Page 49 of Brick
“Foley tried to get to me through my mate?” Brick asked.
“You want to cause a ruckus in a pack and make a beast go nuts, you take away their mate. At least that’s what Foley said. He wanted to make an example of her and show that no one is safe. Shake your whole foundation.”
“What were you going to do with her?” Brick said with a low voice. Vengeance was singing in his veins, but he needed to know.
“Use her to get to you. We knew we were no match for you, but we could distract you and take her, then use her to lure you and your friends somewhere and…” He stopped talking like he realized he’d suddenly said too much.
Brick’s stomach churned with rage.
“And what?”
“And kill you all. Eventually, you’d all fall, Foley said so.”
“Where is he? Where is his headquarters?” Adam said, squatting down and looking the male in the eyes.
He swallowed hard, his bravado cracking a bit. Then he said, “I’m not saying shit. Not without a lawyer.”
Dropping his hold on the male, Brick opened his mouth to say that there wasn’t going to be a need for a lawyer because the male wasn’t going to survive if he didn’t talk, when the sound of engines drew close.
Adam rose to his feet. “It’s Leo and a few more vehicles with pack members.”
“Good,” Brick said, barely registering their arrival as he crouched beside Jade and kept his fingers on her pulse to reassure himself that she was alive. How the hell had the night gone so off the rails so fast?
Cinder dropped to her knees next to him. “She’s alive and that’s what matters. We’re all alive.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“About what?” she asked.
“About endangering you and your child, putting Jade into harm’s way, all of it.”
“Oh, Brick,” she said, resting her hand on his shoulder for a brief moment. “It’s not your fault. This is all on that bastard Foley. He’s the one who won’t leave us alone. We can’t spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders and never leaving town. That’s not living.”
“She’s right,” Adam said. “Tonight was awful, but we took out several of his people and we’ve got one of his males to interrogate. We’ll find out where he’s holed up and take him out once and for all.”
There was the creak of vehicle doors opening, and Leo rushed to them with Solan and Dove. “Is everyone okay?”
“I need to get Jade to Doc’s, and I’m sure Cinder needs to be looked at too. We were all knocked around pretty good with the crash. You guys are okay?”
“Yeah, we’ve got the males who came after us tied up in the back of the SUV, unconscious,” Solan said. “After we called for backup from the pack security team, we got here as fast as we could. We’ll handle things here. Go get them checked out at Doc’s.”
“I’ll follow you for security,” Dove said.
Brick nodded. “Get someone else too. We’ll take three vehicles.” Brick carried Jade to one of the waiting vehicles. Cinder got into the second row, and Brick laid his mate across the seat, her head on Cinder’s lap. Adam got into the front seat and Brick got behind the wheel. He gave final instructions to his people and got on the road, speeding away from the scene and heading for what he hoped was a safe place for his mate.
The hum of the truck’s engine was the only sound as Brick drove through the quiet streets toward the Whalen Family Clinic.
Everyone was tense and no one was talking, and that was okay with Brick. His throat was too tight for him to speak, his wolf pacing in fury that their mate had been hurt and nearly taken from him. He pulled into the parking lot of the clinic. Adam helped Cinder out of the SUV and Brick lifted Jade into his arms. The security team that followed them split up to surround the building to keep an eye out for danger.
The door to the clinic swung open as Doc stepped out, his keen eyes assessing the situation. “Bring her inside.”
Brick followed Doc into an examination room. He sent Adam and Cinder into another room. “Alpha, I’ll send in my nurse to check Cinder over,” he said.
“I’m fine. Please help Jade,” Cinder said.
Brick settled his mate on a hospital bed and lifted her shirt sleeves, finding the location of the bruise where the needle punctured her skin. Doc took her blood and sent it to the in-house lab to find out what she’d been injected with. While Doc hustled to deal with the blood work and form a treatment plan, Brick undressed his mate and put on a hospital gown, then tucked her gently into the bed.
She was on oxygen and a pulsometer attached to her finger, her heartbeat beeping steadily in the quiet of the room.
