“Yeah,” I croaked, “Will be better when I’m out of here.”
His face was hard when he got a look at my face, then he shone the light lower, frowning at the way I was holding my injured arm. The soft face turned to granite when he found the chain on my ankle.
He paused, took a breath and met my eyes. “You’re safe now,” he promised.
I nodded. But he was wrong. I was only safe when I had Zane’s arms around me, when I could touch my daughter. Then I was safe.
Luke leaned into his radio, his face hard. “Got her, she’s pretty banged up. Think her arm’s broken—need a paramedic in here, stat,” he barked. “Also need bolt cutters. She’s fuckin’ chained to the wall.”
I tilted my head at him. “Are you allowed to talk into a walkie-talkie thing like that?” I asked curiously. “Aren’t you meant to be all professional and talk in codes like ‘Whisky Bravo Six radioing in’? Plus, I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to say ‘over’ when you’re finished talking,” I told him, my movie knowledge making me practically an expert.
He looked at me, his face expressionless. Then he threw back his head and laughed.
“Didn’t think it would be possible, darlin,’” he said when he finished laughing. “That the woman chained to the wall, beaten to shit, would be the one making me laugh,” he said disbelievingly.
I shrugged my shoulders, flinching at the pain. “I’m just glad I’m alive to be my hilarious self,” I informed him with a grin. That and my only other option was bursting into tears.
Moment the pigs turned up, they were fucked. They all knew it. They were all furious. Bull was so furious he ended up in a weird state of calm. He didn’t shoot anyone like every fiber of his being was screaming at him to do. Instead he calmly walked around, a thin layer of red over his vision.
“Shouldn’t you be out catching fuckin’ criminals, Crawford?” Cade spat at the deputy who was standing in their clubroom.
He looked around in distaste. “Funny,” he said. “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
Cade looked about to explode. “Can you drop your fuckin’ shit toward the club for one fucking second?” he half roared. “A woman is missing. A mother. An innocent. Fucking do your job and look for her!”
Bull knew this shit was going nowhere fast and he had to do something if he wanted Mia back. So that’s why he walked up to a man he hated only slightly less than his fuckwit father and offered a deal that had Cade’s eyes near popping out of his head.
“Can’t believe we’re fuckin’ doing this,” Lucky muttered, fingering his knife as he leaned against his bike.
“Workin’ with fuckin’ pigs,” Asher spat out in disgust, saying it loud enough for the uniform in the cruiser to hear. He scowled at Asher but didn’t move.
“Shut the fuck up, fuckwits,” Cade barked, eyes on the same place Bull’s were. “We’re doing the only fuckin’ thing we can do to get Mia back, without getting ourselves locked up.”
Bull hated it as much as his brothers did. Hated that he was standing behind fucking police tape while the brothers in blue charged into the fancy fucking house not two hours away from Amber. Two hours.
He had immediately given Crawford the details on where Mia was. Not because he wanted to; saying that shit went against everything inside him. Because he had no other choice. He knew Crawford would put a tail on them, so there was no way they could storm the place themselves and murder every fucker inside like they originally planned. Well, not without disabling a cop. Which each one of them would have loved to do, but that came with complications. And took time. Which he didn’t have. So he made a deal with the Devil. Or more likely, the one who thought they were the Devil. He’d given him not only Mia’s location, but the location of a major player in the heroin trade on the proviso the club was coming. Crawford’s jaw had gone tight at this, but he agreed, as long as they kept their distance and let the police do their job. He had felt conflicted, giving information to the one man who had vowed to find a way to destroy his club, his family. Then he had caught a glimpse of Lexie, red-rimmed eyes but still looking strong, looking like she had hope. Then that conflict melted away.
Bull’s entire frame tightened at the sounds of gunfire. They had better not fuck up their job. If they did, even their pissant uniforms wouldn’t stop him from ending every last one of them. His hands itched to be in there, doing something, killing someone. Saving his woman. Instead he was standing here like a loser. A quick glance at the tight faces of his brothers told him he wasn’t alone. Then the gunfire stopped. Everything went silent. That was worse.
Bull stormed over to the uniform left watching them. “What the fuck is going on?” he growled.