“Yeah,” he whispered.
“How about we skip to where you tell me what happened to Savannah?”
He clenched his jaw. “That’s the fuck of it. I don’t have the whole story. She danced… hell, she fucking crushed it tonight. We walk all the dancers to their cars.”
“All of them?”
“Yeah, and—”
“Why? That seems like overkill if the club shuts down at two in the morning.”
“There have been issues a month or two ago. It’s just a precaution.”
“Was another woman beaten two months ago?” Cat asked.
He shot a quick look her way. There was no sugarcoating this, not that he would. She deserved all the honesty right now. “She was robbed. None of the dancers have been hurt since.”
“Two months ago, and then nothing.”
He hesitated. It still embarrassed him that someone got the drop on him last month. “I got cold cocked last month, left in the parking lot during a heavy rain.”
“So, you’re lucky you didn’t drown,” she murmured.
“I wouldn’t go that far, Catalina.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw her lean toward him. “You can drown in an inch of water, Ted. If you were left in a parking lot during a ‘heavy rain,’ they probably wanted you dead.”
“If they’d wanted me dead, they’d have killed me, Cat. They had the advantage - which still shits me, so they left me alive for some fucked-up reason.”
“Okay. You said you don’t have the whole story on Savannah. What do you know?”
He focused on the interchange at I-10 and I-95. “Someone knocked out Prime - the brother who walked her to her car…” He trailed off as his gut clenched. “Then they started beating Savannah. Yak and Turk ran after the asshole, but didn’t catch him before he scaled a fence.”
She sighed. “And the cops couldn’t find him either?”
“No. Or not without a police helicopter, which takes time.”
“How bad is it? Don’t try to protect me, Ted. I need the truth. It’s been hard as hell losing Mom, but Savannah normally gives everything to me straight now.”
He reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. “It’s pretty bad, honey. The EMTs didn’t tell us much, but I caught them exchanging looks. I don’t want to make you worry more, but I meant it earlier. It’s a good time to start praying.”
Inside the hospital, they learned Ava had been taken to the Intensive Care Unit. They went to the ICU waiting room, and a nurse called for a physician assistant for the neurologist.
Five minutes later, a man in green scrubs came out and shook Catalina’s hand. “Your sister has been put into a medically induced coma to get her brain swelling down. Once the swelling subsides, we’ll know more.”
“Can I see her?” Catalina asked.
The P.A. grimaced. “Visiting hours don’t resume until eight, but since you’re her sister, I’ll take you to her for a moment. Brace yourself, though. She doesn’t look good.”
Punc paced the waiting room until Catalina came back out. She looked pale and stunned. He went to her and put his hands on her shoulders.
She looked up at him. “You don’t have to hold my hand, Ted.”
“Cat, it’s four in the morning and no fucking way, I’m leaving you here alone.”
She stared at him, her face blank, but he caught the tremble of her lower lip.
“Come here. It’s gonna be okay.”
