Page 31 of Property of Thrasher (Kings of Anarchy MC: South Carolina #1)

We’d figure the motive beyond the obvious.

The obvious was Melody. But Tiny in front with Lyric?

That made the truck hit the first bike it could reach.

Were they aiming at us and took the shot they got, or did they plan to hit any of our patch?

If they meant to terrorize, they’d succeeded.

If they meant to take Melody off the board, they’d failed.

That fucked with men like that. They got sloppy after a miss.

I pictured Logan’s face the way she’d described it—scar on the cheek, a boy who grew into a man who thought a mark made him special.

I pictured BJ laughing with his mouth open like a fool when the world lit up with sirens and blood.

I pictured their hands shaking when the adrenaline ran out and their brains caught up with the fact that the people they’d hit weren’t the paper targets they were used to; we were flesh and bone and family and the kind of men who bury our dead with honor and go hunting after.

I didn’t make plans for what came after we found them. Not yet. For now, I held Melody, and I waited.

She jolted awake thirty minutes later, breath catching like she’d been falling in a dream. “Is she?—”

“No update.” I rubbed up and down her arm, careful around the road rash. “You slept.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“You needed to.” I tilted my head. “Water?”

She nodded. I got up, stretched the knots out of my back, and grabbed two from a vending machine that wanted to rob me. Pinky leaned a hip on it and gave the machine a look that changed its mind. He cracked a grin when I snorted.

I brought the water back to Melody and sat. She twisted the cap with hands that still shook and drank in small sips, like even water needed permission right now to enter her.

“I keep seeing it,” she said after a moment. “Not the impact. The time before it. When Tiny was smiling and Lyric was leaning into him and I thought, ‘this is what safe looks like,’ and then—” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Like the world played a joke.”

“Safe didn’t vanish because two cowards decided to aim their truck wrong,” I said. “Safe is a net with a lot of ropes. You fell. We caught you. We’ll keep catching you.”

She looked at me like she wanted to believe it and was afraid to. Then she squeezed my fingers hard enough to hurt, like testing the rope herself. “We might not have caught Lyric. And they’re not done, they will come again,” She couldn’t finish.

“They won’t get this far,” I explained. “But if they do?” I held her gaze steady. “They’d learn what fucking with an ‘old lady’ means carved in bone.”

Color touched her cheeks despite everything. She took another drink and leaned against me, the top of her head fitting under my chin like a thing designed.

The doors finally opened and a surgeon stepped out. He was older than the last doc, hair gone to steel, eyes red at the rims like he’d been in the fight with her. He scanned the room, found our cluster by the wall, and came our direction.

We stood as one without even talking about it. Enzo appeared at my shoulder like he’d been conjured. The surgeon stopped in front of us and slid his mask down.

“Family for Lyric Truman?” he asked.

“Yes,” DK said, and the word came out like a truth, not a legal technicality. “How is she?”

“She’s alive,” he said, and a sound went through us like a pressure valve letting off.

“She lost a lot of blood. We removed a ruptured spleen, repaired lacerations to her liver, and addressed some internal bleeding. She’s critical, but stable for the moment.

The next twelve to twenty-four will tell us more. She’s headed to ICU.”

Melody’s knees gave and I got an arm around her waist quick. Relief is mean like that—it knocks harder than dread.

“And Tiny?” I asked, throat tight. “Braxton Davis.”

“Neurosurgery is continuing to monitor,” the surgeon said. “The bleed’s not expanding at the rate we feared. That’s a good sign, but I’m not going to lie to you—head injuries are unpredictable. We’ll know more by morning.”

“Can we see her?” Melody asked, voice small but sure. “Just for a second?”

“Once she’s settled in ICU,” he said. “One at a time, limited time, and you keep voices low. She’ll know you’re there even if she doesn’t respond.”

“Thank you,” DK said, and the doc nodded and left.

Melody turned into me, pressing her face into my chest, and the sob that tore out of her felt like it came from the bottom of the ocean. I held on and let it wash through us both. It wasn’t over. Not even close. But we had a grip.

When she calmed, DK’s phone buzzed. He scanned the screen, then lifted his eyes to mine. “Cops confirmed plate to BJ’s father,” he said. “They’ve got a BOLO out. They’ll put plainclothes on the hotel and around here for a day. We’ll do our own.”

“Church call it.” I ordered.

“Ten minutes,” DK said as he began typing the mass message.

“Out in the lot. I want you in it, Thrasher, Mel will be in with Lyric, “he softened, and that alone could’ve brought a weaker woman to tears, “you’re coming with us only as far as the door. Pinky’ll sit with you.

When ICU lets one in, you go. We’ll rotate after. We gotta make some plans.”

She nodded, wiping her cheeks with her wrists like a kid, and then she straightened her spine.

She looked small and scraped up and more dangerous than anyone who’d ever tried to put her in a box.

I kissed her forehead hard enough to anchor me, then handed her to Pinky like I was giving a man a treasure to guard.

With his parole, he couldn’t be tied up in what came next.

Having him visible in this hospital would make shit even better for him when it hit the fan.

Outside, the evening had edged toward night. The parking lot lights threw long cones across the asphalt. Brothers arrived, a thick circle of leather and grim faces, the kind of force that made ordinary men step around us wide even if they didn’t know why.

“We’re not doing a full formal run,” I started.

“Just setting lanes. DK, you and K-9 take Widower and Sweeper. You plant at that timber road’s mouth.

Nothing moves without you knowing. I want eyes, not a confrontation.

You see that truck, you trail, you don’t tag.

You risk nothing. That was Guru’s last location on any of their phones. Got it?”

“Copy,” they replied and nodded.

“Pinky will run the hospital rotation with Prospects One and Two. Nobody’s alone in a hallway. Nobody argues with a nurse. If security asks, you’re waiting on good news, end of story. You keep Melody in your sight at all times.”

There were affirmative mumbles and nods all around..

“Healer, I want a pull on everything public about that family through back channels. Property records, hunting leases, citations, complaints, county board minutes. If there’s a man on that board with a brother named Logan or a nephew who got too big for his boots, I want it in my phone. Got it?”

Healer’s eyes had that quicksilver shine they got when a puzzle landed in his hands. “On it.” He was our club chapel and steady as a rock in crisis situations.

“That’s it. Move.”

Some peeled off, others stayed according to their assignments. The plan wasn’t complicated and it didn’t need to be. Most plans worth a damn weren’t—too many moving parts and men got fancy instead of effective. That landed asses in jail or under ground.

Before I went back in to kiss Melody once and head for the road, I paused. The anger was still there, coiled and ready, but it wasn’t running me. It was mine to put on a leash and unclip when the moment demanded.

I looked up at the hospital windows—bright boxes in the early dark—and thought about Tiny under those lights, his big stubborn heart pounding against a skull that needed to stop swelling, Lyric stitched and bandaged and fighting the kind of fight you don’t ask for.

If either of them could hear me, I wanted them to hear this:

We’ve got you. We’ll hold the line. We’ll make it count.

Inside, ICU finally paged us. One at a time meant one at a time. Melody went first. She squeezed my hand so tight I lost feeling in two fingers, then disappeared through a door where visitors wore masks and washed their hands twice and spoke in whispers like prayer.

I sat in the chair outside the glass and waited to trade places, DK already at my shoulder, Thrust a shadow on the wall, Pinky checking the weather cams on his phone like the sky would tell him when to move.

When Melody came out, her eyes were swollen but different now—like she’d stood at a cliff, looked down, and chosen to stand taller rather than back away from the fear.

She told me Lyric’s fingers twitched when she talked, that her skin was warm and not waxy, that machines beeped like keeping time she could bear to hear.

“Tell her we’re here,” I said. “Tell her Tiny’s being stubborn same as always. Tell her we’re gonna make sure she gets the chance to kick his ass for taking that light first.”

A ghost of a smile chased through her expression. “I did.”

“Good,” I said, and brushed my knuckles down her cheek. “Now tell me again about Logan’s scar.”

She didn’t flinch from the memory this time. She told me while I listened like a man memorizing a map. Then I kissed her, swift and sure, and turned toward the doors.

Time to show this motherfucker he messed with the wrong ones. I was going to end their entire bloodline if necessary to keep my woman safe.