Chapter 13 #2
“Van wasn’t waiting on Ambrosia.”
“How do you know?”
“Position. Angle. Door cracked toward the sidewalk. Passenger tracking movement past the club, not the club.”
“Who were they waiting for?”
My eyes cut to Olivia.
Logan follows the look. Silence. His mouth tightens again. “Her.”
“Yes.”
“And you know that because?”
“They moved when she came into range.”
“Do you know her?”
“No.”
“Does she know you?”
“No.”
“Did you see them inject her?”
“Yes.”
My hand curls at my side. I uncurl it slowly. No point breaking anything in here. Doc bitches about property damage like he doesn’t patch men up after worse.
Logan sees it anyway. His voice lowers. “They got the needle in before you reached her?”
“Yes.” That one word tastes like metal.
He hears the edge in it. He’d have to be dead not to. “And then?”
“I stopped them.”
“Define stopped.”
I look at him.
He exhales through his nose. “Right. Stupid fucking question.”
I glance back down at Olivia. Her breathing stays steady. Shallow, but steady. Her lashes don’t move. No sign she’s coming around yet.
“How long has she been out?” Logan asks.
“Since the street, about thirty minutes.”
“What was in the needle?”
“Don’t know. Blaze found more.”
Logan’s eyes sharpen. “Where?”
“In the van.”
“Fuck.” He scrubs a hand over his face, then turns toward the door and shouts, “Blaze!”
A second later, Blaze appears in the doorway with a plastic evidence bag in one hand, expression too light for the situation but eyes serious. “You bellowed?”
Logan points at the bag. “That it?”
“Yeah. Three capped syringes, one empty on the pavement, zip ties, burner, cash, and a little notebook that looks like it came straight out of Creepy Kidnapper Starter Kit.”
Logan takes the bag without laughing. “Any ID?”
“Fake on three. Driver didn’t have one. Hammer and Joker have them downstairs, and for the record, Joker is looking delighted in the most unsettling way possible.”
“That’s because he’s a fucking problem,” Logan mutters.
“True, but tonight he’s our problem, so silver lining.”
I look at Blaze.
He looks at me and immediately points at himself with the hand not holding another small bag. “Still processing. Trying to be helpful. Mostly succeeding.”
“Leave,” I tell him.
He glances at Olivia, then at Logan. The humor drains again. “Doc close?”
“Five out,” Logan says.
Blaze nods. “I’ll take this to Dom.”
“Do that.”
He leaves, quieter than he came in.
Logan waits until his steps fade before he looks at me again. “You understand what this is about to do?”
I don’t answer.
He continues anyway. “We’ve got a RICO investigation still close enough that Brynn’s getting calls about her brother.
We’ve got people asking questions in town.
We’ve got a club trying not to look like it’s tightening up while we tighten up.
And now you’ve dragged four hired grabbers, drugs, and an unconscious civilian through my gates. ”
I look at him. “I didn’t drag them here for fun.”
“No, you dragged them here because you made a choice without enough information.”
“They were taking her.”
“I understand that.”
“Then you understand enough.”
His jaw clenches. “Don’t give me that shit. I’m not saying you should’ve let them take her.”
“Good.”
“I’m saying every move has cost. This one’s going to have a big fucking cost.”
I know that.
I knew it when I crossed the street. I knew it when I put my hands on the first man. I knew it when I called for cleanup instead of cops. Cost doesn’t matter when the alternative is her in that van.
Logan watches my face, and something shifts in his expression. Not anger leaving. Just something else arriving with it. Suspicion. Understanding. He looks at Olivia again. Then back to me. “Cobra.”
I don’t like the way he says my name. Like he’s about to ask something he already knows. “What?”
“Why is she here?”
I stare at him.
He lifts a hand when I don’t answer. “Not why did you stop them. Not why did you call cleanup. Why is she here? We could’ve taken her to a hospital. Left an anonymous tip. Got her clear without pulling her into this clubhouse and putting all of us in the middle.”
“No.”
His eyes harden. “No?”
“No hospital.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“I did.”
The room goes still.
Olivia breathes between us. That soft, shallow sound keeps me where I am.
Logan’s voice lowers. “You deciding for an unconscious woman that you don’t know is a problem.”
“She was targeted.”
“We don’t know why.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s not an argument for keeping her here.”
“It is.”
“Explain.”
I look down at her again. Her face is turned slightly toward me now, probably from how I laid her down. She looks too pale under the bright infirmary lights. Too clean for the violence that brought her here. Too soft for this room, this club, this life. Doesn’t matter.
She’s in it now. Because someone put her there. Because I saw her. Because every instinct I have went still and certain the second she stepped into that street. I don’t debate that internally. There’s nothing to debate. Some truths don’t need permission from reason.
Logan waits.
I lift my eyes to his. “She’s mine.” The words land flat. Not loud. Not defensive. Not heat thrown in anger.
Just truth.
Logan doesn’t move. For one full breath, neither of us does. Then his expression goes dark in a way that tells me he heard exactly what I said, exactly how I meant it. “You don’t even know her name.”
“Olivia.”
His jaw ticks. “That doesn’t make this better.”
“It makes it accurate.”
“Cobra.”
I step closer to the bed, not away from Logan, but nearer to her. “She’s mine.”
“You say that again like repetition makes it less insane?”
“It’s not insane.”
“You saw her for what? A minute?”
“Enough.”
“That isn’t how this works.”
“It is for me.”
Logan stares at me like I’ve just handed him a live grenade and told him not to worry about the pin.
From the hallway, voices move closer, then stop. The women are probably hovering. Brothers too. The club feels shifts like weather, and this one just rolled through every wall.
Logan lowers his voice. “You understand what claiming means here.”
“Yes.”
“You understand what it puts on the club.”
“Yes.”
“You understand she hasn’t agreed to shit because she’s unconscious on a bed after being drugged by men we haven’t identified yet.”
My eyes cut to him. “She wakes, she can yell. She can fight. She can tell me to fuck off. Doesn’t change that nobody gets to her unless they go through me.”
“That’s protection, not claim.”
“For you maybe.”
His nostrils flare.
I don’t care.
There’s no room inside me for caring about the difference right now.
Not when the mark on her neck exists. Not when her phone is shattered in the bag Blaze collected.
Not when I can still see her body dropping, the way the men held her like cargo, like she wasn’t a person, like she was an item paid for and waiting to be delivered.
No.
They touched what was mine before I even knew her name. That’s their mistake.
Logan drags a hand down his face again. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a nightmare.”
I look at him. “You knew that before.”
“I knew you were quiet, mean, and lethal. This is a new flavor of pain in my ass.”
Blaze’s voice drifts faintly from the hall. “I feel like that’s a compliment if you squint.”
“Get away from the door,” Logan barks.
Boots shuffle.
Blaze mutters, “Hostile work environment.”
Despite everything, that almost pulls a breath out of someone in the hall. Maybe Mac. Maybe Emma. It dies fast.
Logan points at me. “We are not having this conversation fully until Doc checks her.”
“Fine.”
“But until then, listen carefully. She stays in infirmary. She gets medical care. The women can come in if Doc says it helps. You do not scare her awake by looming over her like a goddamn executioner.”
I look at Olivia. Looming seems better than leaving.
Logan reads that too because he curses. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
His patience frays. “Cobra.”
“No one touches her without me here.”
“Doc will touch her because he’s the doctor.”
My jaw locks.
Logan steps closer, voice dropping to something quieter and more dangerous. “You want her to live through whatever they gave her?” The words hit. Clean. Cruel. Effective.
I hate that they work. “Yes.”
“Then you let Doc do his fucking job.”
I stare at him. My body rejects it. Logic doesn’t. That pisses me off more. Finally, I nod once. “Doc, no one else.”
“We’ll see what she needs.”
“No one else,” I repeat.
Logan holds my stare, then gives one sharp nod. “Fine. For now.”
The front door opens somewhere down the hall, and Doc’s voice cuts through the clubhouse a second later. “Where is she?”
“Infirmary,” Emma answers.
Footsteps come fast.
I step closer to the bed, placing myself between the door and Olivia before Doc even appears.
Logan sees it and mutters, “Jesus fuck.”
Doc strides in carrying his bag, gray hair a mess, face already set in the expression he gets when he’s about to call everyone in the room an idiot. He stops short when he sees me. Then Olivia. Then me again. “Move,” he says.
“No.”
Logan’s head drops back for half a second. “Cobra.”
Doc narrows his eyes. “Boy, I have stitched your hide more times than I can count, and I have never once asked sweetly when someone needed care. I’m not starting now. Move.”
I don’t.
Doc doesn’t look scared. That’s either courage or age making him stupid. He points toward Olivia. “She breathing?”
“Yes.”
“Pulse?”
“Steady.”
“Responsive?”
“No.”
“Drugged?”
“Needle.”
Doc’s gaze sharpens, then he looks toward the mark at her neck. “How long?”
“Thirty minutes. Maybe less.”
“Then every second you stand there being territorial is a second I don’t have to figure out what’s in her system.”
The word territorial hits the room.
Logan’s gaze slides to me.
I move half a step. Not away. Aside. Enough.
Doc doesn’t thank me. Smart man. He steps in, sets his bag down, and immediately starts checking Olivia’s vitals. My hands curl into fists as he touches her wrist, then her neck, then lifts one eyelid with careful fingers. Every point of contact crawls under my skin.
Necessary.