I go looking for him, and I hear it. I’m halfway down the stairs when Razor’s voice cuts through the common room.
“Someone inside tipped them.”
Everything goes still as I strain to hear them.
“With the kind of power you have Angel… They don’t arrest a VP for nothing,” he continues. “That kind of intel doesn’t come from outside.”
My pulse starts ticking harder.
Angel’s voice responds, calm but edged. “Speculation doesn’t help. We can’t be pointing fingers if we don’t have proof.”
“I’m not speculating,” Razor says. “I’m saying somebody on the inside is talking.”
I don’t move, I stay frozen halfway down the steps, trying to calm my racing heart.
Cypher speaks up from the table. “I can’t track Mara’s phone. It’s dead or wiped. No new pings.”
Good, they can’t find her.
“You know I’ve heard that Preacher’s been seen in our territory, sightings of him around the Hospital,” Razor adds casually.
The Hospital?
My stomach flips, everyone has heard stories about his brutality.
Angel’s chair scrapes and his voice drops, “You implying something?”
“I’m suggesting we tighten ranks.” Razor replies and I can hear the smirk in his voice.
The conversation fractures and I step back quietly before anyone sees me listening.
They think someone inside tipped off law enforcement, the pieces are being laid out and I don’t like how easily they could be rearranged.
That night, Declan barely makes it to the room before collapsing onto the bed.
He pulls me into him automatically.
“I need you here,” he murmurs into my hair.
“I am here.” I whisper.
“That’s not what I mean.”
I know.
He means an active part of this club and not isolated in hospital on-call rooms. His arm tightens around me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear, but I already feel like I am. For a second, I press my face into his chest and breathe him in. Leather, soap, something uniquely him.
This is the man who once sat with me in silence for an hour because I’d had a hard shift and couldn’t stop replaying it in my mind.
This is the man who proposed twice.
This is the man who held my face in both hands and promised me we would build something solid. But I still feel watched and scared…even with the door closed… even with him wrapped around me.
The next afternoon, Razor steps into my path near the back lot.
“You settling back in?” he asks.
I don’t answer him, I stop, cross my arms over my chest and stare at him.