by Mia Taylor
“If I knew anything for a fact, I would tell you,” Justin interrupted but Ryker wondered how true that was.
“You know,” Ryker drawled, “having you in Virginia Beach is a pain in my ass. You should be more accessible now.”
Justin’s face paled slightly and he stared at him.
“It worked just fine for you dad,” he replied. “I just remodelled my house—”
“I am not my father,” Ryker reminded him, slightly relishing the look of discomfort on Justin’s face. Ryker knew he was just being sadistic, taking out his mounting frustrations on the attorney when the matter had little to do with Justin.
The lawyer waited for him to speak and Ryker exhaled.
“I guess it will work for now,” he relented. “But be prepared to move.”
Justin visibly swallowed and nodded, shifting his gaze away but not before Ryker caught the look of anger in his face.
“Say hi to Rochelle for me,” Ryker called after him and instantly, he felt a stab of regret for saying it.
That sounded like a veiled threat, didn’t it?
So much had changed in such a short time. There were things he couldn’t say without coming across as ominous, places he couldn’t go lest he risk igniting a turf war with the rival families. Sure, he’d been aware of the dangers before but suddenly, every move he made seemed scrutinized, judged and subject to retribution.
“I will,” Justin replied shortly and Ryker grunted aloud when he left.
He definitely took that as a threat.
There was nothing he could do now but feel remotely guilty and move on.
On his desk, his phone began to ring and Ryker reached for it hopefully, thinking it might be Rui.
These days, she seemed to be the only bright point in his life, and while her schedule was chaotic, they made it work somehow. Ryker had never been so smitten with a woman and while he knew it was a dangerous game bringing a civilian into his bed, he couldn’t help himself.
It not only made Ryker a target, it made Rui one, too.
I’ve got to tell her the truth about who I am, he thought, not for the first time, but of course, he never did. He could envision what her reaction would be; she was a healer, a kind-hearted doctor who had permitted a mafia don to deflower her. She would not be apt to take the news well.
“Hello?”
“Ryker, it’s your mother.”
He jerked the phone away from his ear and stared at the screen uncomprehendingly. Franca hadn’t called him in years, not even after her husband got sick.
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
“I need you to come to the house. We have some things to discuss regarding the estate.”
A whoosh of air escaped his lungs but he nodded, even though he knew she couldn’t see him.
“Sure. When?”
“Come now. The estate lawyer and your sister are already on their way.”
His instinct was to refuse but he didn’t. There was no need to make things harder on his mother than necessary. It wasn’t her fault she loathed him so badly. It was his father’s.
“Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”
“Thank you.” She hung up without saying goodbye and another pang of hurt touched him.
Franca had not wanted Ryker to have any part of the family business and had made that clear from the moment Ryker was old enough to understand what that entailed.
“Find someone else, Mario,” Ryker had heard her pleading with him. “He’s too sensitive for this life.”
“You mean you’re afraid he’s not strong enough,” his father had countered. “Let him decide what he wants to do.”
“Dad thinks you’re a pussy,” Bryn would snicker to him. “He doesn’t think you have the balls to run the family.”
“I do…” Ryker faltered. “But Mom doesn’t want me to.”
Bryn had whooped with amusement.
“Listen to you. ‘I want to, but my mommy won’t let me.’ God, what do our parents see in you?”
Ryker had not been sure himself. He knew his mother appreciated his artistic side but as the years passed, he wondered if he wasn’t the momma’s boy Bryn claimed him to be.
All that changed on the first full moon following his fourteenth birthday.
Ryker shuddered at the memory, the blood he had spilled and how his father had found him, transformed into a beast, cowering in the treehouse.
Ryker couldn’t understand what had happened, why he was the way he was, but his father never looked at him like he was a freak. If anything, Mario was excited about his son’s shifting and slowly began to use it to his advantage.
Without noticing, Ryker found himself doing his father’s bidding, taking care of small problems and slowly easing his way into the role of underboss, much to Franca’s chagrin.
“What are you doing?” she hissed at him. “You’re not this man, Ryker. I raised you to be kind, compassionate, not…”
“Not like Dad?” Ryker had answered snidely.
But the damage was done and even if Ryker had wanted to escape the family, it was far too late. He knew too much. The wheels to his destiny had already been set in motion, probably from the day the Lucianos had brought him home from the convent.
Ryker rubbed his eyes and he realized he was exhausted. Keeping his personal and business lives separate was proving brutal on him.
Rui is working tonight. I’ll meet with Mom and come home and get some sleep, he thought, rising from the desk and stretching.
He met James in the hallway.
“Going out, boss?”
“Yeah. I’ll be home in a couple hours.”
“Need anything?”
“No, I’m good.”
He made his way toward the private elevator and took the lift down to the garage where his Alfa Romeo sat next to the doors. As he reached for the handle, he heard the sound of shuffling at his back and he turned to look.
The last thing he saw before the bullets hit was a black balaclava and the barrel of a Beretta.
Chapter Seven
If It Sounds Too Good to Be True…
“What are you going to do?” Vera whispered at her for the tenth time and Rui wanted to scream at her to stop asking.
What the hell can I do? I just found out the man I’m in love with is most likely a killer, a mobster.
Of course, Rui couldn’t know that for certain but the only way she would find out would be by asking and she wasn’t sure she was ready to do that either.
“Well?” Vera hissed insistently. “What are you going to—”
“I’m working, Vera!” Rui snarled. “This is not the place to discuss my personal life.”
Vera balked at her tone and lowered her eyes.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “You’re the one who brought the mobster into our ER.”
Rui flushed but didn’t respond, storming off to deal with her patients. She couldn’t wait for her shift to be over so she didn’t have to look at Vera’s pitying face.
Rui didn’t know the nurse well but she hoped that Vera was not prone to office gossip.
Who are you kidding? This is far too juicy for these busybodies to keep to themselves.
She moved toward the entrance and as she did, the double doors slid open. EMS workers hurried through with a gurney.
“What’ve you got?” Rui demanded, springing into action. She snapped on a pair of latex gloves from her pockets and rushed to greet them.
“Roughly thirty-year-old male, gunshot wounds to his chest and abdomen.”
“Is he conscious?” Rui demanded, falling in step to look at the man’s exposed chest. Indeed, two bullet holes had pierced through his sculpted abs…
I know this stomach.
In slow motion, she moved her head upward to stare at the man’s face and her knees buckled.
“Oh my God…”
“Doctor? You need to keep pressure on the wounds. The bullet nicked something. He’s bleeding too much.”
But Rui remained frozen as the gurney rushed passed.
No… it can’t be. You’ve just got Ryker on the brain. That’s not Ryker.
“DOCTOR!”
“I’ve got this.” Dr. Steinman jumped in and took over putting pressure on the wound.
“Is that Ryker Luciano?” Vera demanded, rushing to the side. Her eyes bugged and Rui knew that her worst fear had been confirmed. Her lover was bleeding to death on the table.
“Who did this?” Rui choked. “What happened?”
“Get her out of the way!” Steinman snapped. “Call upstairs for an OR. He needs surgery STAT.”
Rui watched, paralyzed as Ryker was wheeled away.
“Rui, come on,” Vera urged. “You can’t just stand there.”
Where am I going to go?
“RUI!”
The call was followed by a gentle slap across her face and she looked blankly at Vera.
“You’re not doing any good standing here,” the nurse said again. “Go to the gallery and make sure they don’t screw it up.”
Rui nodded dumbly, stumbling after the group but they had already retreated into the patient elevator.
I have to be with them. I can’t let anyone else operate on him.
She knew she would be kicked out of the operating room the second she stepped foot inside. She wasn’t a surgeon, after all, but Rui’s mind was anything but rational as she fought to find Ryker.
This is what happens when you hook up with a gangster, a cruel voice jeered in her head. They get shot and killed before you ever have a chance to love them fully.
A choked sob escaped Rui’s mouth as she entered the scrub room.
“Dr. Granger, you can’t be in here,” Steinman told her. “You’re not a surgeon.”
“Please,” she begged him tearfully. “Is he going to live?”
Steinman paused and looked at her through his peripheral vision.
“You know Ryker Luciano?” he asked, a peculiar note to his voice. Rui nodded through her tears. She couldn’t see his face beneath his surgical mask but his eyes told her he was scowling.
“No one dies on my watch,” he muttered, splashing his wet hands over the sink. A nurse pressed gloves onto his hands and Steinman cast her one last look.
“Get out of here, Rui. You’re only going to be a distraction.”
“C-can I watch from the gallery?”
His brown eyes narrowed but he nodded curtly.
“If you disrupt us once, you’re out and I’ll have you written up. Is that clear?”
It was the best Rui was going to get and she fled toward the stairs leading to the viewing room.
Her breath in her throat, she watched as a team began to work on Ryker. Hands trembling, she pressed her face to the glass, willing them silently to move faster, to stop the bleeding.
Come on, Ryker, she begged him silently. You need to get through this.
The microphone was off and Rui assumed that was on Steinman’s orders but she wished she could hear what was being said.
“How are they doing?” Vera demanded, joining her side. Rui didn’t move her eyes.
“It’s only been a few minutes. This could take hours,” Rui breathed. “Y-you need to find someone to cover me in the ER.”
“Already done,” Vera replied, gently placing a hand on Rui’s trembling shoulder. “Don’t worry about work. Just focus on him. You know the power of positive thought can go far.”
Rui slowly turned her head to look at Vera, the sincerity in the nurse’s voice shocking her.
“Why do you care if he recovers?” she asked and immediately cringed at the sound of her question. She had not meant to sound so petulant.
“I care about you, Rui, and you obviously care about him. Anyway, gangster or not, it is in my creed to want everyone to live…”
She didn’t finish her thought but Rui knew what she was thinking.
No matter how unworthy they might be.
“I’ll get you some coffee.”
“No!” Rui said sharply. Her nerves were frayed enough as it was. “No coffee.”
“Ah,” Vera agreed, noticing how Rui shook. “Probably not the best idea right now.”
“I’m fine,” Rui insisted, her eyes glued on the team below. “I’ll be fine.”
“Have me paged if you need me, Rui,” Vera sighed, knowing she had been dismissed. “Don’t be alone for too long.”
She’s giving me advice like Ryker’s already died.
Suddenly, the doctors jumped back from the table and Rui leaned forward, her sweating palms pressed so tightly against the window, she was sure they would go through the glass.
All their mouths were covered but even from her vantage point, Rui could see them pointing excitedly at Ryker. The anesthesiologist leapt into action and that was when she saw Ryker sitting up groggily.
Oh, God! He’s awake!
It took three doctors to set him back but Ryker’s fists raised to bat them away and Rui choked back a cry.
She jammed at the intercom.
“Put him back under!” she screamed. “What is wrong with you?”
The doctors turned to look at her but as Ryker heard her voice, he suddenly stopped flailing and lifted his head to stare in her direction. Her heart caught and suddenly she could see that he was going to be okay.
Again, the doctors moved back in unison, dropping their hold on Ryker at once.
What the hell are they doing now?
Before she could understand what was happening, Ryker rose fully, ripping the IV wires from his body, and leapt unsteadily to his feet.
“Ryker! No, let them operate!” she yelled into the intercom but he didn’t acknowledge her this time. He shoved past the shocked surgeons and made his way out of the OR, but as he moved, something seemed to be changing, his entire form growing.
I’m hallucinating in my stress, Rui told herself reasonably. He’s just running scared, stoned off anesthetic.
She ran from the intercom to intercept him in the scrub room but he was already sprinting down the hall before she got to the ground, her heart pounding in her chest.
Is that him?
It was hard to reconcile the lumbering beast, vanishing down the corridor, as the same man who had been brought to her, broken and bleeding minutes earlier.
“What the hell was that?” Dr. Bradley breathed, ripping the mask from her face as she stared in the direction of where Ryker had gone. “Did you see that?”
“I have to go after him,” Rui whispered, darting down the hall.
“Dr. Granger, stop!” Steinman yelled and there was something in his tone which caused her to freeze.
“He’s hurt and in shock!” she protested. “He can’t be running around the hospital like that.”
“You have no idea if he’s violent right now. I notified security,” Steinman said grimly. “But if he wants to get out of here, he will.”
Rui gaped at him in disbelief.
“You’re just going to let him go? Injured and on anesthesia?”
“But he’s not injured,” Dr. Bradley murmured, nodding toward Steinman. “Is he?”
Rui was beginning to think she was dreaming or that the doctors were toying with her fragile state.
“What are you talking about?” she hissed. “He was shot. Almost fatally.”
“Look,” Dr. Bradley muttered excitedly, pointing at their senior. “Show her what he did, Dr. Steinman.”
Rui looked at the older man in confusion until he opened his closed, bloodstained glove. Inside were two crushed bullets. Rui’s brow furrowed. She had realized they had taken them out.
“He’s going to bleed out!” she screamed, panic overwhelming her. “God knows if he had internal damage! You took the bullets out and let him run out of here?”
“That’s the thing,” Carina Bradley whispered. “We didn’t take them out. They just… popped out, like he had pushed them or something.”
“What?”
�
�He was self-healing,” Carina breathed. “I’ve never seen anything like that outside of an X-Men movie.”
A combination of hot and cold washed through Rui and she stared at the others, wondering if they thought they had seen the same thing. The expressions on their faces told her that they did.
“Th-that’s impossible,” she snapped. “You can’t know that he can… heal himself.”
Yet as she spoke, Rui wondered why she was surprised. She hadn’t known that Ryker was a mobster. Why not some kind of mutant, too?
“How would something like that even happen?” she demanded. “This is scientifically improbable.”
“And yet it just happened. Get back and get cleaned up. We can’t stand here all day discussing a patient who doesn’t want to be treated,” Steinman said firmly. “Back to work.”
But again, Rui found herself frozen in place and she did not move to oblige the attending’s order.
“You too, Granger. Your boyfriend doesn’t want our help.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded.
“It’s our duty to help those who need it,” she snapped back. “How can you be so nonchalant about letting a gunshot victim run around?”
“If it was anyone else,” Steinman answered coldly, “I wouldn’t be. Now back to work. Don’t make me tell you again.”
The others shuffled back into the scrub room but Rui remained in place, still stunned by what had occurred. In the span of a few hours, the happiness she had reluctantly allowed herself to feel had been wiped away with two secrets she could not bring herself to fully believe.
My boyfriend is not only a mobster but a scientific anomaly. My God, what else isn’t he telling me?
Chapter Eight
Running Brave
In full shift, Ryker ran from the hospital, unaware of the attention he attracted as he fell onto all fours.
The searing pain in his gut and chest was beginning to subside, his self-healing laboriously taking hold, but his mind was in primal mode, the need to escape and survive, feral.
As it always happened when he changed into the beastly bear he masked so well beneath a poised, mortal exterior, he was no longer in control of himself. His only destination was safety and how he got there was irrelevant.
Somehow, through the haze, he made his way back to his condo, the sense of peril slowly diminishing until he found himself back in his human form.