“How bad’s the wound?” I ask Doc.
“Not great but blood’s the issue. He needs some of yours.”
“Stick me as soon as we get somewhere secure,” I say, as we move back to the van.
“Somewhere secure?” January asks. “Aren’t we going back to Velvet House?”
Eli looks to me. “You didn’t tell her…?”
Bobby starts slipping down my chest. I haul him up higher with difficulty, the old injury in my side throbbing. “I had a lot on my plate,Elliot.”
Eli returns my glare with interest, then turns to January. “We were betrayed. We can’t go home until we know by who.”
January blinks at him. “But it was Mr. Parker. And…and my stepmom.”
“Your stepmother was most likely involved,” Eli says, wrapping an arm around her. “But Parker’s gunmen must have been posted around the hotel. That Bianchi’s security didn’t weed them out implies something else.”
“What else?”
Eli’s face hardens. “We don’t know who’s involved in this,bella,and until we do, we trust no one.”
“But…what does that mean?” January asks, looking around at all of us. I stare at the ground, unwilling to be the one to tell her, this precious girl I was supposed to protect. To keep from harm for the rest of her life.
“We’re going on the run, Tits,” Doc says. “But if you’re a good girl, I promise I’ll make it sexy for you.”
January doesn’t register the joke. “We’re going on the…”
“Run,” Doc repeats through gritted teeth. I can tell Bobby’s weight is getting to him, but I also know he’d rather die than ask Eli to take over. “Just the five of us heading out into the great unknown.”
“Where?”
“We have a safe house,” Eli says shortly. “That’s all we can say in the open.”
January nods but I can see tears brewing in her eyes again. I don’t blame her. In a life previously ruled by chaos, mistakes, and cruelty, this still has to be a shock. Maybe Doc knows it because he clears his throat. “Thanks though, Tits.”
“What for?”
“Saving our lives. If you didn’t give that batshit speech we’d have frothed our way into early graves. And here we are, limping our way through the forest instead.”
That gets a small smile out of January. “I’m glad you understood what I was saying.”
“Right away.” Doc juts his jaw. “How’d you find out Parker doped us?”
“Mr. Parker’s fiancée was talking about it on the phone in the VIP room.”
I think of the girl who looked so much, and yet so little, like my Pryntsesa. How stupid would the woman have to have been to blurt out Parker’s plans on the phone? “She said out loud that he’d poisoned us?”
January gives me a small smile. “Not that obviously. She said she was there with Mr. Parker for work and something about ‘it was in the food.’ I guessed that the only thing that wouldn’t show up on the poison scanners was Orchard.”
Doc laughs. “You’re a genius, Tits. I apologize for every time I said you were a dumb big-titted bimbo.”
“That’s, like, four million apologies,” January says huffily, and I laugh.
“He’ll give you every one of them when we get to the safe house, I promise.”
“When will that be?”
“A few hours,” I say, not wanting to give away too much.
