Page 22

Twenty-Two

I just wanna get rich the way y’all got pregnant. Unplanned and fast.

— Aella’s secret thoughts

AELLA

I wasn’t fond of funerals.

Especially funerals for children.

Though, I hadn’t really been to any funerals to know if a child’s funeral was worse.

I did know that there was no way it couldn’t be worse, though.

Seeing that tiny little casket made my heart ache.

Caskets shouldn’t come in sizes that small, and a child shouldn’t die before their parent.

“I know that some of you are going to question the music choice today,” Apollo said as he stood off to the side of the room, his hand on the back of his neck as he stared off into the distance. “But I thought I’d play some of Tavi’s favorite songs. They’re ones that we used to sing at the top of our lungs when he was smaller.”

Sniffling.

There was so much sniffling throughout the room that my own sniffles were barely noticed.

At least by everyone that wasn’t the man at my side.

I was sitting sandwiched in between Cutter and Chevy. Cutter’s wife, Milena, was on Cutter’s other side already balling her eyes out.

Cutter’s other brother, Copper, was in the row behind us, and Reign was with him, both of them quietly sitting behind us.

Though when I’d looked back, Reign was silently crying, her tears unchecked.

Something in the way she was being so quiet, though, made horror run through me.

How did anyone cry so silently?

She was unmoving, unblinking, staring ahead at the small coffin like the rest of us were.

It was eerie.

A loud nose being blown had all of us turning toward the sound.

Tavi’s father.

He was unapologetically devastated and didn’t care who saw.

Cakes—my dad—was sitting next to him, patting him on the back.

A feeling of warmth spread through me.

The more I got to see my father, the more I realized that he was a really good man.

It sucked that I’d spent so much time growing up without him.

I had a feeling he’d have been a great dad to have in my formative years.

I turned back to the grieving dad in the room and saw him take his seat and nod to the preacher in the front of the room.

Yet another man wearing a Truth Tellers MC cut.

The Truth Tellers was a big club.

Though this one I’d been introduced to multiple times.

His road name was Hagrid.

He’d been introduced to me as a part-time A/C repairman and part-time preacher.

At the time I’d thought it a weird combination, but as I saw him officiate the ceremony for a little boy, I realized that he truly had a gift.

Everyone in the room was enraptured as he told stories, talked about Tavi, and ultimately ensured that there wasn’t a single dry eye in the house.

When the song from Moana came on, I had to laugh through my tears.

It was a perfect song.

So was the song from Lion King , and the action songs from Transformers .

When the ceremony ended, all of us went from one room to the next, where we sat through the funeral of Laney Ingram, the wife of Audric ‘Detroit’ Ingram.

Audric had walked from Tavi’s funeral to the one for his wife, his young infant daughter in his arms, completely asleep and unaware of how her tiny little world had just become much bleaker.

Audric sat down in the front of the room and shifted his daughter up to his shoulder, patting her little bottom as he stared straight ahead.

Hagrid came into the room and walked up to the stage, his eyes going around the room as he took everything in.

“The first time I met Laney, it was on the side of the road while this guy.” Hagrid jerked his chin toward Audric. “All but melted into a puddle of goo. I’d never seen love at first sight before, but Detroit—Audric—here…it was quite embarrassing…”

Audric made a sound in the back of his throat that had me closing my eyes as the tears continued to fall.

To say that I wasn’t in the best of moods when Chevy and I walked into that diner later that day would be an understatement.

My dad—even though I still couldn’t call him that out loud—had come with us, along with Cutter, his wife Milena, Keely, and her husband, Dima.

Copper had declined the invite and had left with Reign, which had pissed off the two brothers and sister.

They weren’t happy that their brother hadn’t joined them. Neither were they happy that their brother was with ‘that woman.’

“…can’t believe that he just left without talking to us first. This is all so messed up.” Keely shook her head.

Chevy grumbled something under his breath, and Cutter snorted in laughter.

I sat there, watching the table at large, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

These last two days had been a whirlwind.

From the moment that both Tavi and Laney had died, I’d been thrown into a very personal moment for them all, and I felt like an impostor.

Like I shouldn’t be there to witness all that heartache.

I was an outsider, a person that Chevy had just started to see.

I shouldn’t have witnessed Audric cry like his heart would never be whole again.

Neither should I have been there to hold a baby of a woman that’d just been killed.

Yet I was, and I had.

And I didn’t know how to feel about it all.

But throughout it all, Chevy had never let me retreat, and Cakes had been there at my side whenever he felt like I needed it.

It was…surreal.

“I’m not an expert on your family,” I said softly. “But I do know when shit’s hitting the fan, and I feel like it’s hitting the fan for Copper.”

All eyes came to me.

It was Chevy who said, “What do you mean?”

“It just looks like he’s desperate,” I said. “That something is going on with him, and he’s trying to hide it from you guys.”

Keely’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, during the funeral, he sat behind all of you. And during the wake for Laney, he left, then came back, talked to Audric, and then left.” I shrugged. “All of those times, he stayed as far away from y’all as possible. I only noticed because all of the times that I’ve witnessed him with you guys before, he’s been so open and expressive with every one of you. I would’ve thought it was me, but at the wake yesterday, I wasn’t anywhere near you, and he still avoided y’all.”

Cutter sat back in his seat and said, “Huh.”

“Webber.” Chevy tapped his chin, one of the arms he had across his chest raised to reach his face. “He’s going to know what’s going on. That night that I was sick, I heard a commotion and heard Reign mentioned. But the next morning, Webber told me to leave it be. So I let it be.”

“I’ll talk to him tomorrow with you at the club party.” He paused. “Do you think it’s insensitive to still have this party for the community despite what’s happened?”

Cakes leaned back in his chair and said, “Laney would’ve wanted us to do it. It was her baby.”

Chevy told me all about Laney, and her love for all things community. She worked with Cakes at One Love, Dallas. She loved the community so much that she threw so many club get-togethers a year to help the community kids, veterans and elderly that she could.

This particular club community party was so huge that there were several hundred motorcycle clubs going on a poker run throughout the area that would bring in so much cash from the community that they expected to be able to donate tens of thousands of dollars to community outreach.

Laney had planned this event for over a year.

She would not be happy to hear that they’d canceled it.

Though…

“What about doing a memorial for her? Y’all could dedicate the event to her and possibly make it a yearly event in her honor,” I suggested.

“That’s a good idea,” Keely said. “I…”

She trailed off when every man at the table looked toward the front door of the diner.

“Whoa,” I said. “Who’s that?”

“Congressman Jimenez,” Dima replied.

Was that…

“That’s the father of the kid that went joyriding in the Maserati his daddy bought?” I asked coolly.

“Sure is,” Chevy said as he stared at the man who came into the diner like he owned the place.

The congressman’s bodyguards took up positions in front of and behind him.

The men that came in behind him that had FBI written on their jackets had me more curious than the congressman.

What was going on?

“They’re heading this way,” I murmured as I watched them come.

It was the congressman who spoke first, his eyes on our small group as he said, “Which of you is Chevy Clayborne?”

“Me,” Chevy said indifferently.

I squeezed his hand so hard that my fingernails started to dig into the palm of his hand.

“We’d like you to come with us, we have a few questions,” the FBI agent closest to us ordered.

“Not without a lawyer,” Dima said carefully.

“Agreed,” Cutter muttered.

“What’s this about?” Keely asked, eyeing everyone suspiciously.

“This is about none of your business, ma’am,” the congressman, Arriel Jimenez, retorted sarcastically.

“I beg to differ,” Keely said. “This is my brother, and if you have questions for him, I have every right to know.”

“How much do you like your little job at Castanon, Inc?” the congressman asked.

I rolled my eyes.

“Actually, I kind of hate it,” she said. “I’m only working there because my brother needs the help. It would be no skin off my nose if I couldn’t work there anymore. Honestly, if that place imploded, I’d be able to sleep a little better at night.”

Dima pressed his hand down on her arm to get her to calm down.

The FBI agent that hadn’t said a word since arriving said, “You want a lawyer, get one. Then you can meet us at the FBI field office off of Center.”

I looked at his shirt that said, “Special Agent Crew.”

He was a sexy beast of a man.

Not as sexy as my man, but still…yum.

“I won’t be able to get down there today, because I have to work this afternoon,” Chevy explained.

“You’re not working at all right now because you’ve been suspended from all duties pending further investigation,” Congressman Jimenez snarled. “You know, because one of your crew or yourself decided to kill my son.”

Chevy’s eyebrows rose. “Is that right?”

“Right,” he snapped.

“Well, as of right now, I haven’t gotten that call. But if anything changes, I’ll get right to it,” he agreed.

Special Agent Crew muttered something to the congressman, and they all left, anger in their steps.

“Fucking wonderful.” Chevy sighed.

“There’s absolutely zero proof whatsoever that anything wrong happened in that surgical suite,” I said. “I watched the entire last half of the surgery.”

“You did?” Chevy asked, surprised.

I grinned. “Sure did.”

“On that note, don’t talk to them at all without our lawyer by your side,” Dima said. “I’m going to get my brother’s boys to do some digging into this.” He pulled his wife up out of the booth and said, “See y’all.”

That left Cutter and Milena, Cakes, myself and Chevy there.

“I’m out, too,” Cakes said. “I have a crazy woman to deal with.”

I grinned. “How goes it?”

“It’s going…interestingly. I’m learning all kinds of things.” He narrowed his eyes. “I think I’m going to have her turn herself in.”

My brows rose. “You think she’ll actually do it?”

Cakes grinned and lowered his voice so only the table could hear. “If she wants to live, she will.”

With that, he was gone, and I was left feeling…questionably.

“I’m not sure how that makes me feel,” I admitted. “I’ve spent years trying to get police officers to listen to me about that woman. I don’t think the prison system here is good enough for her anymore.”

Not after everything had come to light.

There was no place in the world that was good enough for the likes of her.

The thought of her going in, and living this cushy life in the prison system, only to have a chance at parole later on…that sounded sucky.

“She won’t be happy where she’s going,” Chevy murmured. “Trust the process.”

I rolled my eyes. “How about we get into work. I’m not sure how you got the two of us a later morning shift to allow for this, but this’ll be my last day to screw around. School starts up in a few days, and I’ll be bustin’ butt to make sure that they hire me here. So I’ll be kissing anyone’s ass that needs kissin’.”

Milena snickered. “If kissin’ ass doesn’t work for you, you can always come to the coffee shop and I’ll pay you well.”

“As much as I love coffee, I don’t want to be the one serving it,” I said as we stood.

Cutter slapped Chevy on the back and said, “I’m gonna call Apollo.”

Apollo was their computer guru, and if there was anyone that wanted to make sure that Congressman Jimenez didn’t get his way with this suspension and investigation, it would be him.

“Thanks,” Chevy said as we walked out to his bike. “I’ll keep you updated on how my day goes.”

The ride to the hospital was short.

The stairs were even shorter.

And when he kissed me outside the stairwell door, I felt like I desperately needed just a few more minutes.

However, I didn’t get my way.

And worse, when we got to the doctor’s lounge where we’d intended to part ways, there were a lot of official looking hospitalists standing there waiting for us.

“Dr. Clayborne,” one of the larger men said. “Please, come in here with the rest of this crew and help us get a rundown on what happened the day Arriel Jimenez Junior passed away in surgery.”

I went into the room with him, and the woman that’d hired me for the floor held up her hand. “No…”

“I think that I can be of help. I’d taken a break shortly after helping get a few of the donor patients cleaned up. I went up to the surgical gallery and watched the last fifteen minutes of surgery.”

“Ahh.” The woman nodded. “Come in.”

I sat down at the large table next to Chevy.

All of the other nurses, doctors and other personnel that were in the room that day were also there.

“Okay, what’s going on?” the angry surgeon asked. “This was textbook and routine. There was no wrongdoing on our end. All video recordings have been checked and verified. So why are we here?”

“Because we were told to conduct an inquiry by our lawyers,” the hospital director, though I didn’t know his actual name, only his face since it was plastered on all of the walls in the hospital, grumbled.

“That’s right.” The lawyer leaned forward. “This wouldn’t normally even matter. I agree with the director and the other professionals in this room, there was nothing that could be done. You did everything right. However, this is a very high-profile client that wants heads to roll for his son’s perceived wrongful death. He’s already let us know that he’ll be filing a wrongful death suit against the hospital, and someone in this room has to be the bad guy.”

Fuck.

I wanted to look at Chevy so badly, but I stayed exactly where I was, my gaze on the lawyer.

“And that’ll be me,” the hospital director said. “I’ll be putting everyone in this room on immediate temporary leave pending review.”

I grimaced, wondering if that included me or not since I’d been the one to horn in on the meeting.

“Negative,” Chevy said. “This is a joke. I’m not going on leave. If you put me on leave, I’ll just go to a different hospital where my services will actually be utilized.”

That made my stomach sink.

“Same,” the surgeon, Dr. Tibbs, complained. “I have a full schedule of patients that need my services. I’ll not be put on leave. If y’all won’t let me perform surgery in this hospital, I’ll just move them to Fort Worth.”

That had the hospital director shaking his head. “No, no. That won’t work. We need y’all.”

“Then you won’t be putting anyone on leave.” Chevy stood up. “I have three surgeries going on today, one of which starts imminently. Please excuse me.”

Everyone got up after that, including the annoyed and harried looking OR nurse that’d been here since the beginning of time.

“If you want anyone to go on leave, I’ll take it,” the nurse said as she stopped at the door, causing everyone to pause in their departure. “I’m ready to retire anyway. Give me a good retirement package, and hang me out to dry if you want. I’ll be leaving the country soon anyway. I have grandbabies that are growing up without me in Belgium.”

“That could work…” The lawyer put her thinking cap on.

We all left after that, Chevy not bothering to go much farther than the doctor’s lounge.

He pulled me into his side and said, “I’ll see you later. If you need a ride home, I’ll have someone come pick you up. But I’m fairly sure I’ll be in the third surgery for a very long time. It’s a brain surgery, and exploratory at that. I’ll probably be late as fuck getting home.”

I scrunched up my nose. “I guess I can go to my place and get some laundry done.”

He winked, dropped a kiss onto my nose, and then disappeared into the lounge to get dressed.

I went to the nurses’ station to get my assignments for the day.

And though nothing else huge happened, I felt like I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.