Entering the hospital, my feet come to a skidding halt at the nurse’s station. The blonde behind the desk lifts her head and meets my gaze, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, my brother and stepmother were in an accident and brought here for treatment. Reina and Danny Parrish?”
“Ah, yes,” she says, not bothering to look them up in the computer. Confused, I watch as she stands and tips her chin towards the left.
“Follow me,” she says as she rounds the desk. Thankful to not have hit another roadblock, I let her lead me through the triage unit of the E.R. “You’ll be happy to know he’s been discharged.”
Discharged?
He’s a minor with one parent being carted off to prison as we speak and another who was just cut out of a car. I think it’s safe to say Reina’s injuries are probably a bit more complex. There’s no way she’s been discharged too. Anger rages inside me at the possibility that Danny has been released to some stranger and I freeze in my tracks.
“Hold it,” I say. “What do you mean he’s been discharged? Who the hell did you discharge him to?”
Glancing over her shoulder, she looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Which is pretty fitting because the words that come out of her mouth next make me wonder if I have.
“Why your father, of course.”
And just like that, the script is flipped…
Again.
Chapter Thirty-One
Blackie
There was a time in my life when I didn’t need drugs or alcohol to feel like I was high. A time when adrenaline and my club gave me purpose and made me feel like a fucking king. It’s been a long time since I started the day with a fucking chip on my shoulder. A damn long time since I thought I had it all figured out.
But today was the day it all came rushing back. The reasons I started to ride and the pride I felt as I slipped my newly minted kutte onto my shoulders. Even the sense of brotherhood that came over me the day Jack appointed me his vice president. It was all there, alive and pulsing through my veins.
After my breakthrough at the garage and my altercation with Pipe, I called Bianci. As I suspected, he answered on the third ring, whispering like a child afraid of getting caught by his overprotective mother. I guess that’s what happens when you hide your extra-curricular activities and your dire need to toe the line between criminal and upstanding citizen, from your wife. He couldn’t very well sneak out of his house in the middle of the night—Adrianna would have his balls on a silver platter—but he agreed to meet me early in the morning, instructing me to be at his boxing gym by six a.m.
While I didn’t have to hide my status from my wife, I also didn’t want to give her any indication that I might have a way out of this fucking disaster. I kissed her and promised I’d be back way before it was time to head to Jack’s. She didn’t question me and I don’t know if that’s because she knows better or if she was lost in her head.
Bianci was waiting outside for me, pulling up the gates to the gym.
“Thanks for meeting me,” I said, leaning against the brick wall.
“Yeah, well, you and I aren’t exactly men who call one another to shoot the shit at two in the morning. When you call there’s usually a reason and with Jack heading to prison, I figured it’s a good one,” he replied, fixing his blue eyes on me.
Valid point.
Bianci is a lot of things, and I’ve given him a lot of grief in the past, mainly because I didn’t agree with the club getting involved with the mob, but over the years he’s proved to be an ally. Hell, the guy is like an honorary member of the club—minus the leather.
Things are a little sketchy since his mother is with Wolf. Technically, Maria Bianci is the first lady of the Satan’s Knights, which is pretty fucking ironic considering she was never too fond of us—probably because Riggs kidnapped her, but, hey—that’s water under the bridge. Still, if Bianci was going to go in on this with me, I needed him to keep his newfound daddy in the dark. It’s no offense to Wolf. I respect him for taking the role of president. There is nobody better suited to lead, but this is my fucking rodeo.
“Look, before this conversation goes any further, I need your word that this stays between us,” I started.
Raising an eyebrow, he crosses his arms against his broad chest and sizes me up.
“Going rogue, Black? I like it.”
“I mean it, Bianci,” I grunted. “Not a fucking word.”
“My lips are sealed.”
Satisfied with his response, I proceeded to tell him my plan. To my surprise, he didn’t look at me like I was a struggling man trying to hold on to something lost. That doesn’t mean he jumped on board. The man had questions.
“I don’t fucking understand why he doesn’t just take the rap and plead insanity. If anyone can get off by pulling the crazy card its Jack,” he muttered, running a hand over his head. “Especially if he’s got the right lawyer.”
“Which brings me to the next part,” I said. “I need you to call Vic’s lawyer.”
“That might be a problem,” he replied, hesitating for a beat. “I wasn’t going to say anything because it’s all moot at this point, but Grace and Reina were conspiring behind Jack’s back.”
“What?”
“Grace got in Reina’s head last night, sharing all her shoulda coulda woulda’s with her and suggested she get a health care proxy drawn up on Jack. I guess she didn’t want him to suffer the same fate as Victor and thought if Reina was his advocate—”
“Does Jack know this?”
“I’m gonna go with no,” he said. “Anyway, Grace called Schwartz to see if he could get it drawn up by this morning. When she couldn’t get in touch with him, she called me and told me what they were planning and asked me to pay the good lawyer a visit. Come to find out, Schwartz is out of town, working some high-profile case in California. Apparently, he decided to spread his wings and practices law in both states. Even opened a firm out there.”
“But isn’t that who you called when they all got arrested?”
“Yeah, and after Holden stepped in, he turned all his cases over to his son and boarded a plane the next morning.”
“What do we know about his son?”
“David’s a cocky bastard but eager to upstage his father,” he revealed, shrugging his shoulders. “Might be just what we need.” He paused, biting the inside of his cheek. “You still haven’t mentioned how we’re going to give them the cartel,” he pointed out.
“I’ll worry about that, you worry about securing this David character. Have him meet me at the district attorney’s office but make sure it’s after ten. I want to make sure Jack is in custody before we get this shit going, that way he can’t stop me.”
With Bianci on board and on a mission to get Schwartz on our payroll, we parted ways. I head home and Lacey informed me she didn’t want to see Jack before he left. I understood her reasoning and part of me wanted to tell her that I had come up with a way that might get her father off on the charges. One that kept me out of the slammer and with her, but until I had everything sorted out I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to make any more promises I wasn’t sure I could keep. I kissed her goodbye and vowed to call her once it was over. Then I made my way to Jack’s.