Page 11 of Property of Saint

“What’s the point of bringing a bitch to the club if we’re not going to try her out?” Rattler actually pouts. “Thought you’d brought us a new club bunny.”

“You’re all sick fucks, you know that?” Prez shakes his head. “Whoever she is, the woman is suffering from concussion and God knows what else.”

“Nothing wrong with her…”

Prez shoots his hand toward Stalker. “Do not finish that sentence.”

Pussy.We don’t need to hear the whispered word to fill in the blank.

Freak coughs and raises his hand. “If we can get down to business?” He glares around the table and continues when he gets chin lifts or nods. “My fuckin’ son is a genius. Your mystery woman,” he pauses to point straight at me, “ain’t no mystery at all. Only problem is how we deal with it.”

I’ve never had reason to doubt Ace, Freak’s son’s, ability. I’m just surprised he’s managed to get answers so fast. “What’s he found?”

Freak brushes his fingernails against his chest and has a smug look on his face. “I took a photo of ‘Jane,’” he puts her name in air quotes, “once Bron had washed the blood off. Sent it to Ace, and he…” again he pauses, his brow furrowed as if he’s trying hard to remember his son’s exact words. “He did a reverse image search, and there she was, plastered all over the internet.”

Impatience floods through me when he doesn’t immediately spit it out. “So?” I prompt.

Sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms as though he’s making himself comfortable, Freak barks a laugh and smirks. “You certainly know how to pick them, VP.”

“Spit it out,” Bullseye growls.

Seeing by his prez’s expression Bullseye is losing patience pretty fast, Freak ends the suspense. “She’s Secret Service.”

What?Her reluctance to go to the hospital made me think she was wanted by the cops for a crime. Freak’s announcement turns that thought on its head. She’s not running from law enforcement. She’s one of them. It takes a moment for my brain to do a one-eighty.

Bullseye puts my thoughts into words. “What the fuck? That doesn’t make sense. If she’s legit, why not go to the hospital? She must know how badly she was hurt. If she hasn’t got a serious brain injury, that leg of hers might not heal right.” He shakes his head. “If you’re right, and she’s Secret Service, she must have gone bad.”

Freak’s slowly raising and lowering his head. “Word is she might. Though the jury’s still out.”

I’m not the only one who can find no meaning in that statement as Prez growls, “I think you’ve got to explain.”

“Can I get my laptop?”

Bullseye thinks for a moment, then nods. As Freak steps out, he cautions the rest of us. “Electronics in the room. Zip your fuckin’ mouths.”

Yeah, we all know we just seem to have to think of something for adverts to appear for that very same thing. Big Brother is always listening. We all look at each other, then raise our chins to the prez.

Freak returns. He clicks a few keys, then turns a photo around to us.

One by one, we view it in silence.

Now, we’re a one-percenter MC. We operate outside citizen rules. We don’t get involved in their politics. One group’s as bad as another in our eyes, but we can’t completely live off the grid. I, for one, am not unaware that a popular film star, Preston Adams, had been making a run to be President of the United States. And quite successfully, according to the polls, until there was an assassination attempt. He’d survived the first shot, butwhen the Secret Service had surrounded him and pulled him away, Adams had taken a fatal shot to the head. Why had it happened? Well, of all the agents surrounding him, there was a woman, shorter than the men. The gunman had gotten a lucky shot that went right over her head.

Freak clicks on another image, a picture taken from another angle. The woman who should have been protecting the wannabe president is none other than the woman currently lying in my bed.

“Fuckin’ hell,” I state, resting my head in my hands as Prez indicates to Freak that he should take the laptop back out.

Various comments around the table suggest no one’s been living under a rock, and there’s no need for any commentary on what we’ve just seen.

Freak reappears and starts speaking as soon as he sits down. “Her name is Phillipa Owens. There’s a conspiracy theory that she was only put on the team as she was short and was positioned in exactly the right spot for the killer to take the fatal shot.”

There’s silence for a moment. We can’t ignore the citizen world completely and don’t live with our heads in the sand. Information is power. I, and probably everyone else, are well aware of the news article he’s talking about. I suspect we’re all wondering if the woman I brought home with me could have been involved in a plot to take down the man who was likely to become the next President of the United States.

“What the fuck have you done?” Tempest growls, glowering across the table.

“Whoa.” I hold up my hands. “I had no fuckin’ clue who she was.”

“Not your style to rescue a civilian,” Rattler snarls from the rear of the room.

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