Page 31 of Cruel Debts
“It’s not my job to babysit a flighty girl,” he growled, “especially a naked one. In a sex club. I go there to havefun.”A hand snapped out, finger pointed directly at me as I made a third stitch, hands steady, attitude calm. “Why not ask Asher to do it? He’s already participated.”
“I was otherwise occupied,” I pointed out, nodding to my doctor bag, which had been damn near emptied of supplies when St. Clair called me to work on one of the other crews, who’d taken a dozen bullets between the three of them, some to places that should have killed them. “This is a serious situation.” Another poke into Liam’s skin, and he’d stopped being dramatic about it, at least. “She’s our responsibility, and we have to take that seriously.”
Hawke rolled his eyes and tossed the empty bottle into the trash, missing by a mile. Instead of picking it up, like a normal person would, he just walked off with a grunt of disgust, kicking it across the room along the way.
He had an attitude problem that seriously needed fixing.
“Maybe I should have let her smack him with the pan earlier,” Liam grumbled, and I had to bite my tongue so hard I tasted blood to keep from bursting out in a very inappropriate laugh.
“He probably wouldn’t have even felt it,” I pointed out, rolling my eyes. “Where’s Trinity?”
I sealed up the last stitch and started on the knot as his eyes pivoted and directed themselves to the guest room. “Her room.”
“The guest room, you mean.”
He shrugged. “Not like we’re getting rid of her anytime soon, right?”
He had a point. “Not unless we leave her to Hawke for a few days.”
The idea had merit, but I wouldn’t subject her to that. Not now. She was strong, but nobody deserved to deal with Hawke unfiltered and uninterrupted for days on end with no buffer. It was akin to torture.
Then again?—
No. I didn’t hate Trinity. In fact, I had a soft spot for her. She’d always been so annoying when she was younger, but you could tell it was intentional. After all, her brother was the only person who paid her any attention. And if someone tried to steal the time and affection of the only person that loved me, I might be a little jealous of them, too. I might even have tried to run them off.
Instead, we all just tolerated her. We let her tag along literally everywhere. After all, her brother was freshly returned from service, and she missed him.
And when Keehn said he needed to deal with something for her, we all pitched in.
Like the time we scared off some piece of shit high school boy who was known for sleeping around, when he decided he was interested in making Trinity his next conquest. Or when she got into a fight in school with two girls whose brothers then got their asses beat and were left with a warning—control your sisters, or we would.
She had no idea she had not one, but four big, strong brothers looking out for her.
But Trinity McCoy was all grown up now, and the girl who had put up with our stupidity and asshole bullying and the constant flow of girls we talked about, usually without realizing she was within earshot, well, she was all grown up. And she was . . . different.
In good ways now.
She was feistier, more headstrong. She’d also developed some really annoying habits, but those habits could always bebroken. I’d done it with Hawke and Liam. Surely it would be a breeze with her, as well.
“You gonna sit there with that needle in my arm all day, or are you done?”
I yanked it out of his skin and tossed it in the sink, ignoring his yelp of shock. “Try not to hurt yourself anymore, you asshole,” I said, washing my hands before sterilizing the supplies and returning them to my bag. “Did she get hurt in the scuffle?”
Liam shook his head, his shaggy hair in desperate need of a trim as it danced around his face. “She stayed out of the way, and I intercepted the assailant.”
“You know the procedure, Liam: go boot up the database and assemble a profile, then see if it matches anyone we know.”
I didn’t wait around for him to say more. My mind was on ensuring the girl in the room was still safe and sound and in one piece. Liam might’ve gotten us into this situation, but we all signed the contract with Minnie. Therefore, we were all responsible for the girl in our care.
That included me.
My knock on the door went unanswered, so I knocked again, leaning my ear against the door in the hopes that I could hear her moving around.
Silence.
Not good. I tried again, but the results didn’t change.
So this time, I tried the doorknob.
