“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.”
