Page 133 of Tracking Luxe

There'd been no other choice, not really. It was all leading to this one day, he’d always had that gut feeling, he realized with a grim stare.

He was about to climb into bed and do a deal with the mafia.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

“We take care of our own.” – Renegade Souls

To say the Renegade Souls MC filled the emergency room waiting area was an understatement. It was wall to wall bodies everywhere and she didn’t belong.

Luxe wasn’t feeling animosity, but these men, and some women, had long-seated ties together, and here she was, the lone sally-no-friends blowing in the wind.

Barely keeping it together, Luxe had rode silently with a prospect once they’d gotten word about Nathan.Thank god, she’d said to no one and everyone. She wasn’t a believer and here she was thanking Him. Every con artist was a bullshitter,even her. But she was more grateful than she’d ever been before.

Something sharp and unpleasant bloomed in her abdomen, the worry persistently lodged in her throat like rocks, she couldn’t settle until they knew something and it had already been more than an hour. What was happening with him? It was bad news, it must be, or they’d heard already. Luxe wasn’t prepared----how could she be, for those words. Small words, crushing words that he was gone. No, she couldn’t---she had to leave, if she wasn’t here, maybe-----

A mammoth-sized shadow blocked out the view of her exit, blinking, she looked up at a glowering Preacher. Beefy tattooed arms crossed against his chest, his head canted down, she wasn’t afraid, but also not thrilled to have him in her space for round two of his verbal beat down. But he didn’t say a word, just sighed massively.

“Asher, that’s enough.” Ruby told him gently clutching his hand she drew him away and gave Luxe a sympathetic smile. “He’s upset, we are all, he didn’t mean it earlier.” She mouthed to Luxe.

It didn’t matter, she blamed herself, the truth tasted bitter on her tongue. If not for Luxe asking him to go to that party that night he wouldn’t be somewhere in this fucking hospital bleeding out.

Oh, god. Her belly rolled over in that slick way right before a good vomit.

Please be okay. I need you. I need you, Nathan.

She felt so very small and alone with the urge to call Mimi to make it all better again. Only the person who would make her feel halfway human away was probably dying. She refused to sit, how could she be comfortable when Nathan was hurt.Her fault. Her fault.

White noise filled her head. Time went by. It could have been a minute later or an hour when she heard.

The same massive shadow appeared in front of her once more. “Are you okay?”

She blinked and looked up into piercing green eyes. His voice wasn’t so hateful and held a tenor of concern as his gaze flicked down to the same blood covering her shirt. She hadn’t noticed it until now. “Babe, are you okay?”

She shook her head but said. ”I’m fine.”

The pain blooming in her chest called her a liar.

Why weren’t they being told anything? That had to be a bad sign. A sign that Nathan was dead.

Preacher cleared his throat and really if he was about to go off on her again he was wasting his breath, she couldn’t hear anything but the sound of her own panic.

She mentally braced for it.

“My wife tells me I was too hard on you.”

“It’s okay. No need to apologize.” Her voice sounded far away, or maybe that was her ears ringing. She played with the cuff of the gray hoodie now ruined by blood. Nathan’s hoodie, the one she loved wearing after they’d had sex and he was making her food in his kitchen because it was so warm and soft and buried her in a foot of material.

The pain increased, almost caused her to fall to the floor, if not for the fact she’d steeled her knees to hold her the fuck up, to keep the swell of emotion in her throat and not to let it out in great bellowing sobs.

She had to hold on until they knew something.

“I wasn’t. But.” Preacher hauled in a breath and she looked up through her lashes, he looked as stressed as she felt and she felt a pang of apology he was going through this with his best friend. Nathan didn’t only belong to her, he belonged to these men first. “I had no right to talk to Grinder’s girl like that, he’ll give me hell for it once his ass is up and around.”

She’d like Nathan to be giving her hell. To be awake and teasing her at the stove in his kitchen while he made omelets with her vegetarian soy bits he hated. She’d like him to be awake and okay so he could nip at her mouth and tell her how much he enjoyed his thief teasing him.

His thief. She never realized how much she’d enjoyed being claimed in that basic way by him for all this time. Now maybe she wouldn’t hear it ever again.

Retreating to a corner, the waiting room filling up by the second, deep rowdy voices filling the void and Luxe didn’t hear a thing.