Chapter 1- The Only Exception
Derick
The smell of gunpowder and blood was thick enough to choke on, but I didn’t fucking care. I couldn’t feel the glass slicing through my jeans as I dropped down. The ringing in my ears completely drowned out the guys screaming around me.
The only thing that was real was the hot, slick blood spilling over my fingers.
“No, no, no, Bree, stay with me! Fucking breathe, damn it, breathe!”
I didn’t even recognize my own voice. It was cracked, and totally stripped of the control I usually had. I was shaking like a kid. My hands—the same hands that could strip a gun in the pitch dark or take a hairpin turn at ninety miles an hour—were trembling so hard I could barely function. I pressed them flat against her chest, desperately trying to stop the bleeding.
Every time I pushed down, more blood pooled under my palms, staining my knuckles, my wrists, and my rings.
“Stacy! Get the fuck over here now!” I roared, my throat burning from the scream.
Stacy scrambled out from behind the bar. Her face was dead white against the gray smoke filling the room. She dropped to her knees right next to me, gasping for air as she tore a field dressing open with her teeth. Her hands were shaking just as bad as mine, but she forced them to move, trying to help me pack the wound.
“Bree!”
Across the room, Stella’s scream bounced off the walls. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, crying and trying to crawl through the dust and broken glass to get to her best friend. But Brandon wrapped his massive arms right around her waist, hauling her back
“Let me go! Brandon, let me go, she’s bleeding! She needs me!” Stella thrashed, her screams hitting the ceiling, but Brandon held her tight, keeping his own body over hers to block the windows.
Good, a cold, nasty part of my brain thought. Keep her back. I couldn’t look away from Bree long enough to give a shit about anything else. If the Mayhems spun their trucks around and came right back down the driveway to finish the job, I wouldn’t run. I wouldn’t seek cover. I was staying right here on the floor, and nothing was making me leave her side.
“Derick...”
The sound was barely a whisper. It barely even made it past her lips.
Her eyes fluttered, trying to stay open against the clubhouse lights. That stubborn spark she usually had in her eyes was completely fading out, a glaze settling over them while her chest moved in short, heavy gasps.
“Look at me, Bree. Look at my face,” I yelled, leaning down so close my forehead touched hers. I needed to be the only thing she could see. I pulled her onto my lap as much as I could.
“Don’t you dare close your fucking eyes. You stay right here. Look at me, please.”
“It... hurts,” she whispered, a single tear cutting a clean path through the soot and dust on her cheek.
“I know, Bree. I know it hurts. But I’ve got you. I’m not letting you go.” I pressed down harder, ignoring the wet, sickening sound coming from her chest. My heart was fucking slamming against my ribs so hard I thought it would crack them.
I had taken the gavel of this MC because I was cold, calculated, and didn’t give a shit about losing people. Attachments distracted you, and that got you killed around here. I had a strict rule: never let anyone get close enough to become a weakness.
Up until tonight, Bree was just the stubborn civilian who had stumbled into this violent world. We had been circling each other for weeks, keeping our distance and hiding behind sharp remarks and high walls. The rest of the club had teased us, dropping hints that we were bound to end up together eventually, but neither of us had crossed that line. We hadn’t established anything. We were just two people keeping each other at arm’s length.
But looking down at her, watching her blood pool around my hands and knees, the fear that I might lose her hit me like a fucking freight train. It wasn’t love, not yet, but something was happening, and it was fierce and fast. It was an unhinged, dangerous protective instinct. She was my obsession now, my responsibility, and I wasn’t going to let her slip away before I could claim her.
“Grave! Smoke! Get the fucking truck ready!” I yelled, my eyes never leaving hers. “Stacy, we aren’t waiting for an ambulance. They’ll take too damn long, and they’ll call the cops. We go to our clinic. Now!”
Stacy nodded frantically, pressing a thick wad of gauze right over my hands. “We need to stabilize her for the ride, Prez. Pressure. Keep the pressure on!”
Grave and Smoke rushed toward us, their faces grim, each carrying a heavy medical kit. Grave didn’t say a word; he just slid his arms under her legs while Smoke supported her shoulders.
“On three,” Grave muttered. “One, two, three.”
As they lifted her, a choked gasp left her lips, and her head fell back limply against Smoke’s arm. Her eyes rolled back, her eyelids fluttering shut.
“Bree! NO!” I grabbed her hand, my bloody fingers locking with hers. Her skin was already turning cold and clammy. “Stay awake, damn it!”
“She’s crashing! We need to move NOW!” Stacy screamed, grabbing her medical bag and bolting toward the back exit.
The heavy club SUV was already idling outside, its headlights cutting through the dark. Brandon was still holding Stella back, keeping her from running toward us. She looked completely terrified.
We moved in a frantic, chaotic blur. Grave and Smoke slid her into the back seat of the SUV. I scrambled in right after her, pulling her upper body onto my lap, my hands going straight back to her chest to apply crushing pressure. Stacy threw herself into the front passenger seat, while Smoke hopped behind the wheel, throwing the truck into reverse and spraying gravel against the clubhouse walls as he spun us around.
“Drive!” I yelled at the back of Smoke’s head. “Don’t stop for anything! Red lights, stop signs—I don’t give a shit! Put your fucking foot through the floor!”
The engine roared, the tires screaming as the heavy truck rocketed down the winding, unpaved driveway and tore onto the main highway.
Inside the SUV, the only sounds were the violent rumble of the engine, the squeal of the tires every time Smoke took a sharp turn, and the terrifying, ragged sound of Bree’s breathing.
“Stacy, do something!” I demanded, my voice rising in panic as I felt Bree’s body grow heavier, slipping further away from me. “She’s getting colder. Why the fuck is she so cold?”
Stacy turned completely around in her seat, a needle already ready in her hand. “I’m giving her something to keep her heart pumping, but I can’t do surgery in a bouncing truck! Keep pushing on that wound. And don’t let up for a single second!” She turned back around and started digging through her bag for something else.
I leaned right over her, putting all my weight into her chest. My arms were burning like hell, and my muscles were cramping up from the pressure. But I didn’t care. I would have broken her damn ribs myself if it kept her heart beating. I needed to keep her breathing, needed to control it myself if I had to.
“You don’t get to fucking die, Bree,” I whispered fiercely right against her ear, my lips brushing her hair. The sweet smell of her vanilla shampoo was horribly mixed with the metallic stench of her blood. “You hear me? You don’t get to leave like this. You’re tougher than this. Stick around, damn it. You belong to me now.”
A tear slipped from my eye, hot and frustrating, tracking through the dirt on my face before dropping onto her pale forehead. I had never cried for a man, and I sure as hell never cried for the brothers we’d buried over the years. But seeing this civilian girl completely broken in my lap unraveled me.
I looked down at her face. Just yesterday, she was throwing sarcastic remarks my way at the bar, keeping her walls up just as high as mine. She didn’t belong in a world of gunfights and blood feuds. She belonged in that bright, cozy diner downtown. She was innocent, and my fucked-up lifestyle had dragged her straight into the crosshairs.
“How much further, Smoke?!” I yelled, my chest heaving.
“Three minutes, Prez! Just three minutes!” Smoke shouted back, his knuckles white on the wheel as he pushed the truck past a hundred miles an hour, weaving right through the light nighttime traffic.
“Faster!”
Every single second felt like an eternity. I squeezed her hand tight with one hand while I kept pushing down on her chest with the other, keeping the pressure steady. I just kept begging her to pull through. Take the club, take everything I had ever built, but let this girl live.
Finally, Smoke swung the truck hard to the left, the tires screeching as we tore down a dark alley behind a plain commercial building. It just looked like a standard warehouse from the outside, but the club had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars turning the basement into a state-of-the-art, off-the-books medical clinic.
I didn’t trust the Mayans with her life, and their own compound’s medical supplies had been completely wiped out in the shootout anyway. This hidden basement was the only place in the county with stocked blood bags, surgical gear, and absolute security.
Before the truck even came to a complete stop, I flung the door open.
“Grave, help me!” I yelled.
Grave had been right behind us on his bike, skidded to a halt and killed the engine. He rushed straight over, helping me pull Bree out of the backseat. There was no fucking way I was letting anyone else carry her. I scooped her into my arms, her head rolling deadweight against my shoulder as her blood soaked right through my leather vest and into my shirt.
Stacy was already at the heavy metal security door, slamming the code into the keypad. The lock clicked, and she threw the door wide open, leading the way down the bright, concrete stairs.
“Clear the table! Get the lights on!” Stacy ordered the second we burst into the medical bay.
I laid Bree down on the stainless-steel operating table. Seeing her pale, blood-stained skin against that sterile metal made my stomach completely drop.
Stacy went straight to work, snapping on rubber gloves, flipping on the massive overhead surgical lights, and ripping open sterile instrument packs.
“Prez, I need you to step back. Now.”
“I’m staying,” I said, my hands still hovering right over Bree, terrified to let her go.
“No, you’re fucking not,” Stacy said, her voice dropping into a strict, no-nonsense doctor tone. She looked me dead in the eye, completely steady despite the mess we were in. “You are covered in dirt, glass, and sweat. You are a walking infection hazard. More importantly, you are panicking and getting in my way. If you want her to live, you get the hell out of this room right fucking now and let me work.”
Her words cut straight through my panic. She was right. I was a liability in here.
Slowly, I let my fingers slip away from Bree’s hand. Stepping backward felt completely hollow, like I was leaving a piece of myself right there on the metal table with her.
“Save her, Stacy. I can’t lose her now,” I said, my voice dropping low. “If she dies on this table, I’m burning this entire fucking county to the ground. I’ll start with the Mayhems, and I won’t stop until there’s nothing left of this town.”
“I know, Prez. Now get out,” Stacy said, already turning her back to hook up an IV line.
I turned and walked out, the heavy double doors swinging shut behind me and cutting off the view of the girl who suddenly meant everything.
Grave and Smoke were standing in the hallway, their faces grim. They just stared at my hands and my clothes, which were completely painted in her blood.
I walked over to the small sink in the corner, flipped the faucet on, and stared blankly as the water rushed over my hands. It turned a deep, sickening red as it washed away, swirling down the drain. I scrubbed at my knuckles until my skin was raw, but I couldn’t wash away the heavy weight sitting on my chest.
Once my hands were clean, I leaned my head against the cold concrete wall and closed my eyes.
Then the rage hit me. It started as a tiny spark right in the middle of my chest, fueled by the panic and helplessness I’d just felt, and it quickly blew up into consuming fire.
The Mayhems had broken the golden rule. They brought a war straight into our clubhouse, and they targeted an innocent civilian. They targeted a girl under my goddamn protection.
“Grave,” I said, my voice completely quiet and steady as I straightened up to face my treasurer. The panic was gone, replaced by the cold, lethal mindset of the president.
“Yeah, Prez?” Grave stepped forward, his hand automatically resting on the grip of the gun at his hip.
“Call Brandon. Tell him to get everyone back inside our clubhouse,” I ordered, my jaw clenching. “The shooting stopped, but the Mayhems are unpredictable as hell right now. I don’t want anyone out scouting, and I sure as hell don’t want anyone launching a messy retaliation tonight. We are compromised.”
Smoke blinked. “You’re pulling everyone back? Even after what they just did?”
I shot him a look. “We don’t go hunting when our own walls are broken,” I growled, narrowing my eyes. “Our club is a mess, we are totally exposed, and Bree is on that table bleeding out. Brandon needs to gather the brothers, lock down the front gate, and keep Stella and the rest of the ladies safe inside the main building. We figure out what to do next. We hold our ground right where we are.”
Grave nodded. “Understood, Prez.” He pulled his phone out. “I’ll call Brandon right now.” He turned and headed up the concrete stairs, his heavy boots echoing.
Smoke stayed back, staring at the closed double doors of the medical bay. “She’s going to make it.”
“She fucking has to,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper as I looked through the small glass window in the door, watching Stacy’s silhouette move around. “Because if she doesn’t, there won’t be enough graves in this state.”
Smoke gave my shoulder a firm squeeze before heading up the stairs to join Grave, leaving me totally alone in the quiet hallway.
I sank into one of the plastic chairs and buried my face in my hands. The silence down in this basement was deafening compared to the roar of the engines and the gunfire from earlier. Every single second that ticked by felt like a physical blow right to my chest.
I closed my eyes, and all I could see was her face—that tiny, broken whisper calling my name. Derick. She hadn’t yelled for help, and she hadn’t called for a doctor. She called for me. We weren’t a couple. We hadn’t admitted a damn thing to each other, but in that final split second, she trusted me to keep her alive. And I let her get hit.
I gripped my hair, pulling tight until the pain grounded me.
Fight, Bree, I pleaded silently, staring straight at the closed doors. Please, just fight. Stacy, do your fucking job and pull her through. We have too much unresolved shit between us for you to leave now. You are mine to protect, and I am never letting you go.
The heavy smell of copper and cleaning fluid filled my nose as I sat there in the dark, a president waiting to see if the girl who constantly challenged him was going to make it back to the land of the living.
