Page 19 of Rough Road

Jail. Simple enough. Gun charge. Hmph. Remarkably, he’d never been in jail, after all these years. She didn’t know what Vermont had to do with anything. Friend’s girl. Oh shit. Not her. No. No. No.

Fiona tried to shake her head but couldn’t move her neck. Now, she lifted her not broken hand which worked just fine, brought it to her throat. Heavy bandage.

“It’s gone, Fi. The leg, too.”

She teared up again. “Thank you.”

“Doctor Foley.”

Ah. Dr. Foley. Max’s friend, Elliot. He was one of those guys who was convinced he was a god. Fancy car. Wife young enough to be his late in life daughter. A retirement plan fit for a king. Most of it from the Demons. And maybe… it was right on the tip of her tongue. Something she needed to realize.

Dammit.

What was it? She closed her eyes. Had said maybe ten words. Maybe not even and it made her eyes heavy. But she needed to think… later.

* * *

Fiona woke again. Tried her voice. “Ham?”

“I’m here.” He laid a hand over hers.

“Get Foley.” It came to her as soon as she opened her eyes. Foley wasn’t just a doctor. He was a doctor who pandered to those who paid the most. And last she’d seen Tyler Sedotal, he’d had the hilt of a knife sticking out of his neck.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Then get someone else to get Foley.” She still couldn’t move her jaw, but everything else seemed to be waking up. And she was smart enough to know having Hamilton in the room was the safest she’d ever be. He went to the door and called for Sage, relayed the message and came back to stand beside her bed. “Eliana will be here soon.” He glanced down and his tongue clicked his teeth. “Any instructions?”

“If she doesn’t get Grier out, kill her.” Oh, yeah. Years and years of bad blood still existed. Max might have erased the debt, not that Fiona knew for sure, but that didn’t mean Fiona forgave it. Also, it didn’t matter that Eliana’s debt technically belonged to her old man, the father, not Kye. Kye had been a leader once, the man Max had planned to leave the club to. Then she came along. And Kye had turned, run out on the club, stabbed Max, killed more than one Demon. All because he liked fucking her more than he respected his place in the club. Worse, he’d taken Grier with him. They had some soulmate, kindred brotherhood shit Fiona didn’t understand. didn’t care to understand. But now, Eliana was useful. Maybe. If not, the old debt would come due. Period.

She stared at Hamilton. “Tell me about Jez.” She needed to feed her anger, keep it strong because the emotions were coming back and whatever was underneath the anger would kill her. Knowing what happened to Jez would help.

“Fi…” Hamilton shook his head.

It probably wasn’t fair to use his feeling for her against him, but she needed to know. “Please?” She summoned a tear, a skill she’d acquired at an early age, one that had seen her through her teen years, earned her a Beemer, a bike of her own, the house she lived in, and Grier. “Ham, please.” She curled her fingers around his.

He closed his eyes and breathed out. “They took her from her house. We found her at the old compound. She was beaten and stabbed and already gone by the time we found her.”

“It was Sedotal.” Not exactly a newsflash.

“Yeah.” Hamilton nodded. He looked down, swallowed hard, and sniffed. “Did they... did they touch you?”

More than half beating her to death? Holding her down and branding her? Staring while she fed London. All things considered, it could’ve been worse. But she knew what he meant. “No.”

She pictured Jez. Tough. Like a mother to Fiona over the years. She’d been one of Max’s best friends. A member of the club since the beginning. And now she was gone. And the man responsible was walking around breathing and eating and living. That had to stop.

The key would be Foley. Her gut said so. If he didn’t know where Sedotal was, he would know someone who did. And when they found him... she would’ve smiled if it didn’t hurt so bad. Instead, she laid in the bed, plotting his death, the pictures in her head of what she planned to do to him providing a sense of peace that let her drift back to sleep, content and happy.

* * *

“Sign here.” Eliana stood next to Grier as the guard handed him a bag of his stuff—wallet, keys, seventy-eight cents in change. They were keeping the Glock. Dammit.

Jail hadn’t been so bad. Of course, it was no walk in the park, but he’d gathered some intel on Sedotal. The Omens had men posted along the entire east coast and their usual base of operations was in Florida. They’d come north when the Screaming Demons got out of the human trafficking business, when Max died and Fiona took over. The Omens, Tyler specifically, weren’t looking to take over the Demon drug trade or the illegal parts trade, they wanted Max’s contacts for the women, the “supplier”.

Not that it mattered. All that mattered was that Fiona was home, safe, recovering. But until Sedotal and his crew were off the streets, Fiona and London would be in danger, and no damned way was he going to let anything happen to them again.

“Is Kye happy in Belize?” He walked beside Eli to the desk out front.

She smiled. “I like to think so.” She shrugged. “He misses riding his bike, misses his friends, but you know... I try to keep him busy.”