Page 29 of Doc
I turned to Venom, who watched our exchange with knowing eyes.“Does your contact know who my mother spoke with?Who took her statement?”
“Working on it.Might take time to dig deeper without raising flags.”
I looked up at Doc.“I’m not leaving.”
Doc’s expression shifted through a range of emotions -- concern, frustration, and finally, a reluctant acceptance.He knew me well enough by now to not bother trying to budge me.Once I set my mind to something, I dug my heels in.
“Savior’s not going to like this,” he said, though there was no real argument in his tone.
“Then Savior doesn’t need to know yet,” Venom suggested, surprising us both.“Not until we have more to go on.”
I looked between the two men -- Doc, the club’s doctor who’d risked his standing to protect me, and Venom, a long-time member with nothing to gain and potentially much to lose by helping me.With deliberate movement, I set my suitcase down beside the door.The sound it made hitting the floor was decisive, final.Running didn’t tempt me.Hiding never crossed my mind.I would stay to finish what my mother started, the very thing that had gotten her killed.
“Like I said, I’m not going anywhere.I need to see this through to the end.”I met Doc’s gaze steadily.
Doc held my gaze for a long moment before a ghost of a smile touched his lips.“Stubborn,” he murmured, but the word carried something like admiration.
I picked up the evidence bag again, running my fingers over my mother’s name on the report.For the first time in weeks, I felt something beyond grief.I felt hope.
The safe house would have to wait.I had work to do.
Chapter Eight
Doc
I stared at the text message on my burner phone until the words blurred together.At the safe house.Not happy about it.Venom can be persuasive when he wants to be.
Nova’s frustration radiated through those simple lines, and I could almost see the defiant lift of her chin as she’d typed them.Twelve hours ago, she’d been standing in the apartment, swearing she wouldn’t leave as she clutched the partial police report.Now she was thirty miles away, tucked behind the club’s security systems, safe but furious.And I was here, alone in my house at the compound, feeling like I’d betrayed her.
I tossed the phone onto my bed and resumed pacing, five steps one way, five steps back, the worn floorboards creaking beneath my boots.My fingers raked through my hair for what must have been the hundredth time since returning from Church.The President’s orders had been clear: Nova goes to the safe house, the club handles the investigation, and I stay the hell out of it until my judgment isn’t “compromised by a pretty face and a sad story.”
Those words still burned.As if what I felt for Nova was that simple.As if what she was fighting for was just a sad story and not a systematic cover-up that had gotten her parents murdered.
I checked my watch again.Three minutes had passed since the last time I’d looked.Time was stretching and compressing in strange ways as I wrestled with the decision I knew I’d already made.
My medical bag sat ready by the door, packed with supplies hours ago when I’d first started contemplating this insanity.Basic trauma kit, antibiotics, painkillers, suture materials -- everything I might need if things went sideways.Because in my experience, things always went sideways.
My Harley keys glinted on the dresser beside my cut.Worn leather that carried the scars of the life I’d built since leaving the military.The Dixie Reapers patch stared back at me, a constant reminder of the oath I’d sworn.Brothers had taken me in when I had nowhere else to go -- family I was now about to betray.
“Shit.”I grabbed the back of my neck and squeezed until the tension there sparked with pain.The club was my life, my home.But Nova…
Nova was something I hadn’t been looking for.Something I hadn’t known I needed until she walked into the clubhouse with her mother’s files and a fierceness blazing in her eyes.Until she’d stood in the middle of a firefight, hands steady as she helped me save my brothers’ lives.Until I’d felt her small body pressed against mine, trusting me when she had every reason not to trust anyone.
I moved to the dresser and grabbed my cut, the leather familiar beneath my fingers.When I’d first put it on, I’d thought I’d finally found a place where my skills mattered, where I belonged.Now I’d stripped it off and folded it carefully, then laid it on the bed.
Some lines, once crossed, couldn’t be uncrossed.And I’d crossed my line the moment I kissed Nova in that truck.
I grabbed my medical credentials from the drawer, tucking them into my bag.The partial sheriff’s report Venom had brought us sat on my nightstand, already sealed in a waterproof bag.I slipped it into the inner pocket of my bag.
Venom’s voice echoed in my head, his words to Nova this morning when he’d convinced her to go to the safe house:Sometimes, girl, you gotta retreat to advance.Go where they think you are, while we move where they ain’t looking.The old warrior had seen what I’d only just realized -- we couldn’t fight this battle from inside the compound, not when we didn’t know who might be working against us, intentionally or not.
I pulled a black knit cap over my hair and grabbed a dark jacket instead of my cut.The club had security cameras at all major entrances, with a Prospect manning the monitors and actual gates 24/7.There really wasn’t a foolproof way to leave without someone knowing.I’d just have to hope whoever it was, they weren’t a traitor.
My phone buzzed with another text.Nova again.
You still coming?Or was it all just talk?
My thumb hovered over the screen, but I didn’t reply.Better to show than tell.Besides, the wrong eyes could see any message I sent now.
