Forbidden Rider: A Lost Saxons Novel #5 Read online

  I scoot around him and stop at the nurses’ station, leaning on the desk. I’m acutely aware of Jem’s presence at my back, although I have no idea why he followed me. The nurse’s eyes come to me before flicking to the hulking man at my back.

  “I’m looking for an update on Joshua Wade.”

  The nurse lets out an irritated breath. “As I’ve already told your friends, I can’t give out any information.”

  “I’m his sister.” I leave off the ‘half’ part. I surmise I’m likely to get information faster without explaining mine and Josh’s difficult relationship.

  “You can prove that, can you?” is her snippy reply. “He seems to have a lot of sisters and brothers and uncles.”

  “Yes, I can. Would you like a DNA sample?” I snap. “Or I can piss in a cup, if you’d prefer.”

  Jem snorts at my back, but I ignore him.

  She flushes. “I don’t think that will be necessary, do you?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I’m not really sure how these things work. I’ve never had to give DNA before.”

  The nurse peers at me for a moment, maybe noticing the similarities in mine and Josh’s appearance for the first time. Weed said we looked alike. If this nurse has been around Josh, maybe she’s noticing this, too.

  “You’re really his sister?”

  “Yes. Josh is my brother. I’ll happily prove it to you.” I have no idea how, considering Curtis isn’t named as my father on my birth certificate.

  She sighs. “I’m done trying to work out who is related to who, and who is feeding me a line of crap to get information.”

  I glare at Jem. What the heck have they been saying?

  Her answer frustrates me. I need to know now if Josh is still breathing. “Can you at least tell me if my brother is still alive?”

  For a moment, I think she’s not going to tell me anything and I prepare for an argument. Then she says, “Joshua’s in a serious condition. He came out of the surgery as well as could be expected, but the damage inflicted was extensive. It’s going to be a difficult recovery.”

  “But he’s alive?”

  “He’s alive,” she confirms. “The nursing team is monitoring him in the ICU now.”

  I don’t expect to be so affected by hearing anything about Josh—after all, it’s been a while since he and I were in each other’s lives—but the relief is overwhelming.

  “Thank you,” I breathe out the word in a rush of air.

  When I start to move away from the desk, my legs suddenly turn to jelly and threaten to give out.

  A strong hand steadies me, as my knees buckle. All the stress and strain of the past few hours catch up to me and my stomach roils. It’s stupid to feel this way, but I can’t stop the flood of emotion.

  “Easy, sweetheart,” Jem’s fingers tighten on my biceps, keeping me on my feet. “Do you need to sit?”

  I cling to him, shaking my head, even though I’m trembling.

  “He’s alive…” I murmur, my voice cracking.

  “Yeah, he’s alive,” Jem repeats and he squeezes my shoulder. “And he’s going to stay that way, you hear?”

  I glance at him and see the belief in his dark eyes. “You can’t know that.”

  “I know Wade. I know he’s a stubborn prick and it’ll take more than a bullet to stop him. I know having you here is going to mean a shit ton to him when he wakes up.”

  He’s wrong about that. I’m the last person Josh is going to want to see when he comes around—if he comes around. I should leave, but I can’t. I need to know he’s all right. I stare at the tiled floor and try to calm my racing heart.

  “He was in surgery for hours. He’s got a hole in his front and his back. Does that sound like someone who is going to be okay?” I ramble.

  “The doctors know what they’re doing, Piper. They’ll fix him up.”

  This statement hits a chord with me.

  “Really? If they knew what they were doing he’d be in a hospital bed awake right now, not unconscious still.”

  “Just let them do their thing, okay? Trust them to do what they need to do.”

  I let go of him and step back, my anger flaring. “I told him this club would kill him one day, but I didn’t think I would be right.”

  His dark eyes narrow at my words and I see the hurt they cause. That hurt quickly morphs into something else, something more sinister. I should have kept my mouth closed. Me and my temper. This is why I usually take that moment to think through my words before I speak. If I don’t, I engage my mouth before my brain, and things are said that can’t be taken back. I’m not on safe ground here and I have to be careful. These men are not friends or family. They have the ability to hurt me, and Jem isn’t a kitten; he’s a lion with claws. I start to walk away from him, my heart starting to race, a staccato beat building beneath my ribs. I should apologise, cram the words back into my mouth, but they stick in my throat.

  Instead, I do what I always do. I run.

  Unlike everyone else in my life, he doesn’t let me. He seizes my arm, stopping my retreat. While his grip isn’t painful, it’s certainly enough to stop me pulling away, and it’s more than enough to shock me into letting out a squeak. For all the turbulence I’ve experienced with my mother—and stepfather, Grant—over the years, she’s never laid a finger on me. She’s never needed to. The threat of her words has always been enough to motivate me into action.

  Jem’s grip is an iron band around my forearm and it’s one that makes it clear I’m not moving until he’s had his say.

  Just as well. I’m so stunned, I can’t move anyway.

  “You’ve had a hell of a shock and that’s enough to make anyone lash out.” He takes a long breath and his grip on my arm loosens slightly. “I’m an easy-going kind of guy. I don’t like to get worked up. It puts me in a funk I can’t shake. Your situation gets you a free pass with me this once, but you spout that vitriol at any other brother and they’re not going to be as forgiving as I am. Slade especially isn’t as cuddly as me.”

  Despite his easy stance, his words snap with a warning that sends a chill racing through me. I’m far from home, alone, and with a bunch of men who consider crime all in a day’s work.

  He dips his head close to me and says, “The Club didn’t get your brother hurt, Piper. Wade stepped between a psychopath and woman I consider to be a sister to protect her. He got shot as a result. But even if he did get hurt because of the Club, that’s the way this world works. It’s what he signed up for, and your brother isn’t going to appreciate waking up to world war three kicking off between his sister and his brothers because you’re spitting poison about it. So, take a breath, wind your neck in, and get fucking control. If you can’t do that, you should leave.”

  I stare at him, my throat working as panic grows in my stomach. Throwing down the gauntlet at these men is not the best plan. I need to calm myself, but I’m running on emotions, and calm isn’t coming, no matter how much I count back from ten.

  Who does he think he is talking to me like this?

  I’m not part of his idiotic club. I don’t have to adhere to his rules.

  I wrench my arm free from him, and I suspect I am only able to do so because he allows it.

  “I need some fresh air,” I mutter.

  Wrapping my arms around my middle, I turn and walk away from him and the other men in the club. I can’t stand to even look at them right now.

  If Josh dies because of the Lost Saxons, I’m not sure what I’ll do.

  Chapter Three

  I don’t know what I expect to feel seeing Josh again, but it’s not the kick to the gut I get.

  My half-brother is a big man. He was huge the last time I saw him, easily standing six-foot-five, and broad, too. In the hospital bed, he looks enormous still. His legs are curled up slightly, so they don’t hang over the end and his shoulders fill the trolley completely, but there’s a vulnerability about him lying there helpless that I don’t expect. It hits me like a sucker punch.
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  His bare chest is littered with tattoos that are hidden beneath gauze and wires, and a blanket is pulled up to his hips. The long hair I recall from our last meeting is ratty, having pulled loose of its tie, and I want to brush it, to tidy it. I don’t know why, but that’s the only thought I have as I take in the two days’ worth of scruff covering his jaw and the mass of tubing and medical paraphernalia keeping him breathing.

  Frozen, I stare at the bed, unsure what to do. I don’t belong here. I’m not his family, not really. The waiting room outside, filled with leather-vested men and women associated with the Lost Saxons—they’re his family. Jem made that clear to me when I first arrived after our run-in at the nurses’ station, and nothing I’ve seen since I’ve been here has changed my opinion of this. I feel like an outsider, desperately clinging to the need to be in the inner circle. It’s pure stubborn determination that has kept me here. Josh is my blood, not theirs, and I have every right to be here. That, and the need to protect him from them. Josh may not see the poison this motorcycle club brings to his life, but I need to show him, somehow—before they kill him.

  But I may have lost that chance already. Josh is walking a tightrope between life and death, and I have no idea which way he will fall. The doctors give nothing away, but his Club family remains optimistic he will pull through.

  I don’t see how anyone can look this bad and live.

  Standing at the foot of his bed, I can hardly believe the man lying there is my brother. His skin is so washed out, so grey it’s nearly translucent. Everything in this room is so clinical, so unreal. Even the lighting is wrong. The lamp over the bed casts an eerie, orange glow over his face that makes him look even more sallow and sickly. There is an unnatural stillness, too. Josh hasn’t moved at all in the time I’ve been watching him. The only sounds have come from the beeping of the machines, my own ragged breathing, and his steady mechanical ones.

  Ungluing my feet from the floor, I walk slowly to him. Pausing at the bed rail, I take a moment to let my gaze wander over him. He looks different, but exactly as I remember him. He still has the scar beneath his lip, the wonky nose. Regret floods me for the time we wasted, for the angry words we exchanged that we can’t take back, and may never be able to, if he doesn’t pull through.

  I reach out and brush his hair back from his face, hoping his eyes will flicker open. They don’t.

  “Hey, Josh,” I say quietly. “It would be really great if you would wake up and stop worrying everyone. Mainly me. I’m not very good under stress. It really messes up my gut flora.”

  He doesn’t stir. No surprise. He’s a Wade and stubbornness is inbuilt in our DNA.

  A tear escapes my eye and rolls down my left cheek, taking me by surprise. I swipe angrily at it. I swore I wouldn’t get upset. I swore I would keep my emotions in check, but I can’t help it. All I see is the brother I first met at eighteen, when he was in jail—a brother who was as hurt as I was. A brother I should have helped find his way.

  A brother I failed.

  My big brother.

  He’s lost to me now, and has been for a long time. The Lost Saxons own him. They have him in ways I can never have him: hook, line, and sinker. They give him things I can never give him. They give him purpose, belonging, meaning. I could never compete with that.

  Sometimes, I wonder what life would have been like if Josh and I had been raised by normal parents, if Curtis hadn’t been abusive. If my mother wasn’t… well, my mother. If Josh hadn’t joined a motorcycle club and had been a regular big brother.

  What if, what if, what if…

  These questions drive me crazy, circling my brain.

  Josh wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed with a hole in his abdomen and back, that much I do know.

  Pushing off the bed rail, I head over to the chair in the corner of the room and sink into it.

  Steepling my fingers together, for the next thirty minutes, I sit there, watching, waiting.

  Josh doesn’t move or stir or do anything beyond the basic functions of living, although I beg the universe to bring him back to me, to give me the chance to make things right.

  It doesn’t.

  Eventually, a nurse comes in and I’m told to go to the family waiting area, so they can take care of his medical needs.

  This is a new kind of hell. The waiting room is filled with Club members and women associated with the Lost Saxons. I sit in the corner and try to block them out, try to block out everything, but it’s impossible. They go out of their way to be nice to me. They bring me coffee, and not machine bought stuff from the hospital, but from a coffee shop somewhere in town. It’s divine and the manners instilled in me from birth force me to show some appreciation. I can’t function without a decent cup of caffeine.

  At one point, one of the women brings me some magazines to pass the time and another woman brings me a phone charger, in case I need to replenish my battery. Everyone is so pleasant, it’s difficult to maintain my angry front, but I still manage to keep my distance. Beneath the smiles and the charms, these people are still criminals or linked to criminals, and I need to remember that.

  God, if Grant and my mother could see where I am now, they would have an apoplexy. I can imagine the fit my stepfather would throw over the damage this would do to his campaign.

  Local councillors do not associate with biker gangs. Local councillors’ stepdaughters do not reconcile with their criminal half-brothers either, but here I am.

  Hopefully, I can get through this without alerting my stepfather and mother. I do not need the hassle. It should be easy enough; neither of them are involved in my life unless I’m needed for a ‘happy family’ photo shoot opportunity.

  I want nothing more than to bundle my brother up and take him away from these people, to protect him from men who got him shot, but fear stops me from throwing my weight around. I don’t have any power here, and I’m more than aware of the fact.

  They station two men in vests outside Josh’s room at all times for his protection—whatever that means. I don’t know if they’re protecting him from whoever shot him in the first place or from me, but fear they might stop me from seeing him (and hurt me) keeps my mouth shut. I doubt the nursing staff could stop these men from seeing my brother if I requested it. In fact, knowing Clara works in the building makes me wary of even asking it. She may not hold sway up here with the doctors, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know people in this department. Living in Grant’s world has taught me valuable lessons in politicking. I know how to play the game, and I know I’m in the middle of a dangerous one right now—that I don’t have any power in.

  It kills me to do it, but I have to let some of his friends visit with Josh while I sit in the crappy plastic chairs in the waiting area. I may be his sister, but they have more right to him than I do. I’m the stranger here, not them. They could stop me seeing him. In fact, I’m lucky they let me in at all. I have to play things carefully if I’m going to protect him.

  I feel so helpless, and this is something I’m not used to.

  After a few hours, I’m unable to stomach sitting any longer. I push to my feet.

  “Are you all right?” one of the women asks, concern marring her face.

  “I’m just nipping to the ladies’ room,” I lie.

  “Do you need me to come with you?”

  She’s so nice, and I hate that she is. It would be easier if these people were horrid.

  “I’ll be fine, thank you.”

  I head off without giving her time to argue or push, and when I’m in the corridor away from all the eyes of the Lost Saxons, I’m finally able to breathe for the first time.

  Despite what I told her, I don’t head for the bathroom, but I take myself down to the foyer and out into the grounds of the hospital. I need the fresh air; I need a moment alone to recalibrate and plan what to do.

  I call Cami and update her on the situation—not that I have much to tell her. There’s nothing happening.

  “I don’t
know what to do, Cam,” I tell her, feeling completely alone and wishing my best friend came with me. This would be easier to stomach with an ally.

  “What do you want to do?” she asks as I find a bench outside the hospital main entrance and sink onto it.

  “Get my brother on the first plane out of crazy town,” I admit.

  She snorts down the line. “First of all, that’s not logical, Piper. Your brother is an adult and whether you agree with his choices or not, this is his choice.”

  I let out an irritated noise. “He’s not in his sound mind. He can’t be. This lifestyle—it’s insane, Cami.”

  “You can’t make him fit the mould you want him to fit.”

  Having experienced this with my parents, I know she’s right. “I don’t want him to fit my mould. I just don’t want him to get shot again.” I close my eyes and let out a breath. “It’s not safe.”

  “No, Piper, it’s not, but you can’t live his life for him either. Just make sure he’s okay and come home.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  I end the call, but remain sitting on the bench, letting the world pass me by for a while, my thoughts running riot before finally slowing down.

  It’s late afternoon and although it’s cloudy, it’s fairly mild, and the warm air is a soothing change from the stifling heat inside the hospital.

  I don’t know why I’m here anyway. It’s not like Josh cares about me or will be bothered about seeing me again. We didn’t part on the best of terms, so I can’t imagine him throwing out the red carpet when he wakes and sees me. I’m here for one reason only: my own peace of mind. As Cami said, all I need to do is make sure he’s okay and come home.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” a voice snaps to the side of me, drawing me out of my reverie.

  I twist to see Jem striding towards me, his wallet chain jangling against the denim of his thick thigh. He looks every inch the biker in his leather vest, a red plaid shirt beneath, heavy motorcycle boots on his feet and ink decorating the skin I can see. His blond hair curtains his face and is offset with a scruff of beard that shouldn’t look good, but does—if you like that gruff, rough look. But it’s not his appearance that I’m focused on. It’s his expression. His lips are drawn into a tight line, his eyes narrowed, his brow knitted together. He pulls out his phone from his jeans pocket and puts it to his ear. After a moment, he snaps into the handset, “Yeah, I’ve got her.”