“Don’t even go there, Mackenzie. It’s not your fault. This family has been fucking around with your life for too long.”

“But if I didn’t come back, if I didn’t use you…” I stop my words before I speak them out loud.

“Don’t, darlin’. I’m gonna make it better. Gonna fucking fix this. Fix everything.”

“So more people can be hurt? No, Beau. Maybe I should just come clean. He already knows something is up.” I work my bottom lip between my teeth, weighing up my options. These people don’t deserve this, to be dragged into what I have started. Not when they have done so much for me.

“No, this ends. You’ve come too far for this asshole to fuck with you. He knows nothing, darlin’. He’s bluffing.” Beau stands and brings me up with him. Just then Holly and Kadence rush in, holding X, and Low, followed by Z, Sy, Jesse, and Hunter.

“What are you going to do, Beau?” I hold on to his cut, keeping him in front of me. I can’t focus on filling anyone in on what happened right now. I need Beau to see reason.

“What I should have done before this got out of hand.” He presses his lips to mine, and then pulls back.

“Please, Beau. Don’t leave,” I beg, but we both know there’s no point. I can see the determination in his eyes. He’s done. “Beau, talk to me.”

“What’s going on?” Kadence comes into my line of sight.

“Is she okay?” Holly asks from the other side of me.

“Kadence, you need to sit with Kenzie. Nix you with me?” Beau ignores my pleas and shares one of his looks with Nix. One that’s code for I need back up. Nix nods then pulls Kadence in a quick hug, kisses Low, then tells Z to look after his girls.

“Beau, don’t do this.”

“Trust me, Kenzie. I’ve got you,” is all he says before releasing my hand and walking back out the doors of the emergency room.

I know he wants me to trust him, but my head is screaming at me to follow him and stop him from making any rash decisions.

“Kenzie, let him go.” Kadence takes my hand, stopping any chance of me running after him. I twist back and hold her eyes, silently pleading with her to let me go.

“Girl, I know that look. We’ve all had that look,” she states looking at Holly, who nods in agreement.

“Kadence. Please, don’t stop me. I need—” I start to pull out of her grasp, needing to chase after Beau to make him stop.

“No. You need to sit down and tell us everything.” She moves me back to the waiting chair. I watch as she hands Z some dollar bills for the vending machine and then points her don’t-leave-anything-out stare at me as soon as he is out of hearing distance.

“You have ten minutes before he’ll want something else, so start.” My eyes land on Jesse, Sy, and Hunter as they follow Beau and Nix out.

“What about Brooks?” I point over to Bell and Brooks. Brooks is still pacing, but Bell is trying to calm him enough to speak to a fellow nurse.

“Bell knows everyone here. If she can get any information, she will,” Kadence assures me. “Who did this, Kenzie?” I sit back, no longer sure I can fight it anymore. These people are my friends, even if I don’t deserve the title anymore. They have to know why Kelly is here.

Knowing there is nothing left to say, I start from the beginning, not leaving one thing out. I am done lying to my friends. They have to know. If Beau is about to do something we can’t come back from, it’s the least I can do.

Even if it means losing them all.

Twenty-Eight

Beau

“What’s the plan?” Nix falls into step with me as we make our way out of the hospital.

“We’re going after Mayor Morre.” I reach my bike and place my helmet on. “Call in T. We’re gonna need him in on this.”

“For fuck’s sake, Beau. The Warriors? We can’t handle this on our own?” He resists like I expected he would, but I know he’ll come around. Jesse, Hunter and Sy come up behind us.

“No, I want everything we can get on him. I don’t give a fuck who we call in on it.”

“Do you hear yourself right now, Beau? Just take a breath, think this through.” Jesse starts his reasoning with me, but it’s the last thing I want to do right now.

“This asshole has hurt one of ours. He has nothing on Kenz, and I’m done spending my time on this fucker. He wants to fuck with us, so we hit him back hard. Find something on him so we can end this shit.” Nix holds my stare for a minute before nodding.

“You know for sure it’s a hunch? He’s got nothing?” he questions, reminding me I still haven’t filled them in on what happened when I met with Fred in Ohio. I barely made it back to the clubhouse when the call came through to meet Mackenzie and Kelly at the hospital.

“Yeah, Ohio turned up clean. This Fred fucker was special ops. Crazy, I tell you. He and some buddies sorted everything out. You think I’m messed up? Fuck, this guy is a piece of work. Good guy, but fuck me, I wouldn’t get on his bad side.”

“Jesus.” Nix shakes his head, giving the same reaction I had. At first I was apprehensive. I mean, who the fuck just covers up a murder for one of his employees? But after finding out his past, where he came from, what his own upbringing was like, I soon understood him.

Fucker hates abusive men just as much as I do.

“Yeah, Kenzie was right. He’s got her back. Even left there with a new connection. So we’re sorted on that front.” All the guys relax a little, but I know they’ll want all the details when this is over.

“I’ll fill you in on the rest later. Now we need to find out what we can on Morre.” I kick up the stand on my bike and start the engine.

“Jesse, get back to the shelter, check the cameras. Let’s see if we can get this fucker on tape.” Jesse moves right away.

“Sy, you’re with me. Hunter ride with Beau.” Nix takes over ordering the guys and moves toward his own bike, ready to do what needs to be done.

“Later.” I give them one last nod before taking off in the opposite direction. Nix and Sy to the Warriors Prez, and me and Hunter to Tiny.

I don’t know what we will find out, if we can find anything out, but I’m not returning until we have Morre where we want him. Even if we have to make our own shit up.

The fucker is going down today.

We pull up out the back of Pink House three hours later, an illegal whorehouse just outside of town in Redwick.

“You sure you want to do this, Beau?” Nix asks one more time, climbing off his bike and coming to stand next to me.

“Yes,” I answer, done with the questions. We are doing this and fucking doing it tonight.

“So how are we playing this? We just gonna walk in there and fuck him up?” Jesse asks, coming to stand with Nix and me. Hunter pulls up in the van, followed by Sy on his bike.

When I left Nix in the hospital parking lot, I paid Tiny a visit. After filling him in on everything, he pulled his connections to see what we could find. It was unreliable to start with, but after a few calls, things become clear. Not only does Mayor Morre have connections inside of the law, the fucker also had more than his toe dipped into far worse shit.

Shit that could be traced back to the men who took Paige.

“We go in, rough the fucker up, then take him with us,” I tell them the plan again. We were back at the shelter checking over the CCTV tapes hoping to get a face on who got to Kelly when we received a tip-off from one of Tiny’s men. The tip put Mayor Morre here, getting his weekly fill with a whore named Angel.

“Are we going Red on this?” Sy asks, using our code name for taking it to the next level. When Red, Nix’s dad, ran the Rebels, jobs like these would be frequent. Something we all hated and were glad when we eventually stopped.