Page 24 of Falcon

“You never said anything,” Calamity accused.

“Just an injured kid. Took him back to his house,” I replied, guessing where their minds had gone.

“Two parents?” Aurora-Victoria asked.

“Yes, Mom and Dad.”

She looked disappointed and shrugged. I thought of Myka, making my disappointment greater. Nope, she had a ring on it and was clearly under that asshole Dawson’s spell. Shame.

“There’s one more thing,” Aurora-Victoria said, holding Calamity’s eyes. “There’s more dead.”

“Fuck. On the peninsula?” Calamity demanded.

“I’m not sure. But they’re coming,” she assured us.

We exchanged worried looks. If Aurora-Victoria was picking up bodies, there was a reason. Something big was going to happen.

“What’s up?” I inquired the following day. I planned to drop by and check on Jayes, but I’d got caught up with a couple of things, and I’d had an appointment with that bitch therapist. Christ, I swore she hated me.

Calamity was crouched over a box, cooing, and I smiled. “You bought Rosie another puppy?”

“No. Some asshole dumped this lot here. Could you take them to Rosie?” he asked. I peered at the box and frowned.

“Those are German Shepherds, what the hell?”

“I sent Rosie a picture; she thinks they’re purebred. God knows why they’ve been dropped off here.” I judged the pups to be about four weeks old.

“Where’s Mama?” I demanded, concerned.

Calamity tipped his chin, and I turned and saw a stunning silver sable German Shepherd lying on a sofa. She lifted her head slightly and stared; it was clear how weak she was. I approached slowly and held out my hand.

“Hello, darlin’. Ain’t you a beautiful girl?” I murmured as I checked her over. She appeared young, only two or three. She licked me once and struggled to get up as a puppy snorted.

Calamity moved the box over, and she stuck her head in and weakly licked the pups.

“Prez, I’ll get the SUV. Can you carry the pups?” I asked, picking her up. Panic welled in her eyes, but she didn’t have the strength to fight. Shit. I hated humanity sometimes.

Calamity followed as I grabbed a club SUV and carefully placed her inside. She whined until Calamity got in with the puppies and settled next to her. Her eyes were killing me; so much pain was in them. No matter what happened, I was taking her. She needed a name.

“Star,” I muttered.

“What was that?” Calamity asked.

“Her name. It’s Star.”

“What about her owners?” Calamity laughed.

“Fuck them. Star’s mine now.” It was as simple as that.

Somehow, I ended up agreeing to foster Star and the nine puppies. Five were boys, and four were girls. News soon got around the club, and I was fielding offers to adopt them out. Savage threatened me with bodily harm when I told him they’d all been promised. Moments later, Luca messaged, telling me to give his to Savage. I got another surprise when we returned to the club and discovered a male German Shepherd lying in the road.

I drove back to Rosie with him in the car. Rosie believed he was the dad and agreed to do some DNA tests for me. Now I had ten German Shepherds. Shit. I’d better stock up. I headed to the local pet shop and left nearly a thousand bucks lighter. The owner helped me carry everything to the SUV, and I headed home again.

My shoulder was killing me, so I took some painkillers and dozed off. However, I didn’t sleep through Texas pounding on my door.

“Veep, we’ve received an alert. There’s a fire in town; volunteer firefighters are being called in,” Texas bellowed.

“Coming,” I shouted back with a yawn. I shrugged into jeans and a tee and stomped on my boots. Texas was banging on doors, waking everyone up. When I got down to the rec room, Rosie, Calamity, and Penny were hauling our equipment out. I joined them as Elijah and Rodrigo appeared and helped. While we did that, Rosie began handing out packs and assigning them to us.