Nathem’s fangs were pretty well trained not to react to assholes, but the night must have gotten under his skin because his fist launched into the air before I could stop it.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” the doc raged, his face still twisted to the side as if it were being held there.
“We are doing our best.” Nathem leaned forward, grabbing the doctor by the collar. “Now do yours.”
“Help them,” I nodded to the recruits standing around us. “Hold Blade down and don’t let go until he has stopped bleeding.” And I did not so much as blink when one by one they fell into place like the good, loyal pieces of shit they were. “Jessie. You were saying?”
“It came back as a yes.” His eyes swept to mine, and Nathem shrugged, breathing through his exhale.
It was not an appropriate time to smile, but the edges of my mouth twitched. Not because it was funny. Believe me, there was absolutely nothing amusing about the way my little queen turned out to be a useless bag of traitorous shit after I spent months explaining every bit of what would become her new reality if she said yes. One that nearly got Daphne killed.
No, what was comical was that I could do nothing about it.
I couldn’t make Lyla an example or call her out on her shit. Why? Because if I brought any attention to the fact that I chose a queen who put my club at risk, forget righting wrongs. There would be a mutiny against my leadership, and I did not feel like cleaning out half my men over that two-faced, shitty-ass human being whose tits didn’t even get me hard.
So, I had to sit pretty instead of hanging her off the side of the wall with the rest of the traitors, where she belonged.
“Hold him down!”
See, it was really that simple. You do not compromise the club. You protect it at all costs. Easy to remember. And apparently, easy to forget.
“Remove our hold on the contract and open it back up to the market,” I mumbled quietly, feeling every bit as blank as the order sounded. “After that, burn the fingerprints and take care of the phone.”
“My pleasure,” was all he said, and we left it at that.
Unfortunately, this meant I needed to shift direction, and fast.
“Christopher,” I leaned low, catching the flutter in his eyes at the sound of his name echoing between his ears. Unless you were Daphne, we believed our previous selves were dead, but I had learned a thing or two from her over the years. When you want the monster, you call it by its title, but when you need the human to survive, you remind them they have a name.
“I removed the bullet, and I don’t believe there will be any permanent damage, but we must keep the blood flowing and load him up on antibiotics until his body heals,” the doc explained. “And it won’t be quick.”
“Right.” I attempted to conjure empathy from one of the four corners of my being, but all I could think about was the fact that I had one man out after being gunned down by a novice crawler and the other running around fucking Seattle with a broken heart.
“Nathem, get Blade to his room.” I stood quickly, pulled off my sweatshirt, and tossed it to a recruit before extending my hand for a fresh one. “And you are to stay with Blade until he is stable. The men will provide you with breaks, but I don’t want you leaving his side.”
The doc shot me a look of twisted annoyance, but I did not give a fuck. “Do you understand?”
“Of course,” he shrugged, cracking his nose back into place.
Daphne was right; he really was a slimy piece of shit.
When the fresh clothes hit my palm, I tugged them on and turned toward the door.
“Where the hell are you going?” Nathem barked from behind me.
“To get Threx.” I shot him a look, and he nodded in agreement. “Jessie, give me two hours before you release that hold,” I said from the doorway.
“Got it,” he agreed. “And be careful. You should have Daphne on the ready for backup, just in case.”
We shared a glance because he wasn’t wrong; however, tonight might be the only night she would actually make him worse. He needed her, and the sound of her voice would only reinforce his pain. My mind was still chewing on this when the door slammed behind me.
I strained against the rain, jumping into my Jeep and gunning it up the hills through the thousands of lights that plagued Seattle like a savage joke. There was nothing pleasant about idling at a ninety-degree angle for hours at a time, only to progress one goddamn foot up the road every forty minutes.
“Move your ass,” I hit the steering wheel.
I had told Daphne to find somewhere closer, or just not on Capitol Hill, but her stubborn, cute, fuckable ass only liked to listen when I had her on her knees. And even then, defiance twinkled in her eyes whenever she looked up at me ever so prettily.
Down, dick.