He beat it back, the tight, hot feeling that welled upinside.
They’d laid Bounty out.
There was a lot of anger on both sides.
But Chaos had experience and skill.Joke used to be anunderground fighter.Hound, Snap suspected, drank blood for breakfast and atenails for dinner and outside that was all-around a lunatic.Boz washalf-lunatic, but it was the good half when it came to a fight.High and Tackhad had women they cared about messed up in bad shit, High recently, Tack notso much, but that shit never went away, so they were skilled as well at workingout issues.Rush was all about the brotherhood and when the brotherhood had amission, even if he didn’t agree with it, he was always all in to carry out themission.Hop had always been their hand-to-hand man.He used to play in a rockband but straight up, the way the man used his fists, he could have been acontender.Roscoe had seen Rosalie.Speck had making up to do.
And Snapper had incentive.
That incentive was right there, lying on the hospitalpillow.
Her beautiful face was blown up, eyes swollen shut, lipsinflamed, nose huge, broken, so taped.Red and mottled had given way to deepraisin-purple black, mostly around the eyes.There were livid scrapes and deepcuts that shared some of Bounty didn’t bother taking off rings.There was fleshstitched together above and through her left eyebrow, along that side’s jaw,and he knew, under the bandage at her nose, down the left side of the bridge.
Her throat was stippled with angry jam-colored bruising.Along the left side and at the top of her windpipe, there were distinct heavierdiscolorations where Throttle had dug the pads of his fingers in cruelly,positioned like he wanted to tear her throat out.
How Snap knew she was awake, he couldn’t say.Her eyes werenow so swollen they weren’t open because she couldn’t open them.But likeearlier, he saw her long lashes fluttering so he clapped his book shut, set itaside, and leaned toward her.
“Hey,” he whispered.
Her head had been turned to the side, his way.
She rolled it, facing the other way.
Snapper extended his fingers, flexing them before curlingthem in.They were swollen and mottled too, all the knuckles split and raw.
He didn’t feel a thing.
He considered his next move.
He wasn’t going to make her keep trying to escape him byrounding the bed.
Instead, he bent over her.
“You want some privacy, Rosie?”he asked.
She said nothing, just kept her battered face turned away.
“Baby, swelling will go down, bruises will recede and you’llbe just asbeauti—” he started to assure.
“Get out,” she whispered.
Fuck.
Fuck!
“Rosie—”
“Get out,” she repeated, still quiet, frail.
“We want an eye on you,” he told her.
“No,” she replied.
Snap leaned closer.“Honey—”
She turned her head so it was righted on her pillow and hesaw just that pulled at and tightened her lips, showing him it caused pain.
They hadn’t laid out Bounty enough.
