Chaos Bound (Sinner's Tribe Motorcycle Club #4)(10)
“I don’t have much first-aid experience,” she said, frowning. “We spent more time with dead people than live people in my course, but I can call my friend Ally. She’s a nurse.”
“No nurse.” Holt groaned. “Just you. Don’t think I could handle too many people right now.”
“If you’re sure.” Her worried gaze travelled across his body. “I suppose if they’re got a computer and Wi-Fi at the hotel, I can look things up. I dropped my purse in Viper’s room when I … we were…” Pain flickered across her face and she looked away. “I don’t have my phone. I feel kinda lost without it.”
What the f*ck did Viper do to her? Holt felt a twinge of guilt at his deception. From the way she kept twisting that ring on her finger, and the slight tremble of her hands, he could see she was scared. And, although she’d brushed off his question, she was hurt.
A surge of protectiveness rose up inside him—something he hadn’t felt since he’d lived in Texas. Even if he didn’t need her to lure Viper, he couldn’t just leave her alone to fend for herself. Look what happened to his sister when he’d taken the fall for his street gang and spent two years in juvenile detention for a crime he didn’t commit. Even now he couldn’t forgive himself for her death.
“So I guess the plan is to hitchhike to the nearest motel and get you fed and cleaned up.” Her voice wavered. “Then I’ll call someone to come and get me. You can call me when the deed is done so I know it’s safe to come out of hiding.”
Fuck. What was with all the f*cking plans? Why couldn’t she just wing it and then he wouldn’t have to keep thinking his way around her? “Don’t involve anyone else,” he said. “You don’t want to put them in danger. Just stick with me.”
Naiya’s brow creased in a frown. “I’m not sitting around in a motel waiting for you to serve up poached Viper à la mode at your convenience. I need to find a job. I spent the last of my savings on my mother’s funeral. That’s where Viper caught me. At the cemetery.”
Jesus Christ. Viper had no limits. But then Holt knew all about Viper, and not just from the time he’d spent in the dungeon. He’d heard stories from Viper’s daughter Arianne, who had abandoned and betrayed her father years ago to become the old lady of her father’s greatest rival, Sinner’s Tribe MC President, Jagger. Viper had killed his old lady, Arianne’s mother, when he thought she was having an affair. He had repeatedly beaten Arianne and her brother Jeff and paid off social workers and medical staff to look the other way. He had even given Arianne to one of his men against her will, offering her virginity as a reward. He was clever, cunning, ruthless and cruel. A formidable enemy. A monster of a man.
“I’m sorry about your mom.” Although his mom was still alive and living with his dad in Laredo, she was dead to him after effectively abandoning Holt and Lucy to indulge her addictions and not being there to save Lucy when Holt was locked away.
Naiya shrugged. “I hadn’t spoken to her in seven years. She was more interested in getting her next hit and being Viper’s prize sweet butt than she was in me. And she betrayed me in the worst possible way.”
They had something in common after all. He’d figured she had to have some connection to the biker world. A civilian wouldn’t have known about the importance of a biker’s cut, nor would she have stayed as cool as Naiya had when they’d been confronted during their escape.
Interested despite himself in the beautiful little spitfire, he leaned closer, his head brushing against her arm. “What work do you do?”
“I’m a forensic scientist. Well, I was supposed to be. I just finished my internship, and I was supposed to have an interview for a full-time position at a crime lab this afternoon. Looks like I missed it.”
“A forensic scientist? No shit.”
“No shit.” She leaned back against a tree, her skin pale in the moonlight, her lips turning up in a smile. “Not the usual response I get when I tell people about my career. Usually they ask me if I’m doing the stuff they see on crime shows.”
The question danced on the tip of his tongue. He and Tank used to watch all the crime shows together, making fun of the stupid criminals who left evidence behind, and the cops who took too long to put the pieces together. Although nothing topped the night one of the crime shows had featured an outlaw MC. They’d laughed so hard at the idiotic portrayal of bikers that Tank snorted beer out his nose.
Out of habit, Holt curled his fingers around the handle of his knife. He’d never said anything to Tank about the words engraved on the handle, but then he didn’t have to. They understood each other so well sometimes words got in the way.
Longing gripped Holt hard, and he fought it away. He couldn’t afford to indulge in memories of the Sinners or the man who had been closer to him than a brother.
“Once I find a job,” Naiya continued, “I’ll be doing blood and body-fluid analysis, DNA imaging, identifying genetic material on evidence, testifying in court … stuff like that. I’ve always been a bit of a science geek.”
Holt pushed himself up on his elbow. Beauty and brains. The only scientists he’d met cut meth and other drugs in basements and underground labs. Maybe that’s why Viper wanted her so bad.
She pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll go flag down a truck. That bike must weigh at least one thousand pounds and there’s no way you’re lifting it in the condition you’re in, and even less of a chance I can lift it. I do weights at the gym, but the most I’ve ever lifted is fifty pounds.” She held out her arm, flexed her tiny bicep. “Check out these pythons.”