Vipers Rule

by Stephanie Tyler

  Maddie had wanted to do it, but he’d convinced her that it would be better this way. Mainly because Tenn also had sources that it would be better for Maddie that she knew nothing about.

  Tenn’s sources made him privy to exactly where Hugh was being held until he was fully accepted into the program and officially erased and placed. Tals would want Maddie to be able to answer truthfully that she had no idea where Hugh was. Because basically, Rocco couldn’t be sure Tenn wouldn’t kill him.

  “I’m going to turn him over,” Tenn railed now. “Why the fuck are we protecting that douche bag?”

  Preacher motioned for Rocco to put Tenn on speaker; then he covered his phone’s mouthpiece and asked, “Can we trace a tracer?”

  “Looking into it,” Rocco answered above Tenn’s ranting. “If it’s a transponder, we might be able to back into the ISP.”

  “I’m in the car—on my way to Hugh’s,” Tenn said, then promptly hung up.

  “That’s going to go well,” Rocco muttered, and Preacher shook his head, then said into his phone, “You need to start asking Hugh or your other contacts where these guys hang.”

  Then he hung up. “Holly!”

  She was there in seconds, phone to her ear. “He’s checking—he’s never followed them to anyplace but the motel, but he might have a lead. Maddie and Tals were at a gas station an hour from here, half hour from the hotel they were staying at.”

  “They’ve got to be someplace in between,” Rocco said. Maddie hadn’t seen them in her rearview—she hadn’t even known what car they’d put Tals into. She’d just driven away fast.

  “I think we should get on the road, at least to their hotel and work from there,” Preacher said. “I’ll take Cage, Rally and Bear and . . .”

  “Take them all—I’ll stay here and deal with the intel,” Rocco told them. “Holly, the second you get something—”

  “You’ll be the first to know.” Then she walked over to Preacher, tilted her head up and kissed him on the cheek. Whispered something in his ear and then walked away.

  Preacher touched his cheek like he’d been given something precious. Rocco looked down before Preacher caught him noticing.

  Within twenty minutes, the clubhouse was vacated, save for two guys guarding the outside, Rocco, Holly, Maddie and Calla. Although Rocco loved going out on the road—hell, it’s why he’d given up his practice and joined the MC in the first place—he understood that in times like this, his role was better served being left behind. He would be kept out of the action, and he’d have an alibi, which would allow him to serve as the other men’s lawyers, if need be.

  Judging by the venom in Tenn’s voice, this could get really ugly. And if Hugh—or Hugh’s temporary handler—didn’t feel like giving out information, or worse, really didn’t know . . .

  Fuck. After a minute’s deliberation, Rocco picked up the phone and called Lola. On her private line.

  She picked up, obviously annoyed. “How did you get this—”

  She’d been asleep—he could hear it in her voice. “Tals was kidnapped by the Albanians—they’re looking for Hugh.”

  There was silence. Then, “Does Tals know where Hugh is?”

  Rocco debated telling her. Finally, he said, “Yes.”

  “Will he tell them?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so sure, Rocco?”

  “Because Tals is smart enough to know that the Albanians won’t let him go—they’re not exactly the fair-trade types.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “All the fucking help I can get looking for Tals. He doesn’t have a lot of time.”

  “What makes you think I’m going to go out of my way for Tals?”

  “Because your department is involved. Because the tracker the Albanians put on Tals’s truck is standard police issue.”

  “You’re assuming my office found the Albanians, planted this GPS and they found it?”

  “That, or else someone from your department is working with the Albanians in hopes of taking down Vipers. I’m betting they approached your office, said we were framing them. Talked about Hugh.”

  “That’s a stretch,” Lola told him . . . but she didn’t tell him it was completely implausible.

  Twenty minutes later she was at the door of the clubhouse, wearing sweats and a T-shirt under an open black coat, her hair pinned up loosely. “Someone in the department is working with the Albanians, but for something unrelated to Hugh Montgomery. Something to do with a car-theft ring.”

  Rocco stilled inside at the mention of the car thefts, but she didn’t seem to make any connections—or jump to any conclusions. She probably figured the Albanians just misused the tracker for their purposes. “Then you can track the GPS.”

  She shook her head. “That information I just gave you is the best I can do.”

  “I’ll let Maddie know.”

  She looked pained. “If I can’t stop women from getting into bed with Vipers, the least I can do is goddamned protect them from themselves. I couldn’t help Calla—”

  “You didn’t know,” he said gently.

  “Don’t, Rocco. Don’t you dare be nice to me now after trying to play on my emotions.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “We’re even after this. Even if I can’t help you, the fact that I’m putting my ass on the line means we’re officially even.” With that she walked away, got back into her car and drove off. He watched the taillights on the car get smaller and smaller until they finally disappeared.

  Only then did he go back inside, feeling like he’d lost something he’d never really had in the first place.

  Chapter 30

  Tals had ruthlessly shoved away the image of Maddie’s face as she’d driven off. She’d been trying so hard not to cry, to be strong for him. The fact that it killed her to do so wouldn’t help him now. The fact that she’d had the strength to do so would.

  He’d been through worse than this—the Army had taught him that bitching and moaning about your situation wasted precious energy. Instead he sat still, and he watched and he waited. Collected information. Even though they’d threatened to begin torturing him, Tals figured they were worried enough about the Vipers’ reach to wait until they got the call from Preacher. What they were doing now, by taking him, didn’t go against what they’d promised, which was keeping Maddie out of their sights.

  Really, taking Tals instead was smart. He wished he’d considered that angle, but fuck hindsight. What worried him was that Tenn also knew where Hugh was. It should worry Hugh more.

  Lee and Co. wouldn’t start trying to hurt him until they got him to wherever their home base was around here. In the meantime Tals would try to glean any intel he could to use against them.

  They’d blindfolded and gagged him, cuffed his feet and tied his ankles, and he rode in the trunk. He’d found a paper clip on the floor. He could break the cuffs, but a paper clip was also a good weapon, and he debated the merits of popping out a taillight in hopes a cop would spot them and pull them over.

  That was risky though. If they didn’t run across any cops, Lee would see the damage and know Tals had done it. The guy was already going to hurt him, but Tals didn’t need to give him any excuses to do his worst.

  * * *

  Rocco had taken to pacing. Pacing and cursing. Holly’s PI had no leads. Preacher trashed Lee’s hotel room and found nothing. Lola tried to trace back the GPS, but they’d bounced their ISP, so it showed they were somewhere in Japan.

  But Tenn came through with flying fucking colors.

  “I’m on my way there—have the guys meet me.”

  “They’re on their way.” Rocco had already texted them while they were talking and had received a confirmation from Preacher. “Are you going to need a lawyer? Or is Hugh going to need an ambulance?”

  “Rocco, give me some credit—Hugh’s fine.” Tenn paused. “Although the marshal isn’t too happy, so yeah, there might be an issue.”

  *
* *

  “Never doubted you for a minute,” Tals rasped to his brother as he sat, propped against the wall of the basement, where Tenn had found him ten minutes ago.

  Tenn glanced at the bodies of the men scattered around the room—four in all. “Couldn’t have saved any for me?”

  “Gotta . . . get here . . . more quickly.” Fuck, his ribs hurt like a bitch. Everything was one big throb, now that the adrenaline rush of fighting for his life was over.

  “Preacher’s about ten minutes out,” Tenn assured him. “Ambulance will be here soon too.”

  Tals already knew about Maddie—she was the first word out of his mouth when Tenn burst in. “How’d you get Hugh to spill?”

  Tenn smiled. “I gave him a suitcase of money from Maddie’s dad.”

  Tals frowned. “Why . . . would he pay . . . for me?”

  “He wouldn’t.” Tenn put pressure on the deepest of Tals’s wounds, and Tals grimaced, cursed him. “Sorry.”

  “Fucker.” Tals closed his eyes for a second, then opened them. “You told Hugh that Lee had Maddie.”

  “Yep.”

  “And you lied to her dad too?”

  “Nope.” Tenn looked over his shoulder as he heard the sirens in the near distance. “They’re on their way. Just hang on.”

  Tals swallowed hard. “So fucking tired.”

  “I know. But now that Maddie’s father’s willing to make sure she’s happy—and he knows she’s happiest with you—if you die now, he’ll probably kill you.”

  “Fucker,” Tals repeated.

  * * *

  The second Rocco got the call that Tals was heading to the hospital but that he was breathing and expected to recover, he’d come in to tell her. Maddie had been resting with her head against Calla’s shoulder. Holly was like stone, standing to look out the window.

  “He’s hurt?” Maddie asked.

  “He’s hurt,” Rocco confirmed. “Tenn’s with him in the ambulance—he’s a trained medic, so Tals had a good start before the EMTs got there. They’re taking him to a hospital close to the scene.”

  “I need—”

  “To go. I know—the truck’s ready.”

  “Does she have to worry?” Holly asked, finally turning around.

  “Lee and his men have been neutralized. I don’t know who they’re connected to, but this should send a pretty solid message. And Hugh got money to pay off his debt.”

  Maddie crossed her arms. “Do I even want to know?”

  “No,” Rocco told her. “Pack a bag if you want to stay with him—he’s not coming out tonight.”

  Maddie’s heart squeezed, but Calla took her firmly, guided her by the elbow to Tals’s room, where she and Holly packed for both Maddie and Tals. Holly and Calla stayed behind, and Maddie rode with Rocco.

  Surprisingly, the ride went fast. Probably because she was in a blind panic most of the way there. She didn’t remember much about the walk inside . . . until she saw Tenn. He was standing outside the ICU, and he looked like he was sleeping standing up. As she got close, she noticed blood on his clothes.

  As soon as she stood in front of him, his eyes opened. “He’s going to be fine, Maddie,” he said fiercely, and she wasn’t sure which one of them he was trying to convince.

  “Can I see him?” she asked.

  Just then one of the nurses was walking out, and she glanced at Tenn and pointed at Maddie. “Is this her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maddie, honey, come on in for a few minutes. I told this one to grab some food and coffee before he keels over and I have another patient on my hands.” She looked at Tenn with a mixture of stern disapproval and concern.

  “I’ll take care of that,” Rocco assured the nurse.

  Maddie gave Tenn a sudden hug, and after a second he wrapped his arms around her, then said, “Go wake him up.”

  “Now, he looks worse than he is. They all do in the hospital,” the nurse told her. “He lost a lot of blood, so he’s a little pale. But he’s breathing on his own. He’s a strong one.”

  “He is,” Maddie said quietly as she walked past the curtain and saw Tals lying on the bed. His head was slightly raised, and there was an oxygen cannula in his nose. There were IVs in both arms, and monitors, with their low, oppressive hums, surrounded the bed.

  And yes, he looked pale. She walked right up to the bed, curled her fingers in his. “Tals, it’s me. I’m here. And I’m not leaving.”

  “Good,” he rasped. “Finally listening.”

  “You’re awake?”

  He opened his eyes a little. “In and out. Lotta good drugs happening.” He glanced at the nurse. “Tell her to feed me.”

  The nurse wagged a finger at him. “Nice try. Ice chips.”

  Tals grumbled. She ran a hand along his bruised cheek. “Are you really okay?”

  He nodded. “I’ve got . . . an infection. That’s what they’re worried about. But Tenn started antibiotics right away, and that helped.”

  “He’s worried.”

  “I know. He’s . . .” Tals closed his eyes and took a breath that looked painful. “He’s hovering. Make him . . . stop.”

  “Sorry. No can do.” Then she leaned close, brushed some hair from his forehead. “It killed me to let you go like that.”

  “It killed me . . . to force you to . . . leave . . . like that,” he echoed. “But you knew . . . it was right.”

  Later she’d learn just how extensive his injuries were. He had been sliced six times, beyond generally being hit. And he’d taken it . . . because during that time, he’d been interrogating Lee, who was only too happy to talk. Mainly because he figured Tals would never survive.

  At least that’s what Tenn told her when he came back into the ICU. (Although both of them weren’t supposed to be in the room at the same time, the nurse looked the other way.) Tals was sleeping, and Maddie refused to remove her hand from inside of his.

  “He really picked the wrong man,” Tenn continued. “That’s all Tals and I know—we cut our teeth on survival. But we also knew we never wanted to end up in jail like our old man. The bastard.”

  She noticed Tals’s eyes were opened. “Is he still . . . ?”

  “He got out when we were just seventeen. Came to visit us,” Tenn said, with a glance over at Tals.

  “Right,” she echoed hollowly.

  Tals’s eyes were on the ceiling. “Yeah. He was pissed that our mom had left Tallahassee. By the time we got home from school, it was too late. And he went after . . . me.” Tals took his hand from hers and then twisted his forearm so she could see the long scar. “Slashed me . . . but Tenn stopped him.”

  She blinked at “stopped him,” but she got it. She ran two fingers across the knotted scar.

  “Never saw him again after that,” Tals said carefully.

  She looked at Tenn, who shrugged, then met Tals’s eyes. “Yeah, me neither.”

  It was like the two of them had a routine, to help keep them in practice. She supposed it kept them from forgetting, from letting their guard down.

  It was only then that she noticed that Tenn had the same exact scar . . . in the same exact place, mainly because he was rubbing it like it was habit. A reminder.

  He noticed her staring. So did Tals, because he told her, “Afterward, Tenn slashed his own arm and pressed it to mine. Sounds so fucking dramatic now, but fuck, it meant so much. Still does.”

  “One for all,” she whispered.

  “One for all,” Tenn agreed. “Someone’s got to take care of him.”

  She smiled. “Like you rescued him tonight?”

  “Fuck that,” Tals bit out.

  Tenn gave a small laugh. “He didn’t need rescuing, Maddie. By the time I got there, it was all over and he was looking for a first-aid kit.”

  She glanced over at Tals and back at Tenn. “He . . .”

  “He got loose. I wish I’d been there to help.”

  And what Tals had learned would be enough to keep that part of the Albanian mob away fr
om her—and from Vipers. Preacher told her that later that night, when she’d gone into the hallway during rounds. It looked like a biker convention in the hallway, but at least there was good news.

  And during those quiet moments, she made a call . . . to her father. Once she’d discovered that he’d actually given Hugh money on Tals’s behalf, she couldn’t believe it.

  “Maddie . . . there’s a lot of making up I have to do. Things I’m just learning about.” Her father sighed. “If you can change, then maybe I can too.”

  “You know where to find me, Dad.”

  “I’d like to come see Tals when he’s out of the hospital.”

  “I think he’d really like that,” she whispered. “I know I would.”

  Chapter 31

  “I’m worried—Tals is really pushing himself. I’m thinking it’s too much, too soon,” Maddie confessed. She didn’t want to tell on Tals, but he wasn’t listening to reason. “The doctor said he needed to rest so he didn’t reopen his wounds.”

  Preacher’s eyes sparked with anger and concern. “I thought he was upstairs sleeping. Looks like he borrowed Holly’s car.”

  “So I can ask her where he is?”

  “She won’t tell you. She’s not supposed to do stuff like that without consulting with me, but for Tals . . . they’ve always been close.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Preacher’s lips twisted ruefully. “Never wanted to ask.”

  “But you . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to use the word “claimed.” “I mean, Tals wouldn’t . . .”

  “No, nothing like that, Maddie,” Preacher said evenly. “It’s just that Holly doesn’t even typically like men.”

  “She’s in the wrong place for that,” Maddie noted.

  “We provide the best protection,” he said wistfully, and in that moment she saw what she hadn’t before that moment. Preacher had claimed Holly for reasons above and beyond protection.

  He loved her.

  She didn’t want to push it—not on that front, anyway. “Tals told me how you protected him and Tenn.”