Carver appeared from the back hallway, his medical bag already clutched in hand, moving with the urgent purpose of a man who’d been through this too many times before. The secondhe saw Firestride, pale, sweating, barely conscious, he groaned and shook his head in disbelief.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Carver muttered under his breath, dropping to his knees beside the couch where they laid Firestride out as gently as possible. His hands moved with practiced efficiency, checking pulse points along Firestride’s neck and wrist, examining the blood-soaked bandages visible beneath his torn shirt. “You should be in a hospital bed hooked up to an IV, you stubborn bastard.”
“Why the fuck isn’t he in the hospital?” Morpheus demanded, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade through flesh, silencing the murmurs and concerned whispers that had filled the room.
Kyllian Ward, Firestride’s old lady, turned to glare at the man on the couch with an expression that could have melted steel. “The idiot checked himself out,” she said, her voice dripping with fury and frustration. “Against medical advice. Against his mother’s advice. Againstmyadvice. Because apparently, he thought coming back to the clubhouse was more important than, oh, I don’t know,not dying.”
Firestride tried to say something, but Carver cut him off with a sharp gesture.
“Don’t talk,” Carver ordered. “Don’t move. Don’t even fucking breathe too hard until I figure out how much damage you’ve done to yourself.”
Kyllian turned away from the couch, her jaw clenched, her hands balled into fists at her sides. She stalked toward the bar where Xzibit was already pulling a cold beer from the cooler, anticipating her need.
Smart kid.
But Kyllian didn’t make it to the bar. She stopped dead in her tracks, her entire body going rigid. Her eyes, those captivatinggreen eyes that had probably made Firestride fall in love with her, narrowed as they locked onto me.
Fuck.
“YOU!” The word came out like an accusation, sharp and furious.
Every head in the room turned to watch as Kyllian changed direction, marching straight toward me with the kind of purposeful stride that promised violence. She didn’t stop until she was right in front of me, close enough that I could see the fury blazing in her eyes. Then her finger jabbed into my chest, hard enough to hurt, hard enough to make her point. “What’s this I hear you kidnapped a woman?” she demanded, her voice loud enough to carry through the entire gathering room.
Shit.
I could feel every eye on us. Could feel Morpheus’ warning gaze boring into the back of my skull. Could feel the weight of the moment pressing down on me.
“It’s Brotherhood business,” I said, keeping my voice level and controlled. “It’s how we operate. She stole from us. We brought her in to get our money back. Standard procedure.”
“Standard procedure?” Kyllian’s laugh was sharp and humorless. “You kidnapped a woman, Nano. You dragged her here against her will, and you’re holding her prisoner. That’s not ‘standard procedure.’ That’s fucking criminal.”
“She’s not—” I started, but Kyllian cut me off with a sharp gesture.
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, her voice cold. “I don’t want to hear your justifications or your excuses, or your Brotherhood bullshit. You kidnapped a woman. End of story.”
She turned away from me, dismissing me with the kind of contempt that made my jaw clench. But instead of heading back to the bar, instead of going to check on Firestride, she turnedtoward the stairs, muttering mainly to herself about stubborn idiotic men, collateral and dicks the size of Tic Tacs.
“Kyllian,” I started, taking a step forward, but Morpheus’ hand landed on my shoulder, holding me in place. When I looked at him, his expression was unreadable.
“Let her go,” he said quietly, his tone deceptively calm but laced with an undercurrent of steel. “She’s the first old lady of this club. She has the right to check on another woman in this clubhouse.” His eyes never left my face, watching for any sign of defiance.
“She’s going—”
“She’s going to see exactly what you’ve done,” Morpheus interrupted, his voice hard and uncompromising. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees as he took a deliberate step forward, closing the distance between us. His jaw clenched, muscles tensing beneath his leather cut. “And you better fucking pray what she finds is a willing, submissive woman. Because if she’s not, if there’s even a hint that she’s still defiant, you’re going to answer to me, and to every single brother in this club.”
I watched Kyllian climb the stairs, her spine straight, her shoulders set with determination. Behind her, Anna Joy, Firestride’s sixteen-year-old sister, watched with wide, worried eyes, clearly torn between staying with her injured brother and following Kyllian. Helen Michael stood near the couch, her hand on Firestride’s shoulder, her expression unreadable as she watched the scene unfold. And I stood there, frozen, as the woman who had become the moral compass of the Brotherhood marched toward my room.
Toward Alex.
Toward the evidence of everything I had done to break her, to claim her, to make her mine.
Fuck.
The high from the last three days evaporated, replaced by a cold dread that settled in my gut like a stone because Kyllian Ward wasn’t just Firestride’s old lady. She was smart, observant, and she didn’t take shit from anyone. Not even Morpheus. She would see through any lie I tried to tell. She would see the truth written all over Alex’s face, in the marks on her body, in the way she had been systematically broken down.
And then what? Would she demand that Alex be released? Would she tell Morpheus what she saw? Would Morpheus kill Alex, consequences be damned?
No. No, that is not going to happen.
