Mason:Inked Reapers MC(42)

"For now, we wait and watch. We need to keep an eye on him at all times.  We need to know who he's in bed with before we can pull him out. I'm  gonna call Lucy." I pulled out my phone and headed away from him,  needing some privacy.



"Okay, but no more phone sex. That girl slept like the dead for a good  two hours last time you two talked on the phone. Massy had a hell of  time waking her up." I let out a loud laugh and kept on walking.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX



LUCY





"What'd he say?" Massy asked me as soon as I stepped back in the living room.



"Which one? Your husband kept yelling things over Mason's shoulder." I laughed.



She rolled her eyes, but the grin she gave me told me she didn't mind  much about her husband. "Okay, what did my Neanderthal say, then yours."



"Yours said, You tell that woman she better be resting. No hikes in those damn woods!"



Massy gripped her stomach and laughed hard. "You got his voice pretty  good." She wiped a tear from her eye. "Of course I'm resting." She waved  her hand over her body. With her feet propped up on a pillow, and a few  more pillows behind her back, she looked like a queen riding in her  boat down the Nile River. "Where am I gonna go? See, that man is just  ornery to be ornery."



"Mason was just as bad." I patted her shoulder and headed for the  recliner. Leaning back, I popped up the foot rest. "He did say they were  stuck for a few more days, but wouldn't give me any details. Just told  me to sit tight and not worry. 'Cause that's what I do best." I looked  out the window of the cottage at the tree line just outside. "Didn't  Tick leave a gun with you?"



"Yeah, it's in the bedroom. Don't worry, hon, no one is going to be knocking on that door."



"No, no. I'm not worried about that. I was just thinking, since we have  plenty of time to kill...you want to show me how to shoot?"



If I could have framed her face at that moment, I would have. Her mouth  dropped open and her eyes nearly crossed. "What? You want to learn how  to shoot a gun? Now? Here?"



"Sure. Why not? No time like the present, right? Besides, if something  does happen, I'm not gonna feel all that great hiding behind a pregnant  woman."



She seemed to think about it for a minute, then mentally talked herself  right out of it. "No. Tick would have my ass, Mason, too."



"Mason would want me to be safe, and learning how to take care of myself  is how I'll be safe," I pointed out. "What would be the harm? You show  me, I shoot a few trees, we come back in for your afternoon nap."



She chewed on her lower lip for another minute, then the determination  sprung into her eyes. "Look what that man has done to me, making me sit  here thinking about what he's gonna think about it. Fuck that. Let's go.  You have pants? You can't be walking around the woods in that dress."



I looked down at my summer dress. Mason preferred them, so I wore them.  Odd how quickly his preferences became second nature to me. "Yeah. I'm  sure I have a pair of jeans in my bag."



Thirty minutes later we stood shoulder to shoulder, staring down a pine  tree. "Don't go stiff, if you go stiff your shoulder's gonna hurt from  the recoil."                       
       
           



       

"This little thing has a recoil?" I held up the gun. It looked too small to offer much of a bite, but she nodded.



"Hell yeah, and if you don't hold it right you'll mess up your elbow,  too. Don't hold it sideways like those idiots in the movies. You have to  hold it straight, like this." She moved to stand behind me, wrapping  her arms around my body and getting my positioning straight. "Now, don't  put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to pull it,  understand? If you put it there right away, you'll end up pulling it on  accident. So just keep it here, on the outside. Line up your sight, when  you're ready, just pull the trigger."



She let go and stepped back. "Go ahead." She covered her ears and nodded  again. My arms tensed and took a long breath, trying to relax my body.



I lined up my shot with a large knot in the tree. Seemed a big enough  target. A snap of a twig crackled in the air just as I pulled the  trigger back. The gun fired, a hot pain shot up my arm and through my  shoulder, and a scream echoed through the woods.



But I hadn't screamed. I looked over at Massy, panicked that I managed  to hit her behind me. She stared back at me with as much confusion as  me. We both took a few steps toward the tree I had been aiming out and  found where the noise came from.



Sting lay on the ground, holding his stomach, blood oozed from between  his fingers. I must have looked pale, because Massy grabbed my arm and  told me to breathe. "I'm fine." I pushed her hands off me. It may have  been the first time I'd seen a man dying before, and it sure as hell was  the first time I'd shot someone, but I could handle anything. I didn't  need my hand held every step of the way.



"What the fuck is he doing here?" she whispered, even though his pained  expression was fixed right on us as we made our way over to him. I  looked around, making sure there wasn't anyone else hiding behind the  trees. I didn't see anyone, but that didn't mean shit. I hadn't seen  Sting there until he screamed like a little bitch.



"You bitch! You fucking shot me!" He tried to yell at me, but it all  came out garbled and strained. More blood poured out from between his  fingers, joining the large pool already collecting on the forest bed.



"I didn't see you." I knelt down next to him, pulling off my sweatshirt.  "Here. We need to put pressure on it, try to get the bleeding to stop."



"How'd you get here? How'd you know where we were?" Massy demanded,  pointing the gun at him again. I'd dropped it when I heard the pained  scream, she must have picked it back up.



"Jayson had me tail you." He coughed, spraying blood over himself.

"We've been here almost two days, you've been sitting out here for hat long?" She cocked the gun.



"No...Shit. Okay … okay." He put a bloodied hand up. It didn't matter if  she shot him again or not, I couldn't get the bleeding to stop. And  abdominal gunshot wound needed medical care I couldn't provide in the  middle of the woods, or in the middle of a hospital. He needed a doctor,  a team of nurses, and an OR. I shot him. I shot a person. I pulled the  trigger and the bullet went inside another human being. If he died, that  made me a murderer.



"Marcus?" I looked up from his wound to his eyes. "Marcus sent you?"



"No, not that Reaper shit. Jayson's looking for you everywhere. He wants  your ass back in camp." He took a shaky breath. "He's losing ground  with the rest of the club and Lucas is trying to make a move for  president. He figures...if he had you...Mason would have to help him  keep his seat...Fight back against Lucas and the cartel."



"How'd you know we were here?" Massy asked again, louder, and moved closer to him.



"Marcus reached out. Said you two were visiting Massy's family down south."



Massy's eyes were trained on him, not reacting to that bit of news. "My family isn't south," she said.



"No, and Marcus knew that. He figured it was your granny's cottage. Sent me to check it out."



"He's bleeding too fast. I can't stop it." I wiped the hair from my face  and put more pressure on the wound. He flinched and swore at me when I  did it, but didn't fight me.



"Then don't." He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and pulled my hands away. "It hurts like hell when you do that."



"If I don't-"

"I'm dead anyway." He nodded.



"Did Marcus or Jayson send anyone else?" Massy lowered the gun to her side, no sense in threatening death to a dead man.                       
       
           



       



"I don't know." He coughed again, hard, then sucked in a large gulp of  air. "I told my brother … you were a pain in the ass … should have killed  you with Kerri." His mouth upturned, a cruel and bloody smile forming on  his lips.



The life slipped from his eyes, leaving him lying on the ground, staring  off into the open air. A drop of blood ran down his cheek. There was no  sound. One minute there was life, the next nothing. I looked up at  Massy from where I knelt beside him, wiping my hands on my jeans. "I  killed him." My confession, a bare whisper, I got to my feet. "I killed  him."



"He needed killing." She pulled my arm, turning me to face her. "Lucy.  You didn't do it on purpose, but it's a damn good thing you did. He  wouldn't have just called Jayson." She gave me a little shake. "He would  have raped us first. Over and over again. That sick fuck might have  taken you back to Jayson, but me...he would have killed me."