Chain of Crowns: Book 2 of The Black Chains

Derick’s POV

The smell of hot lead and copper was suffocating, but it didn’t register. Nothing did. Not the ringing in my ears from the automatic gunfire that had just ceased, not the shouting of my brothers, and sure as hell not the shattered glass digging through the denim of my jeans as I dropped to my knees.

The only thing that existed in my entire world was the slick, hot weight spilling over my fingers.

“No, no, no, Bree, stay with me! Breathe, damn it, breathe!”

My voice didn’t sound like mine. It was cracked, broken, stripped of the unyielding authority I usually carried as President of this club. I was stammering like a kid. My hands, normally steady enough to strip a firearm in pitch darkness or steer a bike through a tight hairpin turn at ninety miles an hour, were violently trembling. I pressed them hard against her chest, my palms rhythmically flattening against the torn, ruined fabric of her shirt, trying to seal the hole a stray Mayham bullet had ripped through her.

Every time I pumped my hands, more of that dark crimson tide pooled rapidly through her shirt, staining my knuckles, my wrists, my rings.

“Stacy! Get over here now!” I roared, the sound tearing raw from my throat.

Stacy rushed out from behind the bar, her face stark white, a ghost against the heavy gray Smoke settling over our ruined clubhouse. She dropped to her knees beside me, her breath hitching as she tore open a field dressing with her teeth. Her hands were shaking too, but she forced them to work, trying to help me pack the wound.

“Bree!”

Across the room, Stella’s piercing scream echoed off the ruined walls, a raw, maternal cry of absolute terror. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, sobbing, trying to scramble through the debris and shattered glass to get to her best friend. But Brandon’s massive arms wrapped securely around her waist, hauling her back into his chest, pinning her behind the safety of the pool table barricade.

“Let me go! Brandon, let me go, she’s bleeding! She needs me!” Stella thrashed, her screams bouncing off the ceiling, but Brandon held her tight, keeping his body positioned over her and the open perimeter.

Good, a detached, vicious part of my brain thought. Keep her back. I couldn’t look away from Bree long enough to care about anything else. If the Mayhams spun their trucks around and drove back down the driveway right now to finish the job, I wouldn’t run. I wouldn’t seek cover. I would stay right here, refusing to leave her side.

“Derick ...”

The sound was a fragile, broken thread. It barely cleared her lips.

Her eyelashes fluttered, fighting a losing battle against the heavy, buzzing lights overhead. The vibrant, stubborn warmth that usually defined her eyes was fading, glaze settling over them as her chest rose and fell in shallow, agonizing gasps.

“Look at me, Bree. Look at my face,” I yelled, leaning down so close my forehead almost 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 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 pale 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 of air escaping her chest. My heart was hammering against my ribs so violently I thought it would crack them.

I had taken the gavel of this MC because I was cold, calculated, and unbothered by the concept of loss. 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, our interactions wrapped in sharp banter and standoffish walls. The rest of the club had teased us, dropping unsubstantiated 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 be losing her hit me like a freight train. It wasn’t love, not yet, but something was starting, and it was fierce and fast. It was a protective instinct so strong. She was my responsibility now, and I wasn’t going to let her slip away, not before I could figure out what this was.

“Grave! Smoke! Get the truck ready!” I yelled, my eyes never leaving hers. “Stacy, we aren’t waiting for an ambulance. They’ll take too long, and they’ll call the cops. We go to your clinic. Now!”

Stacy nodded frantically, pressing a thick wad of gauze 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 Smokes’ arm . Her eyes rolled back, the lids fluttering shut completely.

“Bree! No!” I grabbed her hand, my bloody fingers interlocking 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, where the heavy-duty club SUV was already idling, its headlights cutting through the night. Brandon was still holding Stella back, preventing her from moving towards us. Fear was written all over her face.

We moved in a frantic, chaotic blur. Grave and Smoke slid her into the spacious back seat of the SUV. I scrambled in right after her, pulling her upper body onto my lap, my hands immediately returning to her chest to apply crushing pressure. Stacy threw herself into the front passenger seat, while Smoke hopped behind the wheel, throwing the vehicle into reverse and spraying gravel against the clubhouse walls as he spun us around.

“Drive!” I bellowed at the back of Smokes’ head . “Don’t stop for anything! Red lights, stop signs—I don’t give a shit! Put your foot through the floor!”

The engine roared, the tires screaming as the heavy vehicle rocketed down the winding, unpaved driveway and tore onto the main highway.

Inside the club, the only sounds were the violent thrum of the engine, the squeal of the tires as Smoke took sharp turns, and the terrifyingly irregular 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 into the shadows. “She’s getting colder. Why is she so cold?”

Stacy turned around in her seat, a syringe already prepared. “I’m giving her something to keep her heart pumping, but I can’t do surgery in a bouncing SUV! Keep pushing on that wound. And don’t let up for a single second!” She turned back around in her seat and started digging in the bag for something else.

I leaned over her, my weight pressing down on her chest. My arms were burning. My muscles were cramping from the sheer force I was exerting, but I didn’t care. I would have broken her ribs myself if it meant keeping her heart beating.

“You don’t get to die, Bree,” I fiercely whispered into her ear, my lips brushing against her hair. The scent of her shampoo—something sweet, like vanilla—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.”

A tear slipped from my eye, hot and humiliating, tracking through the dirt on my own face before dropping onto her pale forehead. I had never wept for a man and never wept for the brothers we had buried over the years. But the sheer vulnerability of this civilian girl lying broken in my lap entirely unraveled me.

I looked at her beautiful face. Just yesterday, she had been throwing sharp, defensive 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 the bright, cozy diner downtown. She was innocent. And my lifestyle had dragged her 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 steering wheel as he pushed the SUV past 100 miles an hour, weaving through the sparse nighttime traffic.

“Faster!”

Every second felt like an eternity. I held her hand tight with one hand while I kept pushing down on my shirt, keeping pressure. I kept begging her to pull through. Take my club, take everything I had built, but let this girl survive.

Finally, Smoke swung the SUV hard to the left, the tires screeching as we tore down a secluded alley behind an unassuming commercial building. It looked like a standard warehouse from the outside, but the club had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars outfitting the basement into a state-of-the-art, off-the-books medical clinic for moments exactly like this.

Before the vehicle even came to a complete stop, I had the door open.

“Grave, help me!” I shouted.

Grave, who had been following closely behind us on his bike, slid to a halt and killed the engine. He rushed over, helping me pull Bree’s limp body out of the backseat. I refused to let anyone else carry her. I scooped her into my arms, her head rolling against my shoulder, her blood soaking through the front of my leather cut and into my shirt.

Stacy was already at the heavy-metal security door, punching in the code. The lock clicked, and she threw the door open, leading the way down the sterile, fluorescent-lit concrete stairs.

“Clear the table! Get the lights on!” Stacy ordered as we burst into the medical bay.

I laid Bree down on the cold, stainless-steel operating table. The contrast was horrifying—her pale, blood-stained skin against the bright, sterile metal.

Stacy immediately went to work, snapping on rubber gloves, turning 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 over Bree, reluctant to break contact.

“No, you’re not,” Stacy said, her voice dropping into her professional, no-nonsense doctor tone. She looked me dead in the eye, her gaze steady despite the chaos. “You are covered in dirt, glass, and sweat. You are a walking infection hazard. More importantly, you are panicked and getting in my way. If you want her to live, you get out of this room right now and let me work.”

The words cut through my panic like a knife. She was right. I was a liability in here.

Slowly, agonizingly, I let my fingers slip away from Bree’s hand. Stepping backward, I felt completely hollow, leaving a piece of my own focus right there on the metal table with her.

“Save her, Stacy, I can’t lose her now,” I said, my voice low, dangerous. “If she dies on this table, I’m burning this entire county to the ground. Starting with the Mayhams, and I won’t stop until there’s nothing left in this town.”

“I know, Pez. Now get out,” Stacy said, already turning her back to me to hook up an IV line.

I turned and walked out of the surgical room, the heavy double doors swinging shut behind me, cutting off the view of the girl whose survival suddenly meant everything.

I walked out into the dim hallway. Grave and Smoke were already standing there, their expressions grim. They looked at my hands and my clothes, which were completely painted with her blood.

I walked over to the small sink in the corner. I turned the faucet on, staring blankly as the water rushed over my hands. The water turned a deep, sickening crimson as it washed away the evidence of her trauma, swirling down the drain. I scrubbed at my knuckles, my skin turning raw, but I couldn’t wash away the heavy weight settling over my chest.

Once my hands were clean, I leaned my head against the cold concrete wall, closing my eyes.

The rage came then. It started as a tiny spark in the center of my chest, fueled by the terror and the helplessness I had just felt, and quickly erupted into a roaring, consuming inferno.

The Mayhams had broken the golden rule. They had brought a war to our clubhouse, and they had targeted an innocent civilian. They had targeted a girl under my protection.

“Grave,” I said, my voice dangerously calm as I straightened up and turned to face my enforcer. The panic was gone, replaced entirely by the cold, lethal persona of the MC President.

“Yeah, Prez?” Grave stepped forward, his hand instinctively resting on the grip of the sidearm holstered at his hip.

“Call Brandon. Tell him to get everyone back inside the clubhouse,” I commanded, my jaw clenching. “The shooting stopped, but the Mayhams are unpredictable. I don’t want anyone out scouting, and I sure as hell don’t want anyone launching a messy, blind 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, my eyes narrowing. “Our club is a mess, the perimeter is exposed, and Bree is on that table bleeding out. Brandon needs to corral the brothers, lock down the front gate, and keep Stella and the rest of the ladies secure inside the main building. We figure out what to do next. We consolidate our strength right where we are.”

Grave nodded. “Understood, Prez.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ll make the call to Brandon right now.” He turned and walked up the concrete stairs, his heavy boots echoing.

Smoke stayed back, looking at the closed double doors of the medical bay. “She’s tough, Prez. She’s going to make it.”

“She has to,” I said, my voice dropped to a whisper as I looked at the small glass window in the door. I could see Stacy’s silhouette moving around. “Because if she doesn’t, there won’t be enough graves in this state.”

Smoke gave my shoulder a firm, supportive squeeze before heading up the stairs to join Grave, leaving me alone in the dim, quiet hallway.

I sank into one of the plastic chairs, burying my face in my hands. The silence of the basement was deafening compared to the roar of the engines and the gunfire from earlier. Every second that ticked by felt like a physical blow to my chest.

I closed my eyes, and all I could see was her face—that fragile, broken thread of a voice calling my name. Derick. She hadn’t called for safety; she hadn’t called for a doctor. She had called for me. We weren’t a couple; we hadn’t admitted a damn thing to each other, but in that final second, she had trusted me to keep her alive. And I had let her get hit.

I gripped my hair, pulling tightly until the pain grounded me.

Fight, Bree, I pleaded silently, staring at the closed doors. Please, just fight. Stacy does her job and pulls through. We have too much unresolved shit between us for you to leave now. Just don’t give up.

The heavy scent 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 would make it back to the land of the living.