Wirth (Dirty Aces MC Book 5) by Lane Hart (carter reed TXT) 📕

“There’s an old guy with a key fob up on the top floor looking down here!” she says as she ducks down in the seat. She peeks out of the back window as I work on the wiring in the steering column, then lets out a long sigh. “He went back in, and I saw the lights flash on a car over there,” she tells me. “He must have heard the racket and just been checking on his own car.”

“Let’s hope so,” I grit out as I steel myself for the shock I know is incoming. I always give myself a jolt when doing this, and tonight is no different. I spark the starter module, and the engine roars to life. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

It takes less than a minute to get back to the bar. I pull up to the curb, and Maeve and I both jump out, leaving it running but in park. Several people are gathered together at the entrance of the alley between the bar and some sort of restaurant that’s closed for the night. When I push my way through the bodies, I find Fiasco laid out on the pavement, several women holding shirts or dresses to his side and leg.

“Wirth!” he says when he looks up with heavy eyes and sees me. “I’m dying, man!”

Fuck!

“You’re not dying. Load him up in the SUV while I find the others,” I shout to the group who all look shell-shocked. “Move! Now!” I yell at them since I can already hear some sirens in the distance.

Rushing around to the door of the bar, I hurry inside, searching for Malcolm. The door is hanging open, littered with bullet holes. There’s shattered glass all around the bar, chairs are knocked over, and most of the tables have been overturned, probably because they tried to use the wooden furniture as shields.

I should’ve fucking been here!

“Wirth!” Nash calls me over to the area where I sat with Malcolm and Naomi just a few minutes before. He’s standing with Devlin and Silas, all three of which have their guns drawn and ready.

“You find a car?” Nash asks me.

“Yeah,” I say when I jog over and find a shirtless Malcolm. Naomi is standing beside him, tears streaming down her face while she holds his shirt to the wound on his shoulder.

“I can’t believe this happened!” she sobs.

“I’m fine, honey,” Malcolm grumbles. To me, he looks up and says, “It’s just a scratch. Bullet went right through clean.”

“A bullet! You took a bullet to the shoulder!” Naomi exclaims.

“He’s going to be fine,” Jetta assures her, taking over pressing down on the wound when Naomi breaks down, burying her face in her hands.

“We need to move,” Nash says. “Can you walk?” he asks Malcolm.

“If you all would get the hell out the way, I would’ve been gone by now,” our president says when he takes over holding the shirt to his shoulder. He gets to his feet and tries to push past Silas and Devlin.

“Go easy there, prez,” Dev warns him before he and Silas take the lead to the door, guns still out and at the ready.

“Cops are on their way,” I point out. “We need to get out of here, and fast.”

Malcolm does seem fine, but there’s a lot of blood soaking the shirt pressed to his bullet wound.

“We’re coming too!” one of the former Knights — Preston I think is his name — calls out as he and the big boy, Titus, carry a limp Hunt to the door as he tries and fails to keep a towel up to his head. It slips down and reveals a bloody, gushing ear. Or what used to be an ear, I suppose.

“Damn,” I mutter under my breath at the grizzly sight.

“Would’ve been fine…if someone…hadn’t slammed my head…into the ground,” Hunt murmurs.

“You didn’t get shot again, did you?” Titus remarks.

“I want to come with him,” Naomi says, but Malcolm shoots her down.

“You all need to get out of here and go home, check on the baby.”

“I’ll call them an Uber,” Maeve says when she reappears, already on her phone.

“Thanks,” I tell her, meaning for everything tonight.

We get all three of the men loaded up, Malcolm and Hunt in the back with Hunt’s guy, Preston, next to him to help keep him upright. Fiasco went into the cargo hold so he could have more room to stretch out. The fact that we needed Devlin and Silas to squeeze in there with him to apply pressure is concerning as I hop in the driver seat and Nash climbs into the passenger seat after saying a quick goodbye to the women, despite Naomi’s continued protest. At least she has the other women to stay with her.

“Where to?” I ask Nash. “We can’t go to a hospital. Bullet wounds are reported to the police.”

“Fuck. I don’t know,” Nash says. “Except, well, there is one possibility…”

“What is it?” I ask as I pull off down the road. “Which direction?”

“Back toward Carolina Beach,” Nash replies. “Lucy found my sister.”

“Okay. That’s fucking great,” I tell him as I take the exit ramp on the right so fast the SUV’s left tires come off the ground. “But what the hell does your sister have to do with anything right now, man?”

“She’s a nurse.”

“Oh. And you think she’ll help these guys?”

“I don’t know,” he says softly. “Haven’t met her yet.”

“Jesus Christ,” I grumble.

“Now is as good a time as any, I guess. Let me see if Lucy has her number and can at least warn her that we’re coming,” Nash says as he fumbles for his phone and finally gets it up to his ear. He relays the message to his girl of what we need and then ends the call a second later.

“Well?” I ask.

“Lucy’s texting me her address and will call her up to let her know we’re coming,” he responds.

Glancing over at him now that I’m on the straight shot highway going a hundred miles an hour,