At his side, Pilar said, "What?" and jumped forward again, but Sherlock grabbed her and held on.

Connor turned and took hold of her arm. "Keep chill until we're outside," he gritted at her ear.

But when they took a step toward the front door, the Aztecs closed around them. Nine men.

"I'll keep Pilar," Esposito said behind him. Connor turned again and faced him, and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, still at the table, let that nasty smile slide up his bisected face. "You boys keep to your white b.i.t.c.hes with their yellow hair. This one's one of ours. And she's of use to me. Leave her and go."

Connor still had his hand around Pilar's arm, and he could feel every emotion moving through her body in the tension rolling under his palm. He moved his thumb back and forth over her bicep, making an attempt to keep her calm.

She hadn't spoken. In fact, she'd said very little since they'd come in-and that was good. But her eyes were a riot of bad feelings. Still, she was letting him lead.

And he was about to lead them all into chaos. "Sorry, ese," Connor replied. "Can't do that. She's with me."

"Greedy motherf.u.c.king gueros think the whole world is yours for the taking. You leave her with me, or you and me, we have a problem."

Connor shifted his shoulder and let Pilar go so that he was ready to draw. "Then we have a problem."

He felt movement at his back, on his back, and he knew what it was. But before he could react, Pilar had pulled her gun from his waistband and aimed at Esposito. Jesus f.u.c.k.

Controlling his initial reaction to grab her and disarm her, Connor stood pat and made ready. Right now, she had the floor, and trying to change that would blow this room up. He sent a quick glance to his brothers, conveying to them that they should hold, too.

She was shielded by the bodies of the Horde men, and the Aztecs didn't realize that she'd drawn until she was aimed and still. "Anybody draws, and I'll just shoot," she said, her voice clear and steady. Her head tilted toward Connor. "That goes for everybody."

Despite her threat, the Aztecs around her reached for their weapons, but then Esposito put up his hand, and they all stopped. For a moment, the room was perfectly quiet. Then Esposito made that snaky sneer and turned his attention to Connor. "You let a little girl fight your fights for you, ese?"

Connor shrugged. He and his new little friend were going to have this s.h.i.t out, but not here. "I'm secure enough to take help where it comes."

"I want Hugo," Pilar cut in, her aim still true. "Just let me have my brother, and we'll get out."

Esposito returned his attention to the woman with a gun pointed at his head. They stared at each other. Meanwhile, Connor tried to keep track of the whole room, looking for where the danger would start. Baldy would be his first target. That guy was looking for blood.

But Esposito nodded. "Sam. Cut him loose."

Baldy turned. "What?"

Without looking away from Pilar, Esposito snarled, "Don't f.u.c.kin' question me. Cut him loose."

While Sam did as he was told, Esposito c.o.c.ked his head at Pilar. "You got b.a.l.l.s, chica." He nodded sidelong at Connor. "More than him. So I'll let you and your p.u.s.s.y friends leave. But you know this ain't over. Your brother pays his debt, or I take it from somebody else." He looked her up and down. "You, maybe. You got some a.s.sets I might want."

Sam pushed Hugo toward their little circle, and Connor caught him. The guy was dead weight, barely conscious, so he hoisted him over his shoulder. f.u.c.ker stank to high heaven. "Let's go. Back out, puss. Come on."

Pilar nodded without breaking the lock of her attention on Esposito.

Keeping to their wary circle, the Horde, Pilar, and her troublesome brother eased backward out of the High Life and onto the street.

Once outside, they all drew their weapons, expecting the Aztecs to follow. But they were alone on the dark, dead street.

Connor got Hugo into the pa.s.senger seat of Pilar's Element. "Where you taking him?"

"He needs a hospital."

"Hospital means questions."

"Look at him!"

Connor did. The a.s.shole was f.u.c.ked up bad, and he wasn't willing to drag his carca.s.s into the clubhouse. He'd been enough trouble as it was. "Okay. We gotta get moving. You found him on the street like this. By his house, someplace not here. Right?"

Getting it, she nodded. "Yeah, okay." After a beat, she added, "You were gonna leave him."

"I was. If your brother's tangled up with these guys of his own will, then that's nothing I want to meddle in. But I wasn't gonna serve you up to them. f.u.c.k that."

She stared up at him for a couple more beats, just long enough for Connor to shift and prepare to remind her that they needed to beat h.e.l.l out of here.

But she spoke before he could. "Okay. I get it. Thank you for your help."

"We're not done yet, puss. We're riding you out of here." And he and she were going to have a f.u.c.king talk.

"You don't have to-"

"Shut up, and let's ride." With that, he went to his bike and mounted up.

In the ER parking lot, Connor dismounted and put up his hand to hold his brothers off from doing the same. They weren't followed, so the coast seemed clear enough for now.

"You sure?" Sherlock asked.

"Yeah. Got it from here. You get back, catch Hooj up on this s.h.i.t."

Diaz and Sherlock exchanged a look, then they nodded in unison and pulled out. Connor took off his helmet. After a thought, he shrugged off his kutte, folded it, and stowed it in a saddlebag. Going into the ER with this douche while he was wearing colors could cause problems. Then he went to Pilar's car and opened the pa.s.senger door. Hugo was unconscious.

He hoisted her brother back onto his shoulder.

"I can take it from here," she protested.

"Too late. And we're still not done. We need to have a serious talk. So let's get him seen to."

Connor sat in the ER waiting room and did what the room was there for. He waited. Until he could grab Pilar and get some information and set some parameters, he wasn't going anywhere. He'd fielded a couple of calls from his father, but since he didn't have any more information yet, Hoosier had stopped calling.

It was a pretty sure bet that they were now beefing with the Aztecs, and they had to control the ripple effect to every extent that they could. But there were a lot of unknowns yet-several of which had to do with Pilar and her brother. The club had to decide whether this one foray into helpfulness was the last favor they'd do for them, or if they'd taken them on as a responsibility. To know that, they'd need to know how the f.u.c.k Hugo had gotten himself into the position they'd pulled him from.

Pilar came through the doors to the treatment room once, but she ignored Connor. Her attention was devoted entirely to a small, thin woman who'd been standing at the reception desk. The woman was older-elderly, in fact-but her back was straight and her hair and clothes were stylish. Pilar hugged her, hard, and after a few exchanged words, they went back through the doors.

And Connor kept waiting.

Finally, both Pilar and the woman Connor a.s.sumed was her grandmother came back through the doors, and this time they headed his way. He stood and met them in the middle of the room.

Pilar spoke first. "Nana, this is Connor. He and his friends helped us today."

The older woman smiled and held out a spotted hand. "Thank you, Connor. So much. I am Renata Salazar." Like Pilar, her grandmother had almost no accent. Just a little linger over her Rs.

He took her hand and gave it a light squeeze. "Happy to help, Mrs. Salazar."

Smiling at the respect, she patted his hand and then let go and turned to Pilar. "I'll stay with Hugo. You have done enough for him today, and you have work in the morning. You go."

"No, Nana-"

"Go, mija. I mean it."

And just like that, the demanding, rebellious woman Connor was getting to know dropped her head and nodded meekly. "Okay. Keep me posted, though."

"Of course." Renata Salazar squeezed her granddaughter's face between her old hands. "Te quiero, mija."

"Te quiero, Nana."

With a pat to Pilar's cheeks and a nod to Connor, Renata went back to the ER treatment rooms.

Connor and Pilar stood in the middle of the waiting area. It was Sat.u.r.day evening, becoming Sat.u.r.day night, and the place was filling up. He put his hand on her shoulder. "How is he?"

She shrugged. "Still out, and a f.u.c.king mess. But he'll heal. And then I'm going to kill his stupid a.s.s."

Knowing she was exaggerating, he chuckled a little and squeezed her shoulder. "We need to talk, puss."

"I really hate that you call me that. So stop. But yeah, I know we need to talk." She looked around the crowded room, gnawing on her bottom lip. "I live here in Old Towne, just a few blocks off. Want to come over?"

He grinned-that offer had surprised him. "To your place? You sure?"

Her eyes narrowed. "To talk. But I'd say you've earned some trust."

"Okay, then. I'll follow you."

CHAPTER SIX.

Pilar opened the door and stepped through, making way for Connor to follow. As he came in, she flipped a light switch, and a floor lamp came on, illuminating her living room in a warm glow.

He looked around, taking in her collection of mismatched stuff she thought of as 'vintage funk'-which sounded better than 'thrift shop cheap.' Actually, she was proud of her place. She liked to fix up old furniture, and had done just about all the different treatments she'd ever heard of, from decoupage to crackle.

He ran a hand over a table she'd painted three different colors. "Cool place."

"Thanks." She closed the door and turned the deadbolt. "You want a drink or something? I've got beer, tequila, vodka, some others. Oh-I could make coffee, too."

"You got Jameson or Jack?"

"Sorry, no. I think there's some Jim Beam." Doug, her deputy f.u.c.k buddy, was a Jim Beam fan. He'd brought a bottle over a while back.

Laughing, he shrugged out of his kutte and laid it over the back of a worn, red-velvet chair. "Not the same thing, pu-ilar. But it'll do."

With a smirking nod, she acknowledged his attempt not to call her 'puss'-which had been making her want to punch him in the throat-and went into the kitchen to serve up drinks.

"You want ice or water or something?" she called while she filled her own gla.s.s to make a vodka on the rocks with lemon. Tequila made her h.o.r.n.y. Vodka chilled her out. On this night, chill was vastly preferable to h.o.r.n.y.

"Nah, just straight," he called back.

When she came back in, Connor was staring at a painting hanging over her sofa. She went over and handed him his gla.s.s. "You like it?"

He took a long drink before he answered. "I don't know. It's kinda f.u.c.ked up."

She looked at the piece in question: an acrylic painting of a monochrome skull with a near-photorealistic dark red rose growing through an eye. Her tattoo artist had done it; botanicals were his specialty. "Why f.u.c.ked up?"

He made a noncommittal grunt and turned away. "I don't know. Feels dark. We need to talk about your brother."

Yeah. Great. She indicated the sofa, and he sat. She took the damask chair on the other side of the gla.s.s-topped table with the driftwood base that served as a coffee table. "Okay. Let's talk."

Not knowing for sure what it was he needed to know, Pilar sat and waited for him to ask a question.

"You got any idea what your brother's into with those guys? You said he was friends with them-they didn't seem so friendly."

"He hangs out with some of the younger guys. His buddies weren't there, though." It had occurred to her that Jaime and the others could have served Hugo up to Raul.

"Esposito said he took something. You know what?"

"No. No clue. And Hugo wasn't awake when I left. I'm sorry I dragged you into all this, but I swear I don't know what the h.e.l.l he's fallen into here." A little stream of worry trickled through her, wondering if he was safe at the hospital, if her grandmother was safe with him. But she also knew that those guys wouldn't stir up trouble there. Too many people, too many cameras, too much security. Besides, Raul had let him go. They'd let him heal and then they'd come for him again. In the meantime, they knew he wouldn't rat.

"You said his dad was an Aztec-you don't have the same dad?"

"No. But mine wasn't much better than his." She decided that the trust he'd earned warranted some disclosure on her part. "Mine was an a.s.sa.s.sin, too. It's complicated-and anyway, they're both dead. Our mother, too. Our grandma raised us from the time I was eleven and Hugo was six."

He c.o.c.ked his head like he was understanding more of the picture. "That's what Esposito meant when he said you were one of them-it wasn't just a Hispanic thing."

"No. We're family whether we want to be or not, and they like to keep the family close. They've been on Hugo to go in since he was fifteen."

"Why didn't he? No offense, but he's not coming off like a guy who's strong enough to hold them off."

"He's not. But Raul's got a thing about our grandmother. She doesn't want Hugo in, so Raul lays off him a little."

"What do you mean he's got a thing? Like a crush?" His surprised puzzlement turned his face into a caricature.

"G.o.d, no! Ugh! No-he's, I don't know, a little scared of her. She took care of him when he was a kid. My mom and dad and Hugo's dad and Raul all grew up together. They were close. Like I said, it's complicated."

Connor either wasn't interested in the bizarre family soap opera that she'd just hinted at, or he wasn't shocked by it, because he didn't ask more about it. "Not scared enough to back off you all completely, though."