Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 60234 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60234 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Dr. Bishop is right there to catch me, and he picks me up like I weigh nothing and sets me in the wheelchair.
“Stop fighting me, Maggie. I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m going to help you.”
I let go and look into his eyes, well, as much as I can with these slits that barely let the light through. He said he works here because he wants to help people, but how can he be a biker and a doctor? That makes no fucking sense.
“How does that work?”
He smiles as if he can read my thoughts. “I was a doctor in the Army, and I joined a motorcycle club, but I’m still a doctor. It’s not that difficult.”
Maybe not, but how can I trust him? “You want to help me, what? Help me right into some kill trap from your MC?”
“No,” he sighs. “We don’t want you dead, Maggie. Unlike your former friends.”
If he wants me dead, I’m as good as dead anyway, right?
“Yeah, okay, fine. Let’s say I believe you.”
“You believe me,” he answers.
My shoulders sink, and I shake my head in frustration. “My former friends did this to me. Those fucking pendejas I grew up with. We learned those streets together, and this is what they do to me. Beat the shit out of me, stick me like a pig, and then leave me for dead.”
It’s pathetic, feeling sad and angry about this, but this is the life I chose.
“I guessed as much. How did they find you?” At my look of confusion, he shrugs. “Angel Harbor isn’t really BTD territory.”
Right. “We used to go to the warehouse where they found me to drink, get faded and fuck back in the day. It was stupid to go there, but I had nowhere else to go. Still don’t.”
The doc opens the door of the X-ray room and pushes me into the hall. I look to the right and see those bikers still standing there. One of them nods at us, and I turn my head. The doctor pushes me left into an office.
“What I don’t get,” he says, locking the wheelchair, “is why they’re after you.”
“Million-dollar question, isn’t it?” I flash a painful smile because it’s embarrassing as fuck to admit that my lifelong friends, people I considered family, turned on me.
“They think I helped you guys kill Demon.” I scoff because that’s the most ridiculous thing in the whole fucking world. “After you bikers booked it out of there, I climbed out of that ditch and found Demon lying there, so I ran as fast as I could with a sprained ankle and finally got an Uber and went back to L.A.”
I cringe at the memory, but somehow, I find myself telling him the whole story. “I was scared and dirty and looking to my crew for help, you know?”
I let out a bitter bark of laughter at how stupid that seems now.
“I heard them blaming me because I screamed. I mean, what the fuck? I fell down the damn ditch. I hurt my ankle. Anyway, I dipped out of there and have been in Angel Harbor ever since.” I look away and swipe a few stray tears angrily. I hate to cry. It makes me feel weak.
“That’s tough,” Nova offers, rubbing a slow hand across my back.
I look up and flash a watery smile full of regret for all the shitty choices I’ve made in my life, all the bad decisions that brought me here, to this clinic.
“I’m a total fucking wreck.”
He smiles at me and grabs something from a cabinet in the hall right outside the door. “Aren’t we all?” he asks and hands me an ice pack.
“For your face,” he says kindly.
I exhale at the cold pack, pleading with the tough bitch I used to be to rise to the surface, but she stays away for now. “Not like this.”
“Maybe not,” he agrees. “But the trick is to find someone whose wreckage matches yours.”
I frown. “Don’t you mean baggage?”
“Nah, fuck that. Baggage is boring. Real warriors leave a wreckage in their path.”
He gives me a smile and, fuck me. I’m in so much trouble.
CHAPTER TEN
Nova
I must be out of my fucking mind for prolonging my time with Maggie. She is one of the Bloodthirsty Devils, the same fuckers who put Banger in that hospital bed with around-the-clock protection and I have her sitting in my office like we’re old friends.
Whether she was directly involved or not, they are her friends. Her family. Still, knowing all that I can’t help my desire to protect her.
“So, Maggie, tell me how a beautiful girl like you got mixed up with an asshole like Demon?” Shit, I wince inwardly. “Sorry. Docs shouldn’t call their patients beautiful.”
“Don’t be,” she flashes a half-smile. “If I was still beautiful,” she points to the gauze covering the nasty wound, “I might have called you out, but since you’re just being nice, I’ll shrug it off.”