Page 49 of Savior

“Wait, there’s a buddy system? Who’s my buddy?” I asked, earning an eye roll from Little Ricky.

“Obviously me, Cap—”

Zane cleared his throat with an amused expression.

“Well, Big Guy and me. You got you two buddies, girl.”

“Good, because I’m going to need a little favor while Lauren’s at her doctor’s appointment.”

* * *

“Are you sure I can’t get you something to drink? Maybe a glass of water?” Molly hovered near the couch. “Or coffee, I have coffee. Betsy stopped by earlier and I made a whole pot, but she turned me down. Just wanted to moan about how bad Mike’s gotten. Anyway, I made it extra special, just like everyone likes.”

I shook my head, remembering what she did to coffee. “That’s really sweet of you…”

“Ma, she’s good,” Little Ricky insisted. “We stopped atBaskin-Robbinson the way over, gave that baby thirty-one flavors of deliciousness. Right, Dakota?”

“Um, right. So, thank you for agreeing to meet with us. Is Sir—uh, Bear, is he going to be joining us?”

I had a feeling my chances of obtaining information would decrease drastically if the biker were anywhere in the vicinity.

Molly reached down to retrieve a magazine that had fallen off the coffee table and laid it with the others as she sat down in the chair across from me.

“Don’t you worry a thing about Bear,” she said with a wave of her hand. “He and a few of the other guys stopped by earlier, but I doubt he’ll be back anytime soon. They’ve got more than enough to keep them busy at the club for a while. Have you checked in with him today, Little Ricky? He said he might need your help later tonight.” She moved her eyebrows up and down meaningfully while staring him down, some silent code I wasn’t fluent in.

“Ma, I got shit to do. I’ll call him later,” Little Ricky grumbled before reaching over into the front pocket of my purse where my cell phone had begun vibrating. “It’s Nate.”

“Excuse me for just a moment,” I said to Molly before walking out onto the large covered patio. “Hello?”

“Dakota, it’s Nate.” He sounded as if he’d been running.

“Yeah, I have caller ID.”

Why are you callingwas on the tip of my tongue, but I held back, choosing to be the bigger person even though I suspected he was behind my sister’s decision to ghost us.

“Is Kate with you? Have you talked to her?”

“Nate,” I said with a mock sigh of exasperation. “This is why we have a buddy system in place. She’s your buddy, so it’s your responsibility to keep up with—”

“I woke up this morning, and she was gone. Her phone’s going straight to voicemail. Jesus Christ, I don’t know what to do. What if—what if they got her?”

“Who?” I asked, even as a cold feeling of dread settled over me. Kate hadn’t been in contact with any of us since that morning in the graveyard. Why would the Sons go after her?

“Bikers, Dakota. This is exactly why I didn’t want her talking to you—fuck!” he roared the curse.

The temper I’d kept in check was dangerously close to boiling over, and it took everything in me to keep my voice calm as I bit out, “She hasn’t been talking to me or anyone else. At least now, I know why.”

“You know it’s not like that. I’m trying to keep her safe—”

“From her own family?”

There was a rustle, followed by another muffled curse before Nate came back on the line. “I did something, Dakota. Something stupid. The night of your wedding I was on-call when Grey came in.” His voice got softer. “I’m the one who did the surgery.”

The blood drained from my face, and I stumbled into a small folding chair with a gasp.

“You? You knew he was alive the entire time! Why didn’t you tell us? Do you know where he is?” I asked, doing my best to quash the note of hope in my tone.

“It’s not like that. I performed the surgery, and he was stable. It was fucking New Year’s though, and the ED was a shit show. I was in the middle of another surgery when I got word that he didn’t make it. I hadn’t even had a chance to round on him yet. I didn’t know that there was a cover-up until Mike revealed it at the cemetery.”

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