tang of blood covers my skin and fills my nostrils, even though it’s long been washed away. Beating the piss out of that guy was one of the tamest things I’ve done this week, and had the idiot not been caught by another guard stealing from one of the casinos, I would have just let him go.
It doesn’t matter that I don’t want to rough people up or call the shots over the lower-ranking men. Just like it doesn’t matter that my head still buzzes over the memory of Hazel’s soft lips pressed against my cheek. This is what I have to do to save the ones I love.
Besides, Hazel doesn’t know I’m the reason she and Jules were taken to begin with, and I’d like to keep it that way.
Jackie’s had her locked away somewhere only he knows, hidden from her extended family for the last month and a half, and I shudder to think what that ball of fists and fury will do once she’s freed.
After what happened with her father, she’ll likely hunt me down first and chop my balls off. I grin at the thought. My balls might like an intimate interaction with little miss Hazel.
I bet she fucks like she rides.Hard.
“Benjamin, are you listening?”
I swipe around the floor for my briefs. “Sorry, bad connection. What was that?”
His silence screams ‘You’re full of shit,’but when he repeats himself, any prior thoughts of Hazel and the various positions I’d allow her to put me in evaporate like smoke.
“He’s awake.”
CHAPTERTWO
Ben
Ihate the smell of hospitals.
That sterile cleaner they use that’s meant to cover up the acrid scent of piss and sickness. I fail to suppress a grimace. Everything about them makes me cringe, and unlike those pornos with the hot, horny nurses, these sixty-year-old Keds-wearing grannies aren’t going to be blowing anyone any time soon.
“He’s been here the whole time?” I ask the back of Jackie’s head as we trail up a ramp beside an empty loading dock.
We’re in a small town about two hours south of Mackville, known mostly for having one stoplight and a population of less than eight hundred.
He guides us through the back entrance of the hospital, nodding at the guards before leading us through another maze of hallways. It’s nearly as bitter in here as it is outside.
I drop my voice, careful to avoid eye contact with the staff coming and going through different rooms. “Did the mayor allow you to move him to this facility?”
His trench coat flows behind him like he’s some sort of king, and his expensive black loafers snick softly against the tiled floor compared to my stomping.
I’m met with silence as we turn left, then right.
“I’ll assume Diablo and the Wolves have no idea he’s here?”
More silence.
“Goddammit, Jackie—”
He raises a gloved hand to cut me off as we come to a halt in front of a patient’s room. “I’m here to set the record straight and get the Wolves off our dicks for a minute. You’re here because I’m allowing you to be, Benjamin. Do well to remember that.”
I step so we’re toe to toe, my nostrils flaring. “What are we doing, Jackie? You’re the reason Kenneth is lying in that hospital bed in the first place. Don’t pretend to be a hero, dragging me here like a dog in need of a nice car ride.”
My hand twitches when he smirks.
“You just worry about being the enforcer. Let me worry about the rest.”
I’m dismissed as he slowly cracks open the door to Kenneth’s room. The blinds are closed, blanketing the room in shadows except for the thin lines of light striking the bed where Kenneth lies sound asleep. A creeping sensation skitters up my back as I trail behind Jackie until we’re positioned like bogeymen—looking lethal, shrouded in black—at his feet.
