Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
“Hospital,” Matteo said briefly. Slinging the strap of my rifle over my shoulder, I slid my hands under my wounded friend. With Matteo on his other side, we lifted him off the ground. His cry of pain wrenched at me, but there was another sound behind it I liked even less.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Matteo said, meeting my eye. He’d heard it too—the sound of another engine coming up the road fast. Somehow, I doubted it was an innocent civilian out for a late-night drive.
All thoughts of the armored truck and the cash inside gone, we moved as quickly as we could through the woods. I was torn between wanting to just grab Leonardo and haul ass to our car and wanting to be gentle because of his wounds. I settled for a fast walk, nearly a jog, and Matteo kept up. He talked to Leonardo as we carried him, reassuring him that he was going to be okay. I wasn’t sure how much he heard over the moans and gasps he was trying to stifle.
Matteo pushed Leonardo at me when we got to the SUV and I held him while Matt opened the door and pushed down the seats in the back. Shoving aside our equipment, I laid him in the back, Matteo climbing in next to him. “Hang in there,” he said.
I drove without lights, thankful that we’d cased this area so many times that we knew every mile. Still, I was less careful than I should have been as I raced to the hospital.
Leonardo’s cries of pain made me favor speed over caution on a night where both were clearly needed.
2
PIPER
Most people hated spending all night in the Emergency Room. Not me—I loved it. But that was because I wasn’t the one waiting in a room full of coughing people. I wasn’t sick or injured. I wasn’t even required to sit in those god-awful plastic chairs.
Instead, I was the one helping those people. Well, all except for those crappy chairs in the ER. No one, not even a skilled nurse, could save people from that torment.
My long shifts kept me on my feet all night. I crept home at dawn, too exhausted to do anything but fall into bed. Night after night, I saw the best and worst of what humanity had to offer.
And I loved it.
I got to help people. I got to save people. What could be better than that?
Okay, the hours could be better. And the pay. And the doctors could stand to be less arrogant and obnoxious. But there was no getting around that patients needed me. That was all that mattered.
“I’m going on a break,” my colleague Ava said as she hurried past me. We’d started our shift together, and so far, neither of us had even had a spare moment to even use the bathroom. I didn’t blame Ava for catching a few moments for herself between patients. If I got the chance, I was going to do the same thing.
In the meantime, I could hope she’d bring me back some coffee, but that hope evaporated when she reappeared, her white sneakers smacking against the worn tile as she ran my way. “GSW in the ambulance bay!”
My empty stomach seemed to fold in on itself even as I broke into a run. Gunshot wounds weren’t exactly uncommon in New York City, especially at night, but I’d never get used to them. Ever.
Not after what had happened to Colby.
“You okay?” Ava glanced over her shoulder at me. “It’s a young man.”
“Of course.” It wasn’t true, but it didn’t matter. My job was to help the patient in any way I could, and that’s exactly what I was going to do.
We reached the entrance ambulance bay just as two orderlies pushed in a stretcher. There were no flashing lights on the other side of the door, but I didn’t have time to worry about where the patient had come from.
Instead, my eyes fell on the writhing young man on the gurney. For a moment, all I could see was a young man with a badly wounded chest. There was dirt in his blond hair and his youthful face contorted in agony.
“Colby,” I whispered.
“Piper!” Ava glared at me as she wrestled an oxygen mask on the struggling patient. “Help me.”
With a shake of my head, I blinked to clear my vision. It wasn’t Colby. The man didn’t even have blond hair. Still, it was hard to shake the image of my brother. What I wouldn’t give to see him again, even if just for one second.
Even if he was in pain like this patient. Being in pain was better than being dead.
“They said his name is Leonardo Turner, age twenty-nine,” a male orderly said, jerking his neck toward two tall men who had been stopped by security. Apparently, they didn’t like being told they couldn’t accompany their buddy, but then again, no friends or family liked hearing that.