Thirty-Six

"Eden?"

Desi had glanced up from trying to deal with the worst of Archie's burns to see his partner stumbling towards him, followed by the gun-wielding biker who had started all this. Her name died on his lips when he saw the state she was in.

He knew she'd already been struck in the face once, but from the extent of the bruising, he suspected it hadn't been the last time. And given how she was holding herself, it seemed unlikely that the violence against her had stopped there. Worse than even that though, the tears on her cheeks were at odds with the hard, haunted look in her eyes and, taking in her torn uniform, Desi swallowed hard.

"What. Did. You. Do?"

But it wasn't the paramedic who spoke, his voice tight with shock and barely contained anger. It was Archie.

Wrenching away from the admittedly stalled effort to treat him, the biker surged to his feet and rounded on his seemingly unrepentant club brother.

"What did you do to her? Who the fuck do you think we are?" the VP demanded, almost overwhelmed by fury and despair, his hands gripping Mack's cut to slam him into the nearest wall.

That face inches from his, marred by livid burns and twisted with rage, made even Mack – caught off-guard as he was – recoil and Archie doubled down on his attack, pulling him away from the wall only to slam him back into it again, the back of his head thudding off the bare brick.

He quickly recovered though, lunging forward to sink his forehead into that of his supposed comrade and sending him reeling from the impact with a howl of fresh pain.

Taken aback by the turn of events, Desi shifted his focus from the two warring bikers back to the main source of his worry, reaching out to pull Eden closer.

"Eden-"

"Don't," she managed softly, her gaze avoiding his. "Just … don't."


Approaching his president with a burner phone clamped to his ear, Tig let his gaze drift towards the ambulance seemingly abandoned outside the run-down house they'd found in a clearing in the woods a fair distance from where they'd left Charlie idling behind the wheel of their unmarked van.

The prospect, despite everything he'd been through, had been desperate to be involved. So he'd been tasked with making sure Seth stayed in the van like he'd finally given in and agreed. It was hard to say which of them was least happy with the arrangement. But Chibs had shut down any argument with a steely resolve. No way in hell was he getting Eden back just to have to tell her he'd let her brother put himself in the line of fire – or at risk of heading back to jail. Asking her to learn to accept his lifestyle was one thing. Extending it to her family was entirely another.

Seth, of course, was furious. First at being left behind and then being assigned a babysitter, especially one young enough to be his kid. Chibs didn't give a fuck though. It didn't matter how big and tough the former boxer was, he was still a civilian. Charlie, green as he might be, was carrying a gun and knew how to use it. Better furious than dead.

"Hap says that shitty bar they hang out at's dead, apart from patches," Tig said, his voice low. "No sign of Johnny, that VP of his, or Rockwell. How do you wanna play this, brother?"

Chibs stared off into the darkening dusk, his eyes narrowed as he mulled over his options. He hadn't been sure what he'd been thinking when he split his resources, sending his sergeant to lead a contingent of Sons to the known War Boys base and taking his VP, Knox, Bug, TO, Charlie and Seth to track down Eden. He knew now.

"They wait for my orders," he said finally. "And if I give the go-ahead, everyone in there gets one chance to take off the cut and walk away. What happens after that depends on what happens here. If she's …"

The Scotsman trailed off helplessly, images real and imagined assaulting his racing mind. Aoife, tucked up in his bed one minute and trailed terrified into the street the next. Eden, chatting and laughing in the clubhouse versus driving with a gun to her head. Aoife, who also knew what it felt like to be held at gunpoint, on her knees in the dirt and braced for the bullet that would end her life. Eden, slumped on that floor inside that goddamn cook house in a growing pool of blood. He closed his eyes, his own blood seeming to turn to ice in his veins at that very thought.

"If she's hurt …" Chibs ground out, his fists clenched. "Or worse ..."

Tig clapped him on the shoulder in understanding, not needing him to say any more and about to turn away to talk to Happy.

"Tig? Whatever happens, Rockwell's mine."

"Absolutely, brother."

That much was a given.


Breathing heavily, Mack straightened up and dashed sweat from his brow with an arm, leaving Archie groaning and beaten half-unconscious on the floor.

"Fuck this," he snapped. "We're getting the fuck outta here. You two, get Johnny into the ambulance …"

Desi's eyes widened at that. "Are you crazy? If you take him anywhere other than a hospital, he'll bleed out!"

"I'm getting seriously sick of people questioning me," the biker seethed. "Now, fucking move!"

"We can't both leave him," Eden said, either unwilling or unable to even look at him. "One of us needs to stay here and one of us needs to go get the gurney. I'll go-"

"No," Mack said, immediately suspicious. "You stay right here with me. Let him go. And you, trying taking off and I promise you I'll take it out on her."

Desi tried to argue, hating the thought of leaving his partner to all intents and purposes alone with the volatile biker, but she shot him a look that seemed to plead with him not to make things worse for them.

"Just go, Desi," she said softly. "We can't move him without the gurney. We need something to immobilise him, right?"

Her fellow paramedic just about caught the look on her face when she glanced up at him and whatever he was about to say was lost when he simply nodded. "Right," he echoed. "Immobilise him. On it."

"I ain't kidding, man," Mack warned, watching him head for the door. "Try anything and she'll regret it."

Desi, his stomach churning, didn't doubt it for a second.


Climbing into the back of the abandoned ambulance, Eden's words seeming to play on a loop in his head, Desi checked over his shoulder and then started rifling through drawers, trying to find what he was looking for.

Hugely conscious of how long he was taking, he knew his approach was haphazard and desperation wasn't exactly helping. But, just as he was about to give up, his fingers closed on exactly what he needed – a syringe loaded with a heavy duty tranquiliser used on violent patients in the throws of a bad trip. Something to immobilise Mack instead of their patient, who was growing increasingly weak without any added assistance.

The hand that snaked from out of nowhere to cover his mouth almost made his heart stop.

"Shhh," came the warning hiss, before the hand was slowly removed and he was turned around to stare in disbelief at the two men in front of him – immediately recognising the silver-haired guy his partner had been seeing and his second-in-command.

"If he catches you, he'll hurt Eden," Desi gasped as quietly as he could, trying to recover from the moment of terror that had almost paralysed him when he thought he'd been caught red-handed. "He'll already wonder what's taking me so long."

"Settle down, mate," the thickly-accented president said. "Now, quickly, how many o' them are in there?"

"Three," Desi replied. "The crazy one with a gun who brought us here and two who were already here – they're both badly injured."

"How badly? They still a threat?"

"One of them maybe, if he comes round – the other's too far gone. The president, according to the patch on his leather vest thing like yours."

The two bikers exchanged a look at that.

"And Eden, she okay?"

Desi nodded, not trusting himself to speak. The pause didn't go unnoticed though and the Samcro president's jaw tightened as he pulled his gun from its hiding place, tucked into the waistband of his jeans at his back.

"Stay put."

"But …"

"Not the time to argue," the curly-haired one advised, before hastily following his leader towards the house.


Just as Desi had feared, Mack was already starting to suspect something was up, given how long it was apparently taking to retrieve the gurney from the ambulance, and had taken to pacing the floor impatiently.

"What the fuck is taking so long, huh?" he demanded. "Why are you two so hellbent on making everything harder than it has to be?"

Despite her fear, Eden bristled at that, given her treatment at his hands, but managed to try to focus on buying Desi whatever time he needed.

"It's harder with one person – normally we'd both-"

"Quiet!" Mack barked, cutting her off to listen intently and then reaching to grab her arm and yank her roughly onto her feet and in front him, leaving the gun in its holster in favour of whipping a knife from his boot and swiftly levelling it at her throat. "Who's there? Show yourself or I'll slit her fucking throat!"

A figure stepped out of the shadows, making Eden's breath catch and her eyes fill with tears in the second they locked on him before her gaze dropped to the floor when she saw how his scarred face twisted furiously at the sight of her. She knew how it must look, her face bruised and bloodied and her clothes torn, and hated the very thought of him seeing her like that. But even more so, she hated that he had put himself squarely in the line of fire just walking into this place, desperately hoping he hadn't underestimated the War Boys sergeant.

"Well, well," Mack declared loudly, the arm he had around her tightening as she tried to shy away from the sharp edge of the blade pressing against her skin. "The president of the Sons of Anarchy himself – I guess I should be honoured."

"You should be putting the knife down and letting the lass go," Chibs said. "Call it damage control."

"Damage control," Mack echoed thoughtfully, pretending to consider before starting to laugh. "Damage control … I think you'll find I'm the one with the upper hand here, asshole. Unless, of course, that supply of easy pussy means this one's expendable …"

The blade pressed a little harder against Eden's throat and she closed her eyes, feeling it bite into skin.

"Stop!" Chibs shouted in horror, wrenching his gun away from its target and raising both hands in surrender.

"Huh, not that expendable after all," Mack noted, his words tinged with surprise as he, knowing all too well how deliberately provocative he was being, pressed a sloppy kiss to Eden's cheek. "Aren't you special, sweetheart? If I'd known, I might have appreciated you a bit more …"

"You … Just let her go and you can walk outta here," Chibs tried, having to fight against every instinct he had to keep from just throwing himself at the bastard who had done God only knows what to his girl and beating the living daylights out of him. The risk to Eden was the only thing holding him back.

"How stupid do you think I am?" Mack scoffed. "I let her go and you'll put a bullet in my head. Nah, I'm leaving, but she's coming with me. What can I say? We've … bonded. Now, drop the gun and kick it away. Both of you. I know you've got one of your men behind me."

"Do as he says, Tig," Chibs said, dropping his weapon and seeing his VP step out of the shadows, having snuck in through the back door to come up behind their target.

"But, boss-"

"Just fucking do it!"

There was a clatter as a second gun fell to the floor and Mack was still laughing when Eden twisted unexpectedly in his grasp, slamming her elbow into his gut without warning and then her knee into his crotch before tearing herself away from him as he failed to stop himself doubling over in agony.

"You fucking BIIIIITCH!" he howled, blindly swinging the knife he had somehow managed to keep a hold of despite his obvious pain.

He was knocked to the floor just as the blade sank into flesh.