And Back Again

Chapter 23

"We know she's alive but that's it."

EZ's words haunted them all but Bishop took the news harder than the others. He knew about the pregnancy, still the only one to know, and that made it exponentially worse.

"Does he know?" Bishop asked mournfully.

"No," EZ shook his head. "He's been really out of it because of the surgeries. Doc said he's out of the woods, he'll be up soon, he's going to snap, Bish."

"I know," Bishop gripped EZ's shoulder. "Let me talk to him, I'll tell him."

EZ looked at Bishop with surprise. "You sure?"

"Yeah, I'll wait," he sighed. "Get out of here, clean up and get some sleep."

"Yeah, not sure he'd be thrilled to see me anyway," EZ said sadly. "We weren't on good terms when shit went down."

"At least he's breathing," Bishop said sagely. "You can still work it out."

When Bishop sent the others down the hall, EZ didn't do as his president suggested, he went to meet with his father.

It seemed cruel, but Bishop hoped Angel would wake quickly. Without knowing what went down that night, they had no idea where to start looking for her. Bastian told them he was working on it on his end but they couldn't just leave the job to him.

"Angel, you gotta wake up." Bishop began prodding the moment he noticed Angel's eyes fluttering. "Come on. We need you."

Angel's eyes opened and he looked at Bishop, confused and obviously hurting. "Bish," he said with a startled gasp. "What the fuck?"

"You scared us, son," he said sadly.

"Where's Z?" He asked, memories slowly coming back as his mind got a chance to catch up. "Did you get Gabe?"

Bishop suddenly regretted pushing Angel to wake up so quickly. "We're working on it."

"Working on what?" Angel asked in disbelief, attempting to sit up despite the pain. "Where's Zara?"

"We don't know," Bishop admitted shamefully. "She's alive, we know that, but we're still working on finding Zara and Gabe."

"Where is she?" Angel asked again, more urgent the second time. "We have to find her."

"We need to know what happened," Bishop said firmly.

"Gabe took her," Angel snapped, pulling his monitors off. "He made her fucking shoot me and he took her."

"Why?" Bishop presses his hands against Angel's shoulders before he could yank his IVs out. "You have to calm down. You're not ready to be out there."

"Calm down?" Angel scoffed. "He's gonna hurt her, he's gonna hurt my family, Bish. I can't fail Z again, I can't let anything happen to her or that kid. Not again, man. I can't do that again."

"We're not going to let anything happen to her or your kid," Bishop said, "But you just got shot in the chest, Angel, went in for two surgeries, you can't go running out there, not yet. Gabe thinks you're dead, he got what he wanted, it'll appease him until he gets bored. By then we'll have him and you can go in there and get Zara yourself."

"I'm bringing her home, if you can't have my back I'll find someone who does. I'm not leaving her with him for a second longer than I have to."

Bishop glared at Angel. "You're gonna get yourself killed and you know who's gonna be left to take care of your family? Me, Taza, Coco," he huffed, "The whole club. We always have your back I'm trying to help you down the right path because you can't see through the shit in your head."