by Sophia Gray
His hand slapped over her mouth. She was all right with that. It freed up her arm. Suddenly all those little tidbits of information from her self-defense classes came rushing up from the depths of her memories. She clenched her fist tight and yanked her elbow back, simultaneously stepping on his foot and slamming her head back. She felt the sick crunch of his nose breaking against the back of her head. He released her as suddenly as he had snatched her up. She didn’t think about it—she just ran.
She had gotten all of two steps when a hand fisted itself in her hair, yanking her back again.
“You stupid…bitch.”
He whirled her in a move she didn’t entirely follow. The next thing she knew her body was pressed against his as if they were lovers, but there was nothing loving in that gaze. The bloody ruin of his busted nose was bright against the paleness of his face.
“Get the hell off me.” She shoved as hard as she could.
He barely budged. “Oh no. I was going to do this the easy way…but not anymore.”
She didn’t feel the knife at first. All she felt was a pinch in her side, no worse than bumping into a particularly stubborn counter. But it didn’t dissipate the way a bump did. It blossomed into a bright burning that threatened to blind her. She looked down. Her shirt was red. It hadn’t been red before, not that color. It stuck to her body in a way that fabric on its own shouldn’t.
“What the hell did you do!” a girl’s voice cried out. Cora was pretty sure it was Britt’s.
His hand was close to her body, a handle in his grip. It took her too long to realize it was a knife, a knife was stuck in her flesh. Pain radiated from the wound as his wrist twitched. The slow flow of blood became faster, and a drop accumulated at the hem of her top and then dripped unto the ground. She was watching another form, unable to think of anything else when she heard a very masculine shout from somewhere behind her. Maybe someone had heard her.
A shock of pain swam through her body as her attacker ripped the blade out. She collapsed forward, barely aware of the concrete against her knees. A man voice continued to shout, barely discernible over the rev of a motorcycle.
“Finn?” she gasped, feeling a man’s arms come around her.
“Sorry, dollface.”
Dollface? She blinked in confusion, tilting her head back until a man as beautiful as he was sinister took up her vision. She was dead, she was almost sure of it. There was no other reason she could think of Jace Robinson would be looking down at her.
Chapter 20
Finn
The ever-present hum of hospital lighting sounded louder and louder with each passing minute. Finn Marks knew it wasn’t loud, not really. It just seemed that way because there weren’t many other sounds. Medical dramas always had a lot of beeping going on, and voices, but that’s not how a hospital sounded at night. It was nothing but lighting, the soft scuff of nurse’s shoes, and the occasional chime of a patient pressing the call button for a nurse. It was too quiet, and he didn’t like it.
“Come on, Cora,” he whispered to the woman sleeping in the long hospital bed, layers of white knit sheets piled over her legs. “You gotta wake up sometime.”
“She will.”
Finn didn’t need to look up. He knew who was there. Jace had come by every few hours to check in on things. Finn had some mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, he was mad about the boss’s treatment of Cora. On the other, it had been him, not Finn, who had saved her.
“She will,” Jace repeated. “Cora isn’t one to just give up.”
Finn silently agreed. Even so, she looked so pale lying there against the sheets, her face slack with the deep sleep of the healing. Everything about her had a gray cast, her lips, her cheeks. Her eyelids were so pale that he could see the lines of her veins running through them. Even her hair, usually so bright and vivacious, hung limp and dark around her face. Her hand wasn’t quite warm against his. A large bag of blood was hanging up, flowing down a tube and into her.
“Thanks,” Finn said finally, “for being there.”
Jace shrugged. “It was the least I could do. I owed her that much.”
“Will you tell me what happened?” Finn suddenly asked. So far, he hadn’t asked. What had happened didn’t matter, not until he knew that Cora was going to be okay.
Jace slumped around the side of the hospital room and plopped himself into the remaining chair. He wasn’t wearing his jacket. Finn couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the boss without his president’s patch firmly on display. His tattooed hands were stretched over his denim-clad knees.
“You called me and I put a few things together. I figured it was Oliver you caught selling. I got mad about it, so I went over to have a talk with Cora.” Jace pulled a pack of gum out of his pocket and popped a piece into his mouth. The scent of mint filled the too-clean air.
Finn snorted. Jace offered Finn the pack, but he shook his head. He didn’t want gum. “What exactly where you going to say?”
Jace shrugged. “Hadn’t quite worked that one out. I was good and angry and wasn’t thinking everything through right then. I just needed to do something.”
Finn knew that feeling well enough. He’d felt it a couple times these past few weeks, and plenty of times before that now that he was thinking about it. “Sure. I get that. What happened?”
Jace lifted one brow at Finn’s sharp tone, but nothing else. “I was coming up the road, and I saw her there. Hard to miss all that red hair, right?” When Finn didn’t answer, Jace continued. “I saw her standing there, had a bag in one hand and nothing else. It didn’t seem right. There was a guy with his arm around her. It didn’t seem right to me. I couldn’t put my hand on it. I mean, Cora’s hot enough to get hit on, but this wasn’t that.”
“What was it?”
“It was intimidation. A bunch of these teenagers gathered around while this one dude hulked over her.”
“What dude?”
“Tall kid, skinny but not scrawny. Loves his peroxide too much. He’s the one that stabbed her.”
Finn jerked his head in Jace’s direction. “Why didn’t you get him?”
Jace snorted. “How? I didn’t have a gun on me. Even if I did, she was taking up a lot more space than the guy was and I don’t have a great shot while riding on a bike. And when they scattered, they moved quick, left her behind. I could have gone after them, but there Cora was…bleeding on the ground.”
Finn felt a sick feeling in his belly. He could picture it. Easy enough since he’d seen the puddle of blood she’d left behind after they’d taken her away. He couldn’t blame Jace’s choice. “I shouldn’t have left her.”
“You were going after Oliver,” Jace said. “Where is the little brat?”
“I don’t know. Not yet. I tried looking for him. I found Cora’s car, but not him.”
Jace made a sound of frustration. “I’ll go look for him.”
“Why?” Finn dropped Cora’s hand and stood up as Jace swung to his feet. “Why are you doing this? You came into my shop and railed on me about helping people who weren’t part of the club. You made a big deal about it, but here you are.”
Jace eyed Finn. “You questioning me?”
Finn moved until he was standing toe to toe with Jace. He wasn’t sure why he was so angry at the man. Jace had been his friend for many years. Not as close as Speed or Titan, but still a friend. Anger welled up inside him like a bomb just waiting to explode. “Yeah, I guess I just did.”
“Why don’t you ask me what’s really bugging you.”
The words were spilling out of Finn’s mouth before he realized what they were going to be. “Do you still love her? Do you love Cora?”
A long silence spilled between the two men. This was too much; it had been too much since the moment that redhead had stepped into his life. He’d never been jealous before, and he didn’t want to be jealous now. Maybe he wouldn’t be if it had been him there to rescue her.
Jace took a deep breath and blew it out
slowly. Finn smelled the mint of the gum that the other man was chewing. “Only in the way that you always love the first one. I already told you I screwed up where she was concerned. I want to make amends.”
Finn swallowed his anger. It wasn’t real. It was lack of sleep and stress. “You think finding Oliver will do that?”
“Don’t you?”
Finn dragged a hand down his face. His head was swirling with emotions he didn’t want and that he couldn’t name. “Yeah, I do. All right.”
“The club voted. If you want out…you can go. All you gotta do is bleed a little.”
Finn nodded. “I hear you. Go find the kid. Let me know what happens.”
Jace snorted. “Just because you’re out doesn’t mean you can boss me around.”
A moment later Jace was gone and Finn was alone with his own thoughts once more. He wished Cora were awake. She was easy to talk to. Her ability to pick things apart and lay it all down made short work of understanding things.
“I’m pissed off, Cora.” He plopped himself back down in the seat, surrounded by the almost silence of the hospital. Maybe the fact that she was out cold didn’t really matter. He just started talking, and it all came spilling out. “I’m pissed off at me. I’m pissed off at Jace. Hell, I’m even pissed off at Oliver. I shouldn’t have gotten angry at you. So what if you didn’t want people seeing dirty pictures of us. That’s no big deal. I should be mad at Oliver for taking them, for using them.”
He sighed and leaned forward until his forehead was pillowed on the bit of medical mattress between her hip and the edge of the bed.
“I know I’ve said it before, Cora, but I want to be with you, no matter what it takes. I’ll be your secret lover. You can keep me tied up in a basement if it means I get to be with you.”
It was stupid, but he meant it. He’d almost lost her, and that simply wasn’t going to happen again. Whatever it took to be with her, he meant it.
“Finn?”
Her voice was so weak he almost thought he imagined it. It was a crackle of old paper heard from the distance of a breezy night. Finn looked up, and her eyes were opening. Slowly, as if they had been stuck together, the too-pale lids opened just enough that he could see the misty shade of her eyes.
“Hey you,” he said. “Hey.”
“Where am I?”
She tried to sit up, and he put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re at the hospital. You were stabbed.”
Her eyes flicked back and forth, opening a little wider. “The hospital? Stabbed?”
“You don’t remember?”
She lifted one arm, pausing when she saw the tubes coming from it. She made a sound of disgust and let her arm fall back down. The heart rate on the monitor dangling behind the bed gave a blip. “I think so. I…I was getting tacos.” Slowly she cobbled together a story similar to what Jace had told him. Teenagers, a guy with fake pale hair, and the stabbing. When she got to the end of it, she asked, “Where is Oliver?”
“We don’t know. We have your car. It’s parked back at the apartment, but Oliver wasn’t in it, and he hasn’t come home.”
She sat up, her hand going to the wrapped wound at her side. “Something’s not right. They were looking for Oliver, I think…Finn, I think he was the one who was supposed to get stabbed.”
“What?”
“The guy, the tall one? He was looking for Oliver. He said he wanted the money…or something. I can’t remember it all clearly, but he didn’t come to the apartment looking for me. Britt was there—Brittany, that girl that Oliver likes. She…she didn’t like what happened. I could tell.”
“Why?” Finn stood up, running a hand over the arm that wasn’t stuck with a great big needle. Her skin was warmer now than it had been. Maybe pumping her full of blood had been helping, or maybe she was just mad. Chances were it was both. “Why would she care?”
“I don’t know, Finn. I don’t know much, but I think Oliver’s in trouble.”
She started to swing her legs over the side of the bed. He put his hand on her shoulder and held it as tight as he dared. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m going to find a nurse, and I’m going to get myself checked out of here.”
“Are you serious? Woman, you were stabbed.”
“How long have I been here?” she demanded.
Finn hesitated to answer. When she turned her eyes on him, they were cold and serious. “You’ve been out for two days.”
“Good enough.” Her legs were almost steady when she stood up. “I’m not going to just lie here, Finn. Something is wrong and I don’t like it. I’ve got to do something. You can help or you can get out of my way.”
He kissed her. She made a small sound of surprise, but she didn’t pull away. Her lips moved under his. Hands, firm but feminine, clutched at his back. His body sprang to life, and it was all he could do not to push her back against the mattress and remind them both that she was still alive.
“I love it when you get all commanding,” he teased.
Her lips spread into a grin, and she gave him a short playful shove. “Shut up.”
He laughed and hugged her close. “I love you, Cora Anderson.”
For a moment, her face went completely and totally blank. Her eyes were flat and emotionless. He found himself wondering if what he’d said was wrong, or if he shouldn’t have said it at all. Then she leaned forward and put her cool cheek to his chest. “I love you, too, Finn Marks. Now help me find my brother.”
He stood there with his arms around her. He wanted to argue with her, to tell her she needed more rest, that she was injured and he could go out and look for Oliver now that he knew she was going to be okay. Hell, now that he knew she loved him, too, he was sure he could do just about anything.
“Tell me again, tell me about the kids, this blond-haired guy.”
She did. She sat down on the edge of the bed and told him everything she could remember. An idea formed in Finn’s head, but he didn’t want to interrupt until Cora was done talking. “There’s a group of kids, they make a nuisance of themselves sometimes. Breaking windows and tagging buildings, like we saw Oliver doing that night? I’ve never seen a blond guy with them, but if he’s trying to build himself up he might just send them out.”
She blinked up at him. “You lost me.”
“I think someone is trying to build a gang in the Violent Spawn territory. I think Oliver got mixed up with it.”
“But how?”
Finn shrugged. “Usually it’s blackmail, or getting others hooked on drugs so they have to be a part of the group. It’s…well, it’s not like a MC.”
“So, what do we do?”
“We go find them. And we handle this.”
She reached behind her and hit the nurse call button. “Okay.”
“Cora, are you sure about this?” he asked, already pulling the phone out of his pocket. “I’m not sure you understand what I’m saying here.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re about to call the cops.” She gave his phone a look. “Am I right?”
“Well…yes.”
“You’re going to call your buddies. You are going to tell them what’s up and what you know, and then, as motorcycle clubs are prone to do, what follows after that won’t be altogether lawful.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
She leveled her gaze at him. “It’s my brother, Finn.”
Chapter 21
Cora
There was a gun holster over her shoulder, perched under the black leather jacket that Finn had lent her. It had been a very long time since she had shot a weapon, but it wasn’t a skill the body just forgot. She had her arms wrapped around his middle as the bike shifted gears beneath them both. Logically she knew she ought to be back in bed and resting. The doctor had made it very clear that she had lost a great deal of blood and that it had only been luck that kept the knife from hitting anything vital. He had also made it clear that Cora should not be up and around; he’d made her sign a who
le slew of forms.
The doctor had probably been right. Her entire side hurt. Twisting sucked. Breathing was something she’d rather not be doing, but none of that mattered. All that mattered was finding her brother and putting an end to whatever hold this group had over him. Whatever it was, she was going to fix it.
The doctor had taken so long that the better part of a day had been wasted. It was going on ten-thirty, and the night had long since set on Carson. A bright moon was shining down, turning the road into a line of smoky silver. Her heart was pounding in her chest.
