The Rampage MC: Max and Briony Novel – The beep beep beep of the monitors slowly filtered into my consciousness again. I knew I’d awakened a couple of times before because I knew where I was now the hospital but this time I was more aware and alert. “Well, good morning,” a kind voice said to my left. I turned my head slowly and saw a nurse checking my vitals. “I’m Van and I’m your nurse today.” “Given the nature of your injuries and you being unconscious, we haven’t allowed anyone into your room. If a relative of yours had shown up and proven that relation, we would have let them in.” I tallied up my injuries: broken wrist, fractured humerus, broken nose, two swollen eyes, split lips and some very sore ribs that, fortunately, weren’t broken. Slight concussion and now a headache, but I was alive. And when my ex-boyfriend had kicked the door in two nights ago, from the look in his eyes, that outcome was anything but certain.
As he’d promised, Gene had found me and done a number on me. In the five minutes I’d been left alone, he’d gotten to me and exacted his pound of flesh. He’d been lying in wait for an opportunity and he’d been handed one on a silver platter. I’d been left unprotected because Max, the man who should have been protecting me two nights ago — should have been being the operative phrase here — had gotten an SOS call from Wendie. Wendie the woman who still maintained a tight grip on Max even though she’d broken up with him, had broken his heart because she couldn’t deal with the biker lifestyle. But Wendie had called, as always, needing help this time because her car had stalled on the side of a dark, not-well-traveled road. And she was scared and oh, please, Max, can you come get me…Max had shot me a look as he hesitated at the door. “A prospect will be here in less than five minutes. I’ve gotta go.” Gene had shown up as soon as Max was down the road.
Fortunately, the prospect had arrived before Gene finished things and the prospect had taken care of Gene. Decisively. In such a way I would never have to worry about that horrible man again. Never would I forget the relief I felt when Gene slumped to the floor. Then I’d passed out from the pain. “So we have a waiting room filled with about five bikers from the Rampage MC,” Van said to me, drawing my attention back to her. “They’re taking shifts. The only thing stopping them from barging in here is the security guard at your door, but they haven’t left and one in particular has been the most persistent over the past two days. He hasn’t left at all and he comes up to the nurses’ station every half hour, asking for an update. We won’t give him one.” I knew who it was. No doubt in my mind. The one who was feeling guilty. Max, who just had to run off to rescue Wendie.
Max, who had left me open to an attack. For the seven months he’d been on my protection detail, I’d been falling in love with a man I knew wasn’t fully available. That was on me for being yet another woman certain I could eventually get him over his ex. Wendie came up frequently, needing Max to help her move a couch, move in a new table, change a freaking lightbulb, go with her to pick out a rescue dog. Every time her name appeared on his phone, off he ran. When he was with me, though, he was with me. Saying the right things, asking me to be patient, being tender, telling me he was starting to have feelings…until she called again. I’d believed Max when he’d said he was catching feelings for me, slowly but surely, but as with many women, my wishful thinking didn’t mean it was reality. Reality had bitten back hard. I licked my dry lips, then looked up at Van.
“Can you ask the man named Max to come in, please? He won’t be here long. I just need to speak to him for a minute. And…can you stay in the room, please?” She nodded, her eyes narrowed on me, trying to puzzle out what was about to go down, but she went off to call in Max. Seconds later, he burst into my room, followed by Van. “Oh,Briony,” he said, coming straight for me. “Oh, I’m so –” “Save it,” I said, holding up my good hand to stop him from touching me. I could see his eyes taking in all my injuries, cataloguing them, each one another mark in his list of reasons to feel guilty. Despite my hand out to stop him, he still reached for me, and I snapped don’t touch me in a voice he’d never heard from me. He couldn’t stop looking at me, all dark, guilty eyes, all anguish at seeing what had happened to me. “You don’t get to apologize,” I said.
“You made a choice, it had consequences and you don’t get to boo-hoo now about how sorry you are. I called you in here to tell you to leave the waiting room. There’s no longer a need to protect me so I won’t be returning to your house and I’m no longer under your care. You’re all relieved of duty as of this moment. Thank you for your service….such as it was. And please thank Darren for saving my life; if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here right now, and if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here right now. When Kadie gets back to town, I’ll have her tell Orion that you all met your obligation to him.” “Bri, please –” He tried again, and I looked at Van. “I’m done with him. Please make him leave.” “Please, Briony, just listen to me,” Max pleaded, his voice harsh. “We’re not done –” “Oh, you’re so wrong,” I said. “We were done the minute you left me to go take care of Wendie. You made your choice, Max, and it wasn’t me.” Then I turned my head away from him, closed my eyes and let Van — and eventually the security guard — deal with getting him out of my room.
There’s something sad about going home from the hospital by yourself in a cab. Or maybe just lonely. That might be the better word since it makes you feel so alone. When I’d moved here seven months ago for a fresh start, Gene had begun the calls on my new phone almost immediately, telling me he knew where I was. It was like those freaking horror movies…but real. Extremely real and extremely scary. Kadie, my best friend, had appealed to her boyfriend on my behalf, and Orion had called in a favor owed to him by the Rampage. Just two days after moving here, I’d been whisked away to the Rampage compound, bouncing between the clubhouse and Max’s house on the grounds. As time went on, Max had me over at his house all the time. He’d walk me over to the clubhouse in the morning when he left for his construction job, and then he’d pick me up and take me back to his place in the evening. That meant in the seven months that I’d been living around the MC, the friends I’d made were all related to the Rampage, so I couldn’t ask any of them for help now.
Maybe it was wrong to take out my anger and hurt at Max on the entire MC — especially since one of them had actually saved my life — but you can’t help feeling how you feel. And I felt let down. Betrayed. Vulnerable. Hollow. I’d checked and double-checked with my doctor and nurses to ensure that they wouldn’t give out any information about me, including my release date. They’d all assured me that HIPAA guaranteed their silence. Knowing Max, knowing he was being driven by guilt, I wouldn’t have put it past him to try to intimidate the nurses into giving him information about me, and then he’d try to bully me into going back to his house on the Rampage compound. According to my nurses, the hot man with long hair was still refusing to leave the waiting room, so on the day I was released, Van, the most awesome Van, wheeled me out of my room wearing a pair of scrubs she’d brought me to wear home.
I had nothing else here since the clothes I’d been wearing when I was brought in had been cut off of me. Somebody from the MC had grabbed my purse and taken it to the hospital, so I had my wallet and keys as well as my phone. We hid my purse under a blanket thrown over my lap and legs. As expected, Max lunged to his feet and rushed over when he saw me being wheeled out of my room. “What’s wrong? Where are you going?” he demanded. “Are you OK?” As rehearsed, Van, seeming to break all HIPAA laws known to man, said, “We have to take her to X-ray to see how her arm’s healing. From there, the doctors will determine if she needs surgery or if she can go home in two days.” Max was so flustered by the thought of me possibly requiring surgery that he didn’t question anything. But he now thought I’d be here for another two days.
Van continued, “You can’t come up to the X-ray floor, but she’ll be down in about forty-five minutes.” Again, Max was so agitated that he didn’t question this sudden overabundance of information when before there’d been none. “Good luck,” he called to me. “I’ll be here when you get back, if you need anything.” I needed you to stay with me that night. Now, I know better than to need anything from you. The night Gene got to me — with such perfect timing I’d known I’d been right and he had been watching me, somehow — Max had just slept with me. Max had just made both of us into insensibility. “It’s so good with you, Briony,” he’d said when he found his voice. “It’s like nothing –” Then Wendie’s special chime sounded.
He vaulted up in bed, snatching his phone. Not finishing his thought because…Wendie. “Wend –” I couldn’t hear specific words, but I could hear her voice, high pitched and frantic. As he was moving off the bed and throwing his clothes on as fast as he could. “Send me your location, and I’ll be there as fast as I can.” He hung up, and called a prospect, Darren, as he headed for the door. I followed him, wearing the shorts and top I’d thrown on. “Wait — you’re leaving me?”