Page 23

23

Legacy

Sera screams, and my world stops.

I see the woman I’ve hated for years, hurt, bleeding on the ground.

I see Bea’s mother in pain.

I see the extent of what our enemies are willing to do to get back at us.

And for a second, I can’t breathe. I can’t move.

A hand finds my arm, snapping me out of the haze, and I look down to see Reagan standing beside me. Her wide brown eyes are fixed on Sera, and like the world was moving in slow motion, it all speeds up again.

Fast forward until I’m back in this moment.

“Legacy.” Steel’s voice cuts through the chaos, and it makes Reagan jump as he comes up beside us. “Ricky is taking the girls back to the neighborhood.” He looks at Reagan. “Are you good to go with them?”

She nods .

One moment, she’s next to me. The next, she’s being pulled into a van with Tempe.

Time is skipping.

Her eyes find me the moment before she climbs in, and I know I should probably say something to her to make sense of this mess, but words die on my tongue.

She breaks our gaze before I do, looking utterly defeated, and I block that look out, even as it burrows. It’ll eat me from the inside out, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now, so I focus on what I can.

Steel tips his head, motioning me to follow, and I find feeling in my legs again.

Patch is hunched over Sera when I get to her, readying a needle that I hope will take her pain away. Blood drips from the rough gashes where the barbed wire slices her skin, and it’s worse every time she wiggles.

She’s been stripped of her clothes and curled into a ball with her knees tucked up to her chest and her arms over them. Barbed wire wraps around her entire body, holding her limbs in place.

It’s been five years since I’ve seen her, and she looks years older than she should. Her blonde hair has been bleached platinum, and any makeup she was wearing is smeared.

Ghost stops at my side, watching, and I wonder if this reminds him of when we found Paulina in this same place. The only difference is that Paulina was already dead, while Sera isn’t.

“Sera.” I squat down, trying to get her to look at me .

Her screams pierce through the empty desert. They sink into the pit of my stomach. And when she flinches as Patch shoves the needle in her arm, the barbs cut deeper, sending another chilling cry from her mouth.

“Look at me.” I place my hand on her cheek, and her eyes blink open.

Tears stream down her face, and I’m reminded of how Bea has her mother’s small nose and strong eyebrows. How this woman is Bea’s flesh and blood, even if she did abandon her.

“Legacy,” Sera chokes out my name. But before she can say more, her eyes roll back.

“Sera!”

“It’s the drugs.” Patch tucks the needle away. “She was fighting against the wire, and we need her to be still so we can get it off. Either way, it’s gonna be messy.”

“Then start fucking cutting.”

“It’s not that simple.” Patch rakes his dark hair off his forehead, tracing the line of the wire with his gaze. “She’s had this around her for at least a couple hours, from what I can tell. She’s been moved. It’s deep in some places, and if I’m not careful, it could slice an artery.”

My teeth clench. “What are you suggesting?”

His dark eyes snap up, and I can already tell I’m not going to like what he has to say. “We need to keep the wire in place until we get her into the clubhouse. I need a sanitary environment. Tools. At a bare minimum, light.”

I know he’s right, no matter how much I hate the idea of him keeping her like this any longer. But Patch can’t work on her in the dirt with headlights lighting a path, or she’ll definitely get infected or bleed out.

“All right.” I nod, standing because I need to get some space.

Some air.

I step back and watch as Patch and a few prospects help move Sera into the back of a van to transport her. Luckily, she’s passed out from the drugs because blood drips everywhere.

She’s thinner than the last time I saw her, and the bruising on her legs and arms tells me the wire isn’t the worst they’ve done.

When the door to the back of the van slams shut, Patch circles to me. “I’ll keep you updated.”

I nod, words catching in my throat as I watch them drive away.

Only then does it register that Ghost has been standing at my side the entire time.

“This shit never gets easier.” I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand.

I’m talking about so many things.

The club.

The death.

The destruction.

This is one message in a long list of them. The start of something I suspect will only escalate.

I glance at Ghost, and his eyes are even more vacant than mine. In many ways, he’s not standing here. His mind is in the past, and it hurts to know what he’s reliving .

“I need to go see Luna.” Ghost walks away the second Steel circles back around.

We both watch him go, and even if he was on a hell-bent mission to track down Lincoln a few minutes ago, his demons are coming out to play now. I know my brother and the pain that losing his best friend caused him. If Luna can help him get past this reminder, that’s where he needs to be right now.

“He needs a minute.”

“We all do,” Steel agrees.

I still can’t figure out how I’m holding it together. How I haven’t hopped on my bike and hunted down the fuckers who did this.

“Iron Sinners?” I ask Steel.

He nods, holding a piece of paper out for me. The crinkled white edges are smeared in blood, but the words are clear.

Return the money or your daughter and her pretty new nanny are next.

I’ve got instant tunnel vision. Something’s crackling in my mind. Or maybe it’s the paper in my hands as I curl my fingers around it. Crushing it like it can eliminate the threat.

“This is about the money? Fuck them.” My teeth clench.

“We’re not negotiating.” Steel levels me with a gaze.

“I’m not risking my family for this shit.” I shove the note back in Steel’s hand, not missing that I just referred to Reagan as family.

“We won’t let that happen. ”

“How are you gonna guarantee it? They’re digging, Prez. They found Sera to make a point when she hasn’t been around the club in years. They’ve got no fucking limits anymore.”

“Where’s Sera been?” Steel knows that even if Sera disappeared after handing over Bea, I’ve had Ghost keeping tabs on her for Bea’s sake.

“She was living just outside Portland last Ghost checked.”

“Oregon? Fuck,” Steel curses, realization sinking in. “I figured she was still in Vegas.”

I shake my head.

“They got her and dragged her back here…” His eyes darken. “They knew what they were doing.”

“They’re baiting us.”

“Yeah, and they know we won’t risk a direct attack with them rallying forces at their compound. They’re hiding behind those fucking gates and looking for something to piss us off enough to lure us out.”

“So we do the same,” Soul says, stopping beside Steel. “Two can play that game.”

“I’m not wrapping their family members in barbed wire and dropping them off at the gate. That’s not what we’re about.” Steel’s tone is deathly cold.

“I’m not suggesting we do that. But we can make this personal and hurt them without going through their family. We just need to get creative.”

Steel and Soul stare at each other for a moment before Steel finally nods. “Make it happen. ”

Soul disappears with Chaos, and they’re already plotting.

Their lack of boundaries benefits the club in situations like this. At times when it’s all gone to hell, and there’s no easy way through it.

“How you holding up, Legacy?” Steel asks after a long beat. “That look on your face says I might need to call Monroe to post bail if you don’t chill the fuck out.”

“Not a bad idea.” I scratch my jaw. “Remember when it was Tempe the Iron Sinners were fucking with? I’m going to kill someone.”

“I get it.” He nods.

“My daughter.” I swallow hard. “Reagan.”

“You two are really turning into something? Are we talking about a property patch, or are you just having fun? Because this is a lot of shit to bring on her if it’s the latter.”

“Fuck if I know. If I was smart, I’d have kicked her out before this shit happened so she could still get out of this mess. But I can’t now, or she’ll just be an easy target.”

“And that’s the only reason you want to keep her here?”

I tilt my head back, not answering his question.

“All right.” He takes the hint, slapping a hand on the back of my shoulder. “You should go keep an eye on Sera and make sure she pulls through this. It’s been a long time since she’s been around here, and I sure as fuck didn’t see it going like this if she ever came back.”

“That feels like a lifetime ago.” A lifetime I should have learned from, but here I am making the same mistakes.

“It was.”

“They all saw her. Tempe, Luna, Reagan…” I trail off .

It’s not a question. I’ll forever live with Reagan’s reaction burned behind my eyelids.

“Yeah. The girls saw her.” Steel swallows hard, clearly no happier about that fact than I am. “And the Iron Sinners will pay for it. But for now, I need to check in with Ghost, and you should probably see how things are going with Patch.”

“I will in a second.” I drop my chin. “I’ve got to make a call first.”

Steel nods, stalking off to meet up with Havoc, Chaos, and Soul, who look like they’re already planning for battle.

Pulling out my phone, I dial Reagan, and she answers on the first ring.

“Hey.” Her tone is light and airy.

It’s a breath of fresh air that hurts my lungs with how hard they’ve been collapsing since I stepped out of the van.

“You back at the house?”

“Yes.”

“Bea?”

“Still sleeping. I went in and checked on her right when I got back.”

That statement wraps around my chest. That her first instinct when she got home was to check on my daughter, even when I was an ass to her and didn’t say a word when we got back to the compound.

“Thank you.” I rake my hair back. “Can you do me a favor and stay upstairs tonight?”

“In your room?” She sounds nervous, and I can picture her biting her lip right now .

“Yeah. Just so someone’s close to Bea if she wakes up.”

“Of course.” There’s a long pause on the other end of the line before she finally adds, “I’m here if you need me to do anything. Or just to talk. Is everything… are you okay?”

She changes her question because she already knows the answer to the first. She saw it. And everything is not okay.

“You don’t need to worry about me.” My tone is colder than I intend, but I can’t help that my throat feels like I’m swallowing ice. “Bea was going to build forts with Austin when she woke up. If you can get her to Tempe’s, I’d appreciate it. But let her know I’ll be back by dinner.”

“Okay. I will.”

“Thanks.” I hang up before I collapse.

I’m caving in on myself.

I’m not okay—not even a little bit.

But I don’t have the energy to deal with another person right now. Especially when that person is myself.