Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Stabbings and shootings weren’t exactly rare in our profession. And when you went to the hospital with those sorts of wounds, they had to report that shit to the cops. Which meant if we wanted care, we had to do it ourselves for the most part.
I didn’t have the nickname Surgeon for no reason.
I was who you wanted if you got hit.
And, apparently, if you got hit during a shootout of ours.
“She okay?” Cesare asked as I pushed my hand down hard against hers that was on her thigh, making a wail escape her.
“Gotta get her on a table and look,” I said, gritting my teeth before pressing my other hand into the one on her shoulder. “I know. I know it hurts,” I said as her shrieks of pain turned to sobs.
“Got anything there you can give her for this?” Cesare asked.
In the rearview, I nodded at him.
Because I didn’t want to say the truth out loud and upset the woman any more than she already was.
I had enough shit to knock her out cold so I could work on her without her making the job harder.
“Next right,” I said, getting a nod out of Cesare before looking down at the woman.
Whitney, if her name tag was accurate.
“Everything is going to be okay,” I told her.
Though, yeah, that was probably not entirely true.
CHAPTER THREE
Whitney
I wanted a refund for every single movie I paid to go see where some guy gets shot and keeps walking like nothing happened.
Yeah, what complete and utter bullshit all that was.
I mean, the second I realized what happened, the pain seared through my system. It seemed to start at the point of entry, but spread outward until it encompassed my entire thigh, then my whole chest. A burning, searing, blinding sort of pain that made it hard to breathe and impossible to think straight, let alone try to move.
Which was probably the only reason one of my goddamn shooters had managed to scoop me up off the ground, load me into the back of a car, and drive off with me.
As the car pulled away, and with it, my hopes for freedom—and perhaps life itself—I honestly couldn’t tell you which was the dominant feeling coursing through my system.
Fear.
Or pain.
Okay, fine, I lied.
It was the pain.
I was a big old baby when it came to any sort of injury. I’ve been known to bitch and moan about a paper cut all day after it happened.
So having two gaping holes inside my body? Yeah, I was nauseated from the pain. My entire body felt like it was screaming. And then the bastard in the back with me pressed his hands harder into my wounds, and I swear I almost blacked out from the agony.
When the car stopped and the man grabbed me again, jostling me to get me out of the car, I actually did start to go in and out of consciousness, my body deciding it had endured enough, that it didn’t want to be aware of anything else happening to me.
I was vaguely aware of a door closing, of a cold table beneath me.
It wasn’t until I felt something cold and hard slide around my wrist and tighten that consciousness came back completely.
Because I knew.
I knew without looking, without asking.
Those were handcuffs.
These barbarians had handcuffed me to a table.
Why?
So they could rape me before I bled to death?
Suddenly, I wished unconsciousness had continued to claim me. If those were to be my last moments on Earth, I’d just much rather not experience them.
I wanted to flail, to fight, but the screaming in my shoulder and opposite thigh made it impossible to move.
Taking a slow, deep breath, I let my eyes slit open.
I’d kept them closed in a sort of juvenile attempt to assure them that they could let me go, that I wouldn’t tell the police about them because my eyes were shut and I didn’t see them.
It seemed pointless now to keep them closed.
I might as well look at the men who were going to end my life.
I couldn’t have prepared myself for the unexpected and completely inappropriate gut punch of desire that spread through my body as my gaze finally landed on the man who’d been in shadow on the street, the same one I’d been in the backseat of a car with.
He was six-two with a broad chest, wide shoulders, and a strong core beneath his well-tailored dark gray slacks and a black button-up.
It wasn’t just the body, though.
Oh, no.
The man had a chiseled face a five o’clock shadow covering his face, including the cleft in his chin. And that silver that was mixed in that five o’clock shadow? Yeah, he had a lot more of that streaked through his dark hair.
The absolute last thing I needed right then was to feel the stirrings of something damn near forgotten in my body.