Page 22 of Knox (The Devil’s Luck MC #6)

KNOX

“H e’s gone. He’s gone .”

Caroline convinced me to pull over on the side of the highway. Cars rushed past, shaking the old Ford, rushing past my ears really loudly . I could barely think with the stupid, continuous whooshes .

I wanted to punch something. I wanted to punch some one . Anything. Anyone. Just to connect my already bloody knuckles with whatever would give me the most pain back.

“I know, Nate. I know.”

I was crouched by the truck bed on the other side of it, like it was some sort of shield between me and gawkers driving by. I could only imagine some snotty-nosed kid looking up from his iPad and telling his mommy to look at the weird crying biker on the side of the road!

Caroline stood beside me, her fingers threading through my hair. She was unflinching. But that was all the reassurance from her I would get. She wasn’t the type to get weepy and fumble over her words with apologies.

Gabriel would have belly laughed.

“Damn, Royal,” he would have joked. “Didn’t think you’d be the one melting down on the side of the road! You’re supposed to be the toughest son of a bitch I know—and here you are, breaking before the rest of us.”

I wasn’t breaking.

I clenched my teeth so hard it hurt like fucking hell. My head was already pounding, and I was making it worse.

Feeling everything was better than feeling nothing.

Without warning, I stood and got back in the truck. Like chivalry was dead, I let Caroline get in the passenger side without help. Once she was in, I checked oncoming traffic and decided to take a risk, cutting someone off and flooring it.

Caroline was not happy about that. She slammed both hands into my shoulder. “You fucking idiot!” she shouted into the wind that was howling and swirling into the cab from the shattered windows. “We’re trying to flee the scene, not die!”

I shot her a look over my shoulder. It shut her up immediately. She opened her mouth, but I turned away, focusing as much as I could on the road. I was reckless and stupid and idiotic, yeah, but I was still a damn good driver. I even kept a lookout for cops. Blessedly, there were none.

That was the only good news I’d get for a long time.

After a few moments, she rested her hand on my thigh. She leaned over and pressed her cheek to my shoulder.

We drove in tense silence.

Then I heard her say, “Knox, I—I want to say something. I want to say I’m?—”

“Not now.”

My voice was colder than steel, and I fucking hated myself for being so cruel to her, but I just couldn’t hear it right now. No amount of I’m sorries was going to fix any of this shit.

I just had to get us to Grant’s unscathed and wait for the rest of the Devils to join—hopefully also unscathed.

The last thing I’m gonna do is let myself fall apart before we’re safe. Gabriel would knock my teeth out if I let grief make me sloppy—or if I let him die in vain just for me to get in some kind of car wreck.

Caroline’s grip tightened. I didn’t know who it was supposed to comfort, me or her. Either way, I reluctantly let it ease just a fraction of the tension in my body. I was so coiled, I was ready to break in half.

The thirty minutes back to Reno were excruciatingly long.

I kept glancing in the rearview mirror, scanning for groups of headlights or the sound of bikes. Every car felt like a threat. A big pickup truck rode too close for too long behind us, and my brain started imagining a dozen different scenarios. Had the Wolverines employed someone not on a bike?

But then it passed, with the random guy flicking us off for no apparent reason.

“I doubt we’ll be followed, at least immediately.” Caroline’s voice had hardened too. Now she sounded clinical, as if she were giving a report to a hard-ass superior. “I shot some of their tires.”

“Good,” I said darkly.

Then another awkward silence fell between us.

But we made it back alive and unfollowed by Wolverine tails. But no Devil’s Luck tails, either.

I stopped the truck in the back driveway, killed the ignition, and got out.

This time, I was a gentleman and opened the door for her.

As soon as her feet hit the concrete, I wrapped my arm around her waist and tugged her tightly against me.

I just had to do little things to make sure she knew it wasn’t her I was mad at.

“We’ll lay low here until they get back,” I told her, guiding her to the back door.

A spare key was hidden behind one of the wall hangings. Before I could move the stolen stop sign to the side, the door unlocked and flew open.

Grant.

Fuck .

Caroline spoke first, voicing my panicked thought. “You stayed behind.”

Grant was looking between us warily. He could tell something was off. “Yeah. Black Jack told me to stay here and guard this place in case Bates strikes while the others are out. We got Gabriel’s text. Where are the guys? I figured they would?—”

There was rumbling in the distance. I ordered Caroline to stay put so I could jog around the shop to see the Devils coming racing into the driveway.

One, two, three, four—thank fuck.

Jackson, Mason, Jameson, Abel, and Brody all pulled up. They looked like hell, their bikes not much better, but they were alive.

But…

I stormed up to them. “Where the fuck is he?”

They all ignored me.

Jackson stood at the end of the driveway like a sentinel, back to me, arms crossed. Jameson just sat there, forearms on the handlebars. Doctor Brody was tending to a wound Abel had with strips of his own shirt.

Mason, however, didn’t try to act tough. He stumbled off the bike and dropped into a crouch. His forehead dropped onto his seat, hiding his face. If he was crying, though, I couldn’t tell. Like the rest of us, he was just trying to hold it together.

I hated it. I hated it all. I hated that my insides were knotted so damn tight I thought I might snap in two.

Grief sat heavy in my chest, pressing hard against my ribs, making it damn near impossible to breathe.

I curled my hands into fists, nails biting into my palms, needing the sting to keep myself steady.

Rage, I could handle. But this? This was worse.

This was grief, gnawing quietly but savagely, and I didn’t know how to hold it off without coming apart.

Grant jogged around the shop to catch up with me. He already looked uneasy, but when he saw the others, when he counted one less head in the headcount… His eyebrows knitted, and his eyes flicked between me and Jameson, who was the only one who would make eye contact with anyone.

“Where’s Gabriel?” he asked.

I couldn’t bring myself to answer. I knew if I even opened my mouth, I wouldn’t be able to control the crack in my voice. So I just shook my head once.

That was all he needed to know to understand. Grant stumbled back a step as if I’d knocked the breath out of him. “No… No, no, no… Guys, where’s Gabriel ?”

Mason’s hand smashed down on the seat of his bike, hard. “FUCK!”

The word burst out of him like it was ripped from his throat. He hit the seat again, then again, until Brody moved toward him.

“Mason,” he tried to reason in his best doctor voice, but Mason wasn’t hearing it.

The VP staggered to his feet, looking like he was drunk off his ass, muttering to himself as he wobbled toward the back door. His hands fumbled with his phone in his front pocket. I figured he was texting Suzie.

How quickly would the women find out?

Grant rounded on me, grief and fear already twisted into rage. He shoved his hands into my chest like he wanted to start a fistfight. “Where’s Gabriel? Where’s our brother? Where’s my friend ?”

Grant and Gabriel were the closest pair in Devil’s Luck. They were inseparable at times, joined at the hip in razzing at least two Devils at once, most of the time. And what was one without the other?

Brody approached slowly, arms out like he was trying to calm a wild animal. “I’m sorry, Grant. Gabriel’s gone.”

“Gone?” Grant repeated like he had never heard the word before. “The fuck you mean? I asked where is he . Where’s his fucking body?”

That hit me like a slap. “You just left him?” I roared at no one in particular. “You left our brother’s body in the middle of the goddamn forest?!”

That made Abel angry. He stormed toward me, looking like he was ready to take a swing at my already busted cheekbone. I braced myself. I deserved it. His death was my fault. He and Grant came to warn me about Jackson coming. And now he was dead in a forest.

“We put him in the trailer, for your information, jackass,” Abel snapped. Jameson grabbed his arms and held him back from breaking my nose. “We barely escaped by the skin of our teeth. The Wolverines beat us to shit then left after Princess left.”

Mason whipped around. “Where’s Bates’s bitch?”

I glanced toward the back door. Caroline was nowhere to be seen. Had she gone inside? That didn’t bode well.

I blocked Mason from marching over. “Don’t even think about it, Roller,” I snapped. “She’s under my protection.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck, Knox!” he snarled.

“She’s not yours . Like I said, you fuck her in a trailer and now you’re her guard dog.

You’re her bitch . Don’t you see?!” he asked wildly, flinging out his arms. I was just thankful he didn’t reach for a weapon.

“This is all an act ! She’s infiltrating us and you’re too busy thinking with your dick to see it! ”

I took a threatening step toward him. “That’s not fucking true!”

“Yeah, it fucking is ? — ”

“Shut up, both of you!” Jameson roared, cutting between us.

“This is not the time to be infighting, you dumb shits. Gabriel is dead, but his body is safe, all right? The Wolverines will come for our asses, and we have to be a united front when they do. So put your fists away. Mason, Knox’s face is already fucked up.

Just let him be for now. Knox, you fucked up. You don’t get a say.”

Grief was making me lash out. I glared at him. “Since when are you in charge, Tex?”

“ All of you, ENOUGH. ”

Everyone froze, as if our lives depended on it.

It was Jackson, and he turned toward us, still at the end of the drive. The sun was getting low, and he was limned in a reddish glow of the clouds. His grief curdled into wrath. He looked like a vengeful god, his fists clenched, his chest heaving with wrecked breaths.

At the worst possible timing ever , Caroline emerged from the shop. She stopped short when she saw every one of the Devil’s Luck watching her.

Jackson went livid.

“You.” He started stalking toward her.

I stepped into his path immediately, blocking him without hesitation. “Back the fuck off, Jack,” I said, rough and controlled. But barely.

Jackson’s teeth gnashed together as he glowered at me. “Get out of my way.”

“I’m not moving.”

“I’m not gonna kill her,” Jackson said through his teeth. “But I sure as hell am gonna make her understand what she cost us.”

I didn’t back down. “She’s gone through enough.”

“I don’t give a fuck. You’re gonna get her out of Reno, Knox. Tonight. And if she’s still here by morning…” Jackson shook his head. “There won’t be a conversation next time.”