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Chapter Nine

Globe

M atteo and I get to the meeting spot nearly at the same time.

I glance around, hoping to see Nero already perched somewhere, but he isn’t.

Where the fuck could he be? We split up seconds after one another, and the highway leads right here if you take the last exit before the next town.

We have driven to this location for meetings time and time again, so Nero knows the way.

The problem is there’s a level of uncertainty with everything going on.

Why do I care so much about him?

My brain bounces around as I attempt to grasp onto the answer to that thought. There are so many different reasons that I care for him, yet I cannot pinpoint the exact time when I realized that care turned into something more.

Matteo claps me on the back. “What’s going on in that brain of yours?

” His voice is chipper, but after spending more time with him than others, I can read the underlying tone.

We are all sitting in this middle ground of what to do and what not to do.

It’s fucking with my head, and I have no clue where to go with it all.

“Nero should be here by now,” I start, glancing down at my watch.

I have no idea what time we ended up splitting, but I know it shouldn’t take this long to get here.

“I’m stuck in a roundabout of what I’m supposed to be feeling.

It’s like being able to see someone on the other side of a piece of glass, but when you try to touch them, you are trapped. ”

He says nothing in response, just gazes at me thoughtfully. I stand for another minute or two, the anxious feelings inside of me threatening to force its way up my throat.

Shark is tapping away on his phone when we walk up, his brows furrowing when he sees just the two of us.

“Where’s your counterpart?” He grumbles, glancing behind us.

“We got split up because of some cops. He should be here pretty quickly,” Matteo explains and pulls out his phone.

A weird feeling in my gut has my brain running ragged.

What if he ended up getting caught? Fuck, he wasn’t the one breaking any laws, but cops don’t give a fuck.

When they see bikers riding together, they will automatically assume that we are all grouped.

That’s not how biker communities work. If we see a fellow rider, we will group up until we have to part ways. It’s just for the fun of it.

But now, there’s something niggling at me that something isn’t right. What it is, I have no idea.

“It’s been almost twenty minutes, where the fuck is he?” Shark barks at us, causing several of the other guys that are lingering to snap straight. “You are a senior member, Globe. Where is your man?”

My man.

When I have more time, I will dissect that a bit more. How good it feels to put a claim on him…

An idea pops into my head, and it pisses me off that I didn’t think of it sooner.

“Let me see if his phone is still tracking.” Opening the simple app on my phone, I wait for his dot to load.

It was last refreshed thirty minutes ago when I updated the app.

“That can’t be right…” I mumble to myself as the dot stays stagnant.

Despite refreshing the app multiple times, it remains the same.

Pulling up his number, I press call, only for it to go directly to voicemail. What the actual fuck…

“Well?” Shark snaps, his voice tight with frustration. Some of the others are swaying back and forth, shuffling uncomfortably on their toes as he waits for a response. Not that I have one.

“Can you try?” I ask Matteo, ignoring my prez for right now. He nods, grabbing his device and dialing out. Again, straight to voicemail. “We are gonna ride back, he must have gotten popped by the fuzz.” Shark rolls his eyes as he rounds up the others.

Unease tears in my stomach in the same way it did when I saw Irene get shot.

The thread of doubt that something is wrong cuts deeply, and it takes everything inside of me not to rally a fucking task force.

I make quick work of sidling onto my bike, putting my phone on the holder, and checking I have enough gas.

With about half a tank, Matteo and I peel out of the gravel lot and ride fast. Every few seconds I drag the screen down to refresh it, only for it not to move.

After the twentieth time, the dot suddenly disappears.

“Shit, I need to put the coordinates in,” Matteo mumbles understanding as we continue straight, the highway peacefully quiet since it’s almost ten at night.

The frog that’s lodged in my throat doesn’t move no matter how many times I try to swallow it away.

I have never been one to let emotions latch onto me, instead, they usually roll off my back easily.

This time…fuck, this is different. The mood shifted quickly from craving blood to craving the presence of our man.

We are riding into the unknown, and it’s pulling at every nerve ending in my system.

My brain feels like it’s going to spaz out.

“There!” shouts Matteo as he points to where a bike peeks over a forest edge.

Cars fly around us as we slow down, honking and swerving as we attempt to get to him without crashing.

Metal and plastic smatter the roadway, but no one stops to check it out.

Everyone goes about their life while I’m fucking panicking about what it’s going to look like on the other side of the ledge.

We end up going a mile before we can safely flip around and ride the shoulder back down. No lights or sirens are in the distance, none lighting up the night sky. The dot still doesn’t pull up, so I can’t even confirm if that’s him, but those are the coordinates that I have for him.

I don’t even slow down to kickstand my bike. Everything is fucking fixable.

“Nero!” I scream, my hands trembling as I fiddle to get my helmet off.

Whipping the visor up, I’m able to see a body at the bottom of the grassy area.

“Fuck, shit, fuck,” I chant over and over as my fingers fail to cooperate with me.

Matteo steps up behind me, spins me around, and quickly works to get the straps undone.

The second they are, I’m whipping it off my head, tossing it on the grass by my bike, and taking off.

Matteo is right on my heels as we sprint down the hill, almost ending up in a barrel roll with how fast we are moving.

Rumbles of motorcycles get closer and closer, which means that Matteo probably let them know it wasn’t good.

I scream for Nero again, my heart beating so fast in my chest that I’m not sure if I’m going to end up going into heart failure. There’s no movement, and I swear to any fucking higher power that if he’s dead…

Skidding to my knees next to him, I immediately assess for injuries. His arm is bent funny and his foot looks curved in a way it shouldn’t, but I don’t see any blood pouring from anywhere. My fingers wrap around his wrist carefully as I feel for a pulse, which is strong.

Letting out a harsh breath, I drop my head and grab my phone, calling Shark, who answers on the first ring.

“What happened?” He barks in a no-bullshit kind of way.

I start explaining everything that I can see, that his pulse is strong, but he seems unconscious.

Shark lets me know that there is a group of guys headed our way, and a second later, his phone dings.

“Dr. Darcy at Regional Medical is waiting for you guys to get there. Do we think we can get there without an ambulance?”

Matteo nods his head. “We will need the med van, but I think we should be fine.” Thank the higher powers of the MC that we are all partially medically trained.

“We will need a couple of splints and a backboard. Globe and I can clear the helmet off his head with simple stabilization, but we will definitely need a neck brace until the doc can further determine the injuries. I don’t wanna fuck with a spinal. ”

“Sounds good. I will have Doc round up a team to send with the van to head that way.” He ends the call, and the guilt continues to ride deep inside of me. I fucked up. If I hadn’t been so fucking stupid, this never would have happened.

“I know that look, and right now isn’t the time to get stuck inside your head.

Grab his throat so I can work on getting his helmet off.

” I move my hand to the underside of his jaw and wrap the other around the back.

With a tightness but no pressure on his windpipe or veins, I hold him still.

Matteo slowly rocks the helmet off his head, being careful not to jolt too harshly.

A few seconds later, it comes off with ease.

“Hey!” another voice shouts from the top of the hill.

Matteo waves them down as I slowly assess his face.

There’s slight blood trickling down his nose and trailing down his cheek, but other than that, there don’t appear to be any other outward injuries.

The guys move slower than we did, some of them stopping at Nero’s bike while others come all the way to us.

“Do we know what happened?” Viper asks as he kneels next to the three of us. I shake my head, my eyes never leaving Nero. It feels like the moment I move them away, he will disappear.

“Let me-”

“No!” I snap, pulling myself closer and hovering over Nero. No one is allowed to touch him. “He’s mine,” I growl out, not even really sure what’s happening. It’s like my brain took a back seat while some primal part of me takes over.

“It’s alright, man. We will wait for the others to get here,” Viper pulls his hands in surrender but doesn’t move away. I can feel eyes boring into me, but I don’t give a fuck. I need to make sure he’s okay. He has to be okay.

Another individual comes down, but again, I don’t acknowledge them.

“It looks like he was side-swiped,” Shark says as he kneels above Nero. He reaches toward us, and it takes everything inside of me not to snarl at him. Though I can fume about the fact that some fucker decided they wanted not to look around them and cut off one of my own!

“I will track them down,” I ground out, my eyes searching Nero’s tan but pale complexion for any signs of life.

His chest is rising and falling, and that’s a fuck ton more than I could ask for.

“Matteo, text the other two and let them know to start pulling footage near these coordinates. I don’t care if they aren’t able to see anything.

I want a name, and I want it yesterday.”