Page 31 of Savage

Tamara’s words echoed in my head. Those names that had vanished, the files that didn’t match up. This was where they went.

The patients—victims, I silently amended—lay on narrow folding beds that lined against the walls. Four women and twomen who were barely covered by a thin sheet. IVs dangled from rolling poles. Machines beeped in soft, erratic rhythms.

“Status?” Fox asked from behind me.

“Alive,” I growled. “Barely. Drugged. But breathing.”

“They restrained?” Wrecker asked, stepping into the room beside me.

“Some of them.” I nodded toward a young man on the corner bed nearest us. Early twenties, wrists strapped, and bruises across his jaw. “This one fought back.”

Wrecker’s lip curled. “Bet they didn’t like that.”

Hawk’s eyes glittered with restrained fury as he took in the scene. “They aren’t trying to kill them. They want to fucking use them. To test, to control. It’s a game to these sick bastards.”

“Get Blade on the line,” Fox snapped as his eyes swept the room.

“Already here,” Blade’s voice called out as he entered through the rear with two brothers pushing stretchers from a club-owned ambulance. “Mav told me about the run. Figured we’d need a medevac.”

Two younger paramedics followed them. Trusted kids who knew how to keep their mouths shut.

“Start loading them. Quietly,” Fox ordered.

We moved fast—removing IVs, helping the groggy patients to sit up, and dressing them in clean sweatpants and shirts from the emergency duffels. Then Blade and his team got to work checking vitals and transferring bodies to stretchers. They’d only brought in four, so I carried the other two out to the rig myself, one cradled in each arm like broken things I was sworn to protect. Once they were carefully secured, the two paramedics climbed into the back with the patients. Blade shut the double doors, and the lock clicked from the inside.

“You good?” Fox asked him.

Blade gave a single nod as he stalked to the front and yanked open the driver’s side door. “I’ll get them to the hospital. Already called ahead. They’ve cleared an intake room.”

The Iron Rogues owned just about every inch of Old Bridge. Not just land and businesses but also the police, politicians, and we’d practically built the hospital. Blade had a clinic on the compound, but he also worked shifts in the ER. Partly because he wanted to, but it also made it easier for him to be listed as the physician on record whenever the club used the facility for injuries that needed more care but kept quiet.

“Keep me posted,” Fox said.

Blade jerked his chin up before hopping into the front cab. The low rumble of the ambulance engine was the only sound as he pulled onto the road.

Back inside the facility, we collected vials and specimens, as well as some paperwork and other evidence that would only be stored here, rather than the warehouse.

“Find much?” Hunter asked, popping his head into the lab where Hawk and I collected information.

“Too fucking much,” I muttered, tossing another file into a half-full body bag. “These assholes logged everything. Medications. Dosages. Reactions. They didn’t even bother to try to disguise that these are medical trials.”

“Cocky,” Hawk sneered.

“Fucking stupid.”

Wrecker and Mav were taking out the last load when we heard the front door open down the hall. It scraped over the linoleum, then there were voices. Three sets of footsteps. Laughter.

The techs were back.

Fox appeared beside me like a ghost. “Take them.”

We waited until they turned the corner before pouncing. One lead scientist in a white coat, clipboard still in hand. Two younger assistants behind him, wide-eyed and twitchy.

They didn’t even get a scream out before we were on ’em. They put up a feeble struggle, but they weren’t fighters. Not even close. I zip-tied wrists, put hoods on their heads, andaccidentallyshoved one into the wall hard enough to make him whimper. No blood, though. Not yet. Just enough fear to make them shut up and cooperate.

Racer pulled up in one of the club’s black SUVs with the side door already open. “Got room for three jackasses. Let’s go.”

Fox pointed at the back seats. “Take them to The Room. And don’t drive like the reckless son of a bitch you are on the track. Stone needs them breathing to question them.”

---