Page 41 of Savage

“Trust me.” He looked me dead in the eye. “I don’t want to steal your story. I’m trying to keep you alive.”

A shiver raced through me at the direct way he held my stare, and as his words lingered between us, I let out a breath. “I’m starting to understand that.”

Lachlan’s lips quirked. “Just starting to, huh?”

“Look, it’s been a rough twenty-four hours, but I’m getting there. You said the key card is with your team?”

“That’s right. They’re looking into it now.”

“Do you have any idea what it is? You obviously recognized the symbol. Who it belonged to.”

“That’s all we know so far. We’re trying to work out what it goes with now,” Lachlan said. “You said you followed a guy and that’s how you got this card. Where did you follow him from? Unless you just happened to stumble across a drug deal.”

“Uh…”

“Cooper?”

“I tracked the drugs to this club. At least, Ithinkit’s a club? There was no name on the place, you’d never even know it was there by day, but I found some empty packets in the street outside and…waited. I waited for days—or nights, I guess—to see if anyone would come out of there that I could follow.”

“Why not go in?”

“Trust me when I say I’m not the kind of clientele they were letting in. Everyone that arrived at that place wore something that screamed money.” I gestured to my clothes. “Mine clearly do not.”

The way Lachlan ran his eyes over me made me feel like that didn’t matter. Like maybe he’d rather I didn’t wear anything at all.

I had to be reading too much into things, though. Why would a guy like Lachlan—obviously well connected and fucking gorgeous—even look twice in my direction? A guy like that could get anyone he wanted. Not like I wasn’t a catch when I was more in my element, but this wasn’t even in the stratosphere of normal for me.

“Cooper?”

I startled, realizing he’d asked something while I was spaced out. “Sorry, what?”

“I asked you for the location of the club.”

“Why?” I asked. “Will you and your team go there?”

“Thought about it.”

Oh hell no.If he was planning to get inside, I wasn’t getting left behind. I’d watched that place for too many hours to count, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t gettingsomekind of information from it.

Straightening my shoulders, I said, “Well, if you’re going, then take me with you and I’ll show you where it is myself.”

“Fuck no.”

I reared back. “Excuseme?”

“You heard me. They’ve got the drop on you. It’s too risky.”

Logically, that made sense. But screw logic right now. “Then I’m not telling you a thing.”

Where I thought Lachlan might get annoyed at my refusal, he only smirked. “Trying to be difficult, Cooper? We want the same things.”

“No, I want to be involved—you want to keep me locked up here while you get to do the fun shit.”

Lachlan barked out a sharp laugh and rubbed a hand over the stubble at his jaw. “So putting yourself in dangerous situations is what gets you off, huh?”

I could see why it seemed that way. Hell, I’d probably think the same thing about me, and he didn’t even know about my tryst with the masked man.

“No. But you’ve already got the key card, there’s no Wi-Fi here, and now you want the rest of what I know? It’s not fair.”

---