Page 9

Chapter Nine

Adelaide

W hen we got to the hospital, I rushed into the emergency room, immediately making my way to the receptionist on duty so she could tell me where Joey was.

“I’m sorry, Miss, but he’s currently in surgery.” I swallowed down vomit. Surgery . That was bad. That was really fucking bad. “You can have a seat in our waiting room and wait for the doctor to let me know that he’s out of surgery and into a recovery room.”

Numbly, I nodded, moving to the waiting room. Jessie took a seat in one of the hard, plastic chairs, but I couldn’t sit. I just paced back and forth across the floor. If I sat still, I would lose my fucking mind.

Ink took a seat beside Jessie and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her into him as he tried to console her. She cried into his shoulder.

I wished I could cry. Right then, I was numb, teetering on the edge between sanity and losing my damn mind. I didn’t know what to do without Joey.

I fucking hate you .

Those had been my last words to him, and right then, I fucking hated myself for letting him get hurt with those being my last fucking words to ring in his head.

I looked up when the double doors opened, and Tristan stepped in with Jesup hot on his heels, their familiar president and vice president patches adorning their cuts, letting everyone around know exactly who they were and that they weren’t to be fucked with.

Tristan frowned when our eyes connected. Without a word, he opened his arms to me, giving me the option to take his comfort. With a choked sob, I rushed into his arms and collapsed against his chest as his strong arms wrapped around my slender frame, holding me together the best as he could.

“I can’t lose him, too, Tristan,” I sobbed. Losing him would literally be the beginning of my villain origin story. I would become so uncontrollable, I would have to be put down.

“Joey is strong, Addy baby,” Tristan soothed as he brushed his calloused hand over my hair. “It’s going to take a lot more than this to take him out.” He pressed his lips to my temple, letting them linger for a moment.

For some reason, I couldn’t believe his words. Any other time, I would agree, but something in my gut was telling me that this time wouldn’t be like the others.

I cried into Tristan’s chest as he stood with his back facing the wall, his arms tight around me as he let me cry it out. Jesup stood next to us, his eyes staying focused on his surroundings. “Joey Dirks?” a male voice called as he entered the waiting room.

Jessie jumped to her feet and rushed over to the doctor, who was still in his surgery scrubs. “I’m his sister,” she rushed out. “Is he okay?”

The doctor gave her a sad look…

And I fucking knew .

I’d lost Joey, too. My chest began to cave in before he even got the words out of his mouth.

“I’m sorry, Miss, but we did everything we could,” he softly told her.

My scream would have been one for the Oscars as I collapsed to the floor, my arms wrapping tightly around myself. Sobs wracked my body, my screams bouncing off of the walls. “No!” I screamed, my fists pounding the floor. “ Joey !” I screeched.

Tristan dropped to the ground next to me, dragging me into his arms, holding me tight to him as he rocked me, doing his best to calm me back down. I tightly wrapped my arms around his torso, loud cries ripping from my lips as I begged Joey to come back to me. He’d promised me. He fucking promised he wouldn’t leave me !

Tristan gripped my face in his hands, shaking me gently as he forced me to look up at him. His expression shattered as he ran his eyes over my face. “No, baby, not now. I need you to breathe, Addy,” he told me firmly. “Focus on me.” I couldn’t breathe. Everything hurt. He was gone . “Come back to me, baby. Joey wouldn’t want you to be like this.”

I whimpered, my chest aching.

Tristan gave me a gentle smile. “Come on, baby girl. In. Out. Breathe.” I followed his instructions as he ran his thumbs over my cheekbones. “That’s it. Slowly, Addy. Just breathe, baby.”

“I-Is he really gone?” I croaked, my voice coming out weak and strangled.

Tristan slowly nodded and drew me into his arms as silent tears trickled down my cheeks.

Who else was I going to lose before all of this shit was over?

The clubhouse was silent as I walked through the doors with Tristan right behind me. Some people were silently crying while others were staring blankly into space.

This club had just lost the greatest president to ever grace this earth. They’d lost their founder.

And I had just lost one of the greatest men I’d ever known.

“You know this is your fault, right?” Charles asked from his position at the bar. I looked over at him silently, a blank expression on my face and in my eyes. “Joey would still be alive if Vin hadn’t fucking gone after him for protecting you.”

Tears welled in my eyes at his words, shattering that numbness that I so desperately needed to hold on to. “I’m sorry,” I choked out to both the club and Joey. Joey who would never hear my apology now. He’d never hear any of them.

It was all my fucking fault.

Tristan’s hands settled over my shoulders, and he pressed himself against my back, guarding me and protecting me the best that he could. “Watch your fucking tone with her,” Tristan snarled at Joey’s VP, who now the president of the Sons of Hell.

“He’s right,” Jessie snapped at Charles. “This isn’t her fucking fault.”

“How the fuck is it not?” Charles snarled at her. I flinched at his words. “She’s been nothing but fucking trouble since Joey took her from her birthday party when she was eighteen.” Charles looked at me, rage clouding his features. I swallowed thickly. “As the new president, I’m ordering you to leave,” he snapped, pointing his finger at me. I sucked in a sharp breath at his words. This was my home . What the fuck did he mean leave ? “Get your shit and get the fuck out of my clubhouse. You’re no longer a part of this fucking club.”

“Now hold the fuck up!” Ink roared from his position beside Jessie. “You know Joey never wanted her to leave this fucking club, Charles! She’s one of us! She was his , for fuck’s sake.”

“Not anymore she’s not!” Charles roared at him. I rolled my lips into my mouth, resisting the urge to whimper. “Now shut your fucking mouth when speaking to me!” He looked back at me. “Get out, Adelaide.”

I tilted my chin up defiantly, refusing to show weakness to the asshole in front of me. Wiping my expression clean off my face, I nodded once at him. “Alright, Charles, I’m leaving, but note this,” I snarled, shrugging Tristan’s hands off of my shoulders as I strode forward until I could feel Charles’s hot breath on my skin. “This club will turn against you, Charles. No fucking new president ever goes against what the old president wanted. It’s called respect for the fucking dead.”

Charles tightly gripped my arm, yanking me closer to him as a disgusted snarl twisted his features. I brought my knee up, crushing his pathetic dick. He quickly released me and dropped to the floor, holding his balls in his hands, his expression white with pain. I spat on him, clenching my fists at my sides. “Mark my fucking words, Charles. You ever fucking come near me again, and it won’t be my knee on your balls. I’ll shoot your fucking dick off, you got me?”

I stepped over him and stormed to my room, not waiting for his bullshit reply. After yanking a duffel bag out of the top of my closet, I tossed it onto the bed and began throwing my necessary clothes into it along with any important documentation that I had. I could practically feel Tristan’s eyes on me as I moved around the room, but he was silent, giving me a moment to gather myself.

“What makes you so sure that the club will turn on him?” Tristan finally asked me.

“No one here really likes Charles,” I informed him. Tristan stayed silent, allowing me to continue. “He always wanted to go against Joey. Everyone here respected Joey as a president, and they respected his decisions. Charles running me off, the one fucking person Joey ever gave two damn shits about, the one person this club ever respected like a sister, is going to cause problems. Mark my words—the club is going to turn on Charles.”

“And what happens when the club turns on him?” Tristan asked me.

“It gets bloody,” I told him. “And the club is very possibly over.” Which just made my chest ache. I didn’t want to see Joey’s legacy die.

Tristan stayed silent. I zipped my bag up, and he grabbed it off of the bed. “Guess you’re finally coming home where you belong,” he softly said, but he didn’t sound all that happy about it. “I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances, Addy.”

I swallowed thickly but nodded, knowing the Sons of Death was the only place I could go to now. I didn’t have anywhere else.

I looked across the hall to Joey’s room as we stepped out of mine. Putting my finger up to signal Tristan to hold on a minute, I pushed open Joey’s door, swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat as I took in the picture of us on his nightstand. I was about to turn nineteen in a couple of weeks in that picture, and Joey had surprised me by making me an official member of his club and giving me my own room in the clubhouse.

We were standing right outside of the clubhouse, and he had his arms wrapped around me from behind. I was wearing his cut to show everyone that I was his woman, even though it basically swallowed me. Joey had on a blue and black flannel shirt with a pair of dark jeans, and he was grinning down at me as I laughed at something he had said.

If I wasn’t mistaken, Jessie had taken the picture of us.

Even then, we had always clashed heads, but we loved each other in our own sick, twisted ways.

Silent tears trickled down my cheeks as I picked up the picture, a small, sad smile playing on my lips.

Fuck, I already missed him so damn much.

“I will always love you, Joey,” I whispered, my words almost inaudible to my own ears.

I grabbed his cut one of the members had laid out on his bed, and I grabbed his knife that he always kept under his pillow. It was the first knife he ever owned, and he had always said if he ever had a kid, he would always give the knife to his child.

He wasn’t ever given the option. Joey would never have a family, never have children.

I walked back out of the room, and Tristan looked down at the items in my hand. Deciding to stay silent, he just followed me out of the clubhouse without a word. He was strapping my duffel bag to his bike when Jessie rushed outside and threw her arms around me. I hugged her back instantly.

“I’ll miss you, gorgeous,” she whispered into my shoulder.

I squeezed her gently, tears stinging my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them fall—not here. “I’ll miss you, too, gorgeous,” I whispered in return.

She pulled back from me, her dark eyes glimmering with unshed tears. “Promise me that you’ll stay safe?”

I nodded. “You better do the same,” I told her. She gave me a wobbly smile. “If things ever get to be too rough around here, call me. I promise I will come to get you, whether Tristan agrees or not.”

She nodded and kissed my cheek. “Please keep in touch,” she quietly begged me.

I kissed her cheek as well. “Always, gorgeous.”

With one last sad smile, she headed back to the clubhouse, where Ink was standing in the doorway, waiting on her. I had no idea what was going on with those two, but it wasn’t my business.

I sighed and slid onto the bike behind Tristan as he turned the engine over, the bike rumbling to life beneath me as I sat down. He gripped one of my hands and brought it up to his lips, pressing a light kiss to my knuckles. I drew in a slow, deep breath before I tightly wound my arms around his midsection and pressed the front of my body to his back.

And then, we were off to the Sons of Death’s territory, leaving the home I’d shared with Joey for the past three years behind.