Rough Ride (Chaos #5)(5)

Tack was done.

So was Snap.

Tack got there before him.

“Deal with your woman,” he ordered Shy. “Rosalie has reported the incident, we gotta get to them before the cops do. We don’t have time for this. We need bail, you and Pete are on that.” He finished with Shy and looked over his shoulder to his brothers. “The rest of you, let’s ride.”

“Dad!” Tab shouted, but Shy clamped an arm around her while the rest of the brothers rolled out.

They marched through the common room of the Compound to their bikes lined up at the front outside.

When they rode out, Tack was lead, Hop behind him with High riding next to Hop where Shy, as one of Tack’s lieutenants (with Hop) and as the Club’s Sergeant at Arms normally rode. But High made a motion to Hop and fell back. He then made a motion to Snap, who rode forward.

Of all of them, not that he’d left much in question bearing down on Speck like he had, High knew where his head was at with Rosalie.

It was a huge solid to take that place in formation.

It was late winter. Cold. Dark. Night had long fallen.

But Bounty would know they were coming.

They’d be prepared.

They’d be ready.

They’d be waiting.

And they were.





Snapper sensed her waking up and looked over the top of his book to her.

He beat it back, the tight, hot feeling that welled up inside.

They’d laid Bounty out.

There was a lot of anger on both sides.

But Chaos had experience and skill. Joke used to be an underground fighter. Hound, Snap suspected, drank blood for breakfast and ate nails for dinner and outside that was all-around a lunatic. Boz was half-lunatic, but it was the good half when it came to a fight. High and Tack had had women they cared about messed up in bad shit, High recently, Tack not so much, but that shit never went away, so they were skilled as well at working out issues. Rush was all about the brotherhood and when the brotherhood had a mission, even if he didn’t agree with it, he was always all in to carry out the mission. Hop had always been their hand-to-hand man. He used to play in a rock band but straight up, the way the man used his fists, he could have been a contender. Roscoe had seen Rosalie. Speck had making up to do.

And Snapper had incentive.

That incentive was right there, lying on the hospital pillow.

Her beautiful face was blown up, eyes swollen shut, lips inflamed, nose huge, broken, so taped. Red and mottled had given way to deep raisin-purple black, mostly around the eyes. There were livid scrapes and deep cuts that shared some of Bounty didn’t bother taking off rings. There was flesh stitched together above and through her left eyebrow, along that side’s jaw, and he knew, under the bandage at her nose, down the left side of the bridge.

Her throat was stippled with angry jam-colored bruising. Along the left side and at the top of her windpipe, there were distinct heavier discolorations where Throttle had dug the pads of his fingers in cruelly, positioned like he wanted to tear her throat out.

How Snap knew she was awake, he couldn’t say. Her eyes were now so swollen they weren’t open because she couldn’t open them. But like earlier, he saw her long lashes fluttering so he clapped his book shut, set it aside, and leaned toward her.

“Hey,” he whispered.

Her head had been turned to the side, his way.

She rolled it, facing the other way.

Snapper extended his fingers, flexing them before curling them in. They were swollen and mottled too, all the knuckles split and raw.

He didn’t feel a thing.

He considered his next move.

He wasn’t going to make her keep trying to escape him by rounding the bed.

Instead, he bent over her.

“You want some privacy, Rosie?” he asked.

She said nothing, just kept her battered face turned away.

“Baby, swelling will go down, bruises will recede and you’ll be just as beauti—” he started to assure.

“Get out,” she whispered.

Fuck.

Fuck!

“Rosie—”

“Get out,” she repeated, still quiet, frail.

“We want an eye on you,” he told her.

“No,” she replied.

Snap leaned closer. “Honey—”

She turned her head so it was righted on her pillow and he saw just that pulled at and tightened her lips, showing him it caused pain.

They hadn’t laid out Bounty enough.

Not near enough.

It was still feeble, but she kept at it. “No Chaos. No you. Get out.”

“Rosie, we got them then the cops got them so you’re safe, honey. But I wanna make sure you’re safe so—”

“I never wanna see you again.”

Snap froze.

“Get out,” she reiterated.

“Rosie,” he whispered.

“Everett, go.”

She pulled out his real name.

This was more serious than the serious he already knew it was.

He tried again, mostly because he couldn’t give up.

“Got up in Speck’s shit, Rosie. Brothers are pissed. We rolled out on Bounty. All of us, we claimed you as one of our own. This didn’t stand, Rosalie.”

“I won’t say it again,” she whispered. “In five seconds I’m hitting the call button.”