Page 14 of Healed

“What?”

“You’re just… you,” I said, shaking my head. “All the time.”

“As Vienna once told me—if you can’t be yourself, then who can you be? Speaking of which… any idea where my old hair buddy might be?”

“The basement,” I said without hesitation. “There’s a room beneath the house. Not the clubhouse—the main house. My house. That’s where I was before I escaped, and I left my mother there as well. My bet is on Nico putting Vienna there for safekeeping. But my bet is also on Nico instructing that they be removed whilst you’re all distracted with fighting.”

Dante nodded once, already moving. “Rachel, take Hacksaw and Trent with you and circle the back of the clubhouse. Keep them busy and stop anyone getting between us and the cars.”

“On it,” she nodded. “Bring our guy back, Dante King.”

“Have I ever let you down before?”

“Numerous times,” she said immediately, without a shred of humour, her tone completely deadpan.

He leaned in quickly and kissed her hard enough to make my eyes widen, then pulled back with a grin that had absolutely no place in the middle of a gunfight. “That’s my girl.”

“You’re both insane,” I breathed.

“Welcome to the family,” Rachel said, already backing away.

Family.

As if I could even dare believe it.

Dante shoved me back towards the car, grabbed my door and opened it, crouching slightly so we were eye level. “You’re going to get behind the wheel. You’re going to keep the engine running. If anyone who isn’t one of mine gets too close, you drive or you shoot,” he said, placing a gun on my lap. “I’ll let you make the decision.”

I looked past him towards the main house.

Towards the basement.

Towards my mother.

Towards Vienna.

“Gabriella,” Dante said firmly. “Stay alive. That’s all you need to do. You can pick apart the mental damage afterwards. Stay alive long enough for me to return Vienna to you, and we’ll deal with everything else afterwards.”

“And my mother?” I asked, my voice sounding smaller than I wanted it to.

Dante hesitated, his lip curling in distaste. “I’ll bring her,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Gee, you sound utterly fucking thrilled.”

“It’s bad enough having my enemy’s daughter sitting in my car. Now you want me to have his old lady here as well.”

“Harley is dead, Dante.”

“Yeah. And I pulled the fucking trigger.”

Then he was gone, moving through the chaos with the terrifying certainty of a man who had been born for war. Men fell around him. Devils closed ranks behind him. Rachel shouted orders somewhere to my left, her voice cutting through the gunfire, and I forced myself into the driver’s seat, hands shaking as I adjusted behind the wheel.

I turned the key even though the engine was already running, earning a horrible grinding noise that made me wince.

“Brilliant, Gabby,” I muttered to myself. “Survive Nico for years and get defeated by a fucking ignition.”

My hands tightened around the steering wheel.

Through the windscreen, I watched the battle continue. I watched Devils cut through Riders. I watched men I had once trusted fall beneath men I had once been taught to hate. I watched my past and my future tear each other apart in the yard I had once called home.