It sounded like he was speaking from experience, which made me wonder exactly who watched out for Kody when her customers got out of control. If situations like this were common, someone should be doing something to keep her and her employees safe.
I swore under my breath and followed Case toward the mayhem. He was grumbling about getting too old to keep breaking up bar fights, which made me roll my eyes at his back. He was younger than me, and I could still hold my own. There was no easing into the bedlam. Both of us were immediately drawn into the fray.
I caught a wild punch before it connected with my cheek. I pulled a skinny biker with a green mohawk off a much heavier cowboy and told him to knock it off. I sidestepped a cowboy boot someone had removed and sent flying at my head, slowly and methodically making my way to the center of the dogpile.
Once there, I wasn’t surprised to find Shot in the thick of things. He was easy to spot with that skull tattoo on the back of his bloodied fist and the sheer skill with which he fought. He was a weapon, trained and honed to inflict the most damage possible. The guy going up against him didn’t stand a chance if Shot really wanted to cause some permanent damage, which it appeared he was holding himself back from doing. There was another, bigger guy, positioned with his back to Shot. It was clear his job was to make sure no one came at his brother while his back was turned. It was also clear he didn’t care about the law, because he didn’t bother to try to hide the brass knuckles wrapped around both of his hands.
“Caldwell.” I called Shot’s name, trying to get his attention, and was ignored. I reached out to grab his shoulder and was immediately cut off by the guy with the brass knuckles.
“Back off, cop.”
I narrowed my eyes and dodged another fist coming at my face. “Break it up.” I pointed to his hands. “Those are illegal, by the way.”
The biker gave me a smirk and used one of his metal-wrapped hands to knock out a charging cowboy.
“I know.”
Fighting back a sigh, I told him flatly, “You’re under arrest.”
The biker chuckled and held up his hands in a mocking manner. “Of course I am.” He lifted an eyebrow and asked, “Why don’t you ask the prez who started this?”
Shot suddenly appeared at my side. His cheek was bleeding and his eyes were hard. “Don’t say anything, Top. I’m gonna call our lawyer.”
The biker, who I suddenly noticed had a VICE PREZ patch on his worn, battered leather vest, chuckled again. “Good thing we have him on retainer. Seriously, Shot, why don’t you tell the cop about how that asshole grabbed Kody? Tell him how he put his hands on her without permission and got pissed when Kody put him in his place. His fragile ego couldn’t handle being embarrassed in front of his buddies, so he called Kody a bunch of names and said it was no wonder her fiancé killed himself to get away from her.”
I went stiff as a board and felt ice start to form in my veins. I looked down at the cowboy writhing on the ground at Shot’s booted feet and had a flash of regret the man was still breathing.
“He threw the first punch when I kicked him out of the bar. We didn’t start this shit, but there’s no way we weren’t going to finish it.” Shot wiped the blood off his cheek and narrowed his dark eyes at me. “Do what you have to do, Ranger, but at least someone was here to have her back when she needed it.”
Before I could come up with an appropriate response, the parking lot was flooded with deputies from Case’s department. Chaos ensued as those who were still able to move tried to flee. Except for the bikers. The majority of them immediately dropped to their knees, hands behind their heads, fingers laced together, like this was old hat.
Moving past Shot, I snapped handcuffs around the tattooed wrists of his second in command, stripping him of the brass knuckles as I did so. Shot stood and watched it all go down with a dispassionate expression, gaze flicking between his brothers and the cops to make sure everyone behaved themselves.
Against my better judgment I asked, “Is Kody okay?”
Shot’s eyes narrowed even more. “Has she ever been okay?” He turned and headed toward where Case was arguing with one of the cowboys, effectively dismissing me.
It took around forty-five minutes to get the mess cleaned up and everyone booked and then put in a car or the paddy wagon. There were going to be a lot of regrets tomorrow morning, not that any of Shot’s boys looked a bit sorry.
Case told me he had to go to the station after he ran into the bar to check on Kody, but offered to drop me off back at the motel on the way. I waved him off and told him I wanted to see that Kody was all right for myself. I should have kept my mouth shut, because he didn’t bother to hide his satisfied smile as he flicked his fingers against the brim of his hat in a hasty goodbye.
The bar was pretty empty after all the ruckus, and Kody was nowhere to be found. I got a dirty look from the same bartender I’d asked to stick around and clean the place. He inclined his chin in the direction of her office and growled, “She probably doesn’t want any visitors right now, but since you have a badge, do what you want. You will anyway.”
Not bothering to respond to the snark, I took the stairs up to the loft two at a time. I knocked briefly, but went in without waiting for her to say it was okay.
She was sitting on the floor, back to the wall, with her forehead resting on her knees. She didn’t look up as I approached her, but she did mumble, “I want to be alone.”
I sat down on the hard wooden floor next to her and sighed. “How about we be alone together, then?”
When she lifted her head to look at me, the expression on her face broke my heart. It was one I recognized well. It was the look of someone who really wondered if they were responsible for the death of someone they loved.
“Aaron didn’t have to die.” Her voice cracked and her lower lip trembled. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.”
“No, he didn’t.” There was so much more we all could have done if only we’d known more about what was going on with him.
She released a hiccupping breath and met my gaze with a hard, brittle one of her own. “Sometimes I blame you for him being gone.”
It hurt to hear, but I wasn’t surprised. “I know you do.” It was the main reason I’d kept my distance after he passed away. She used to look at me with something like excitement and admiration. My already tattered heart couldn’t take it when she started looking at me with disappointment and doubt.
“I blame you so I don’t have to blame myself. It gets exhausting, trying to figure out which one of us screwed up more. We both made so many mistakes.”
I reached out and put my hand on top of her folded ones. “There’s plenty of blame to go around. But you stayed by his side, stuck with him no matter how bad it got. You tried your best to keep him here. You did the work, Kody. I avoided how bad his condition was getting. I couldn’t let go of the idea of having my happy, healthy brother back. You did everything you could, I didn’t do nearly enough. I was too busy trying to protect myself, selfishly caught up in my own feelings, I didn’t stop to think how staying away would affect you and my brother. I’m always telling you to consider how your actions might hurt the ones you love, and I blatantly ignored my own advice. That’s why I’ve never minded shouldering the blame for what went wrong that night. But I do think it’s probably time some of the damn blame lands on Aaron. We both pushed him to get help. Maybe we let him down, but he let us down too.”