My heart stopped then restarted with a jolt in my chest.
“Love you,” I told him.
“Bone of my bone,” he replied.
I waited for him while he talked to the doctors (who actively disagreed with my decision to leave but technically they couldn’t do anything about it) and brought me papers to sign.
“My parents?” I asked softly, because if they’d been there they would have been given dispensation to sign them for me.
As it was, it was hard to sign papers without the use of your fingers.
“Called ‘em. To be fair to the cunts, they wanted to come but they were freakin’ out so much about you gettin’ what was comin’ to you because you involved yourself with ‘riff’ fuckin’ ‘raff’ that I ended up hanging up on them before I could tell them where you’d be.”
I smiled only slightly because it was sad about my parents, but he was awesome.
“Everyone else is okay?”
His eyes warmed as he helped me sit up on the edge of the bed and then proceeded to dress me. “Priest and Zeus are bruised but fine. Nova got a bullet to the gut. He’s in the room down the hall. Puck, Lab Rat and Cy were also there, took care of the guys outside and they’re roughed up but cool. I got a nick to the shoulder, not bad. Bat’s the only one without a scratch but he was in the navy for ten years before he patched in so go figure.”
“Good,” I said, placing my hand on his shoulder so I could step into the flip-flops he brought me.
Someone had packed one of King’s big sweatshirts that said EBA on it in green and an old pair of jeans I’d left at the clubhouse. They were comfy and they smelled like King, which brought me instant comfort.
“Have lots more questions,” I murmured tiredly as I took his hand.
“So do I,” a smooth, deep voice said from the doorway.
King growled, but I just sighed and collapsed to the hospital bed again.
“Yeah, officer, come on in,” I welcomed Lionel Danner into the room.
He stepped through the doorway, his partner Riley Gibson behind him.
“Sorry to do this when you’re still recovering, but I just have to ask you some questions,” Danner said. To his credit, he really did sound contrite.
If I were still the old Cressida who liked rules and regulations, I’d probably have fallen for Lionel. He was gorgeous, loyal, dutiful and tough like a Wild West sheriff. So, in short, female catnip.
As it was, because he was Zeus’ enemy, he was also mine.
And, needless to say, I was head over heels in love with the teenage biker who stepped slightly in front of me to argue with the cops about interrogating me while I was injured.
“Just a few questions,” Danner urged.
“It’s fine, King,” I said. “Just hurry up. I’m exhausted and I want to go home.”
Gibson nodded, stepping forward. “We just wanted to clear up the timeline. Two nights ago—”
“Two?” I asked.
King squeezed my hand. “You were concussed and out of it for a long time, babe. Happy to see those whiskey eyes again.”
I leaned heavily into his side as I turned to the cops again. “Go on.”
“Two night ago, you were at Evergreen gas station when you were hit over the head by a man named Hector Alonso and transferred to a warehouse just off highway 99. They kept you for three hours before Zeus and his… friends,” he hesitated over what to call them but continued, “found you.”
“Correct.”
“In the ensuing fight, did you witness Zeus Garro kill a man named Victor Hernandez?”
My heart seized as I was thrown back to the night of my bachelorette party. The cops had asked me the same exact thing about Lysander killing Marcus Whitman. No matter what I said about my brother defending me from rape, they had still cuffed him, carted him away and put him in jail for six years of his life.
Then I remembered that Lysander had been in the warehouse, had stood beside a man who wanted to kill me and had done nothing. I couldn’t reconcile the one image of him with the other. How could he go from being my defender to my persecutor?
I shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind and focused on the irrefutable fact that I did not trust the police and I adored Zeus.
So, I told them, even though it made my jaw ache, “I’m sorry, officers. I don’t think I can be much help. As you can see,” I held up my heavily wrapped hands, “I was preoccupied at the time and in and out of consciousness.”
King slipped an arm around my shoulders and I knew he was happy with my answer.
“You’re sure?” Gibson pressed, even taking a step forward in an attempt to physically pressure me.