Page 102 of The Heart We Guard
I know exactly why.
Whispered words.Gage.In case I die. Gage. He?—
Butcher’s face changes. It morphs from the impatient man, eager to walk me upstairs, to the concerned man. He places a hand on my shoulder to steady me, but leans close so he can hear the call. He raises an eyebrow, and I know he’s asking for permission to listen in, so I nod.
I think about the Midtown Rebels who came to my house. Who asked what Nicholas told me. Who followed me around for a month, after. I never reported the incident at my place, and it’s been too long since it happened that my security camera data has long since been deleted.
“I think that would be better discussed at the station,” Atkins says.
Butcher shakes his head, but I don’t want this lingering. I’ve done nothing wrong. And I can refuse to answer questions I don’t like.
“How about in an hour?” I say.
We exchange logistics, and then, I hang up.
“It’s got to be about what he thinks I heard at the hospital. He knows about that, somehow.”
“Fuck,” Butcher mutters. “Okay, you’re not going in without a lawyer. The club lawyer is on vacation, but there’s a firm I know of.”
“Why do I need a lawyer? This is all covered by doctor-patient confidentiality. I don’t need to tell them anything.”
“Trust me. You do need a lawyer, and you should tell them everything.”
“Lucy De Bose,”the sharp suited and ever sharper cheek-boned lawyer says when I step out of Butcher’s truck an hour later.
“Dr. Greer Hansen.”
She had been waiting in her car in the lot, and jumped out in her precisely fitted suit, matching navy pumps, and a bob of cute blonde curls that seems out of place with the rest of her sharp outfit. With a brief, yet firm grip, she shakes my hand.
But the look of disdain on her face for the motorcycle club is unmissable.
“Ah, shit,” Butcher says with a grimace. “Lucy. Didn’t even know you were back.”
“And I should have checked out the new client who needed help in more detail. I was only told it was a doctor.”
“That’s me.” But nobody is looking at me.
“No fucking way,” Grudge shouts as he marches towards us from the motorcycle escort I tried to insist wasn’t necessary. The man already looks menacing, with his thick hair shaved into an undercut on both sides of his skull, which is covered in ink. “You need to get the fuck away, Luce,” he says. “Hell, the state, even. Maybe even the whole northern part of the country.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much emotion on the man’s face. It’s pure, unadulterated rage. He storms towards us as he shouts, before fully invading her space. He has a foot on her in height, maybe a foot and a half. And that’s in her heels. He crowds over her, and somehow, the two pieces fit, as if they’ve stood like this a million times.
Lucy doesn’t waver. “And yet, here I am,” she says, her eyes narrowed.
Then, as if remembering herself, she takes in a breath, pulls her shoulders back, and turns to me. “Let’s talk as we walk.”
Butcher squeezes my hand. “Good luck. Listen to your lawyer. Say the absolute minimum. I’ll be right here when you get out.”
I swallow deeply. “Thanks.”
He pulls me in for a hug. “Wrong time and place to say it, Greer. But I’m really fucking falling for you. Take care in there.”
I lean back and look at him, even as my heart stumbles. “You’re right. It’s absolutely the wrong time and place. Tell me again when we get home.”
Butcher grins. “We can pick up where we left off on the sofa.”
And just like that, I feel calm. The anxiety that has itched all the way here soothes itself.
“Dr. Hansen?” Lucy says, hinting that we should go in.
