“Come again?” He sounded as confused as I felt.
Cell conversations were one of the easiest things to hack into, so I wasn’t about to get into specifics over the phone. The Serpents probably didn’t have the necessary technology, but there was no telling who they had in their pockets and I didn’t take chances with shit like that. “You heard me.”
“What kind of package?” he asked.
“The kind that has to be taken care of.”
“Shit. I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about and it’s still got me crawling out of my skin.”
“I’ll bring it to the fire station.”
“Like hell you will. There’s enough bad blood between us and the Serpents. I don’t want to give them any reason to attack us. Whatever you took of theirs, I don’t want here.”
Link didn’t really understand the art of not saying shit over the phone.
I glanced in my rearview mirror, angling it so I could see Sasha in the back seat. She was still out cold, half on the seat, half off, but her breathing and heartbeat were steady. Her arm had stopped bleeding, but her leg wound kept leaking away. She needed stitches and probably an antibiotic to avoid infection. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with it?”
“You took it, it’s your problem.”
“That’s helpful. Thanks, Prez.”
He chuckled. “Look, I’m in the middle of something right now. I’ll send Havoc to help you figure out what to do with it. Where the fuck are you?”
“No. Not Havoc.” I didn’t know the club’s sergeant at arms. I mean, I knew him, but I hadn’t spent a month listening in on his conversations to make sure he was the stand-up guy everyone thought he was. I hadn’t personally vetted him. “Can’t you break away?”
“I’m trying real damn hard to be considerate of the shit you got going on in your head. If you were anyone else, I’d be sending out a prospect to handle this. Havoc has always had my back, and there isn’t a soul on this planet I trust more. I’ve given you a lot of leeway, brother, but the time is coming for you to either piss or get off the pot.”
There was a bleeding woman in my backseat that I’d just sprung from a dangerous criminal’s house and Link was trying to have a come to Jesus meeting now? “I think this ass chewin’ can wait ’til later, Prez,” I said through gritted teeth. “I need help.”
“Never planned to leave you hangin’, Tap. You’re one of us, now. Trust me. I won’t do you wrong. But I’m not holding your goddamn hand, either. You have a house. Probably a couple of them. Since nobody knows where you live, your place will be the safest to store whatever you have. Give me your address and I’ll have Havoc meet you there.”
Send Havoc to my house? Hell no. I was driving around trying to figure out what to do with the unconscious woman in my back seat. She didn’t need Havoc or my house; she needed a hospital. “Fuck it. I’ll figure it out myself,” I said, disconnecting the call.
Then I drove to the nearest hospital.
The remnants of the woman’s dress didn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination, and I didn’t want to put her business out there like that, so I slid my sweatshirt over her head and tugged it down, not bothering with the arms. It came down past her ass, covering more than her dress had. I scooped her up and headed toward the building. When we were halfway across the lot, she woke with a start, almost launching herself out of my arms. She cried out in pain, gasping as I tried to settle her.
“Easy,” I said, lowering her down to stand on her own.
She wobbled like she was about to fall. I held onto her as she took a pained breath and looked around. “Who are you? Where are we?”
Ignoring her first question, I answered the second, “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
Her eyes closed and her shoulders slumped. “No. Dammit. Damn you. You’re the stripper from the party. I told you to leave me.”
Shocked, I stared at her wondering how high she had to be to want to be left in a place like that. She didn’t look like the other Serpent women. There was something different about the way she held herself, about the way she stared me down. “Leave you to get your ass kicked? Again?” I asked.
“You don’t understand. I was one of them. They jumped me in.”
“Into their club?” Nothing she said made sense. “You want to be with those assholes? After they fucked you up like this? You want to be a Serpent?”
“Yes. No. It’s a long story.”
“Look, babe, you need a hospital. Not a room full of drunk homicidal maniacs.”
She glanced at the building in front of us. “No hospital. They’ll find me. It’ll look weak. I can’t chance my boss finding out what happened. It’s too risky.”
Now thoroughly confused and about two seconds from slinging her ass back over my shoulder and marching her in, I met her one-eyed gaze. “You’re bleeding. You need stitches.”
