by Sadie Jacks
Shit. They were in trouble and I was their own option for rescue.
I nodded. “Sure. I’ll help in whatever way I can.” I stepped forward, faked a trip and bumped into his body. “Damn feet. Sorry.” As I backed up, I pulled the gun from his pants.
He turned quickly, shielding my body with his.
At least five men, not part of the Death Squad, were standing in the room. Guns pointed at the Amatucci soldiers. Mas was on the floor. A wound on his head slowly pumped blood onto the floor below him.
I gritted my teeth. “What the hell is going on?” I asked, ducking around from behind my human shield’s shoulder.
“You’re the bitch who has nine lives, it seems.” A woman came out from behind one of her own men. “Where is Antonia?” Her long pale hair was at odds with her dark brows and dusky skin tone. Her voluptuous body was stuffed into a cherry red Bodycon dress that looked at least one size too small. Black peep-toe stilettos gave her an added five inches.
I shook my head. “I don’t know where she’s at.” It was true. I had no idea what the police or SWAT team had done with her body.
“Then it appears you, too, get to die. No one touches Antonia’s things. Not without her express permission.” She kicked her toe into Mas’ side.
“Stop kicking him, bitch. Or you’ll learn about not touching things that don't belong to you,” I snarled.
The men in the room chuckled at my statement.
That was fine. I had other things to worry about. Behind the Amatucci’s soldier’s back, I felt the gun up. Gave it a thorough going over. From the feel of it, it didn’t have an external hammer. I had to hope he had it loaded and ready to fire.
The woman minced her way over Mas. Almost ended up flat on her ass when she didn’t clear the spreading pool of blood. One of the men stepped forward, offered her a steadying hand.
She took it with a simpering smile. She finally stood in front of my guy. She was so close that she had to tip her head back to look him in the eye.
I checked my sight lines. Figured this was as good as it was going to get. I raised my hand, gun comfortable in my palm. Between one breath and the next, I laid the barrel against her skull and pulled the trigger.
The man shielding me, jerked back, caught the gun and started firing at the other men. I hit the deck, hands over my ears. I curled into a little ball and fought not to pass out or puke.
I’d just killed a woman. I didn’t even know if she was actually a bad guy.
She kicked Mas, she was a bad guy, my Cold and Analytical side spoke up. She deserved dying for that alone.
The firing finally stopped. I blinked a couple times. I hadn’t even realized I squeezed my eyes shut. As I looked up, I saw that most of the Amatucci men were still standing. One was down, holding his leg. Mas was still on the floor. Three were standing upright from having covered the woman in the bed. One of the Death Squad had his phone out and was speaking in rapid Italian. I recognized one of the few phrases I knew. Roughly translated...gunshot wound.
The floor was littered with blood, gritty stuff I didn’t want to examine too hard, and bodies. All of the de Silva men had tattoos on the right sides of their necks. An evergreen tree done in shades of black. Some of them had a veritable forest inked into their skin.
The door crashed open behind me. “WILLOW!” Ryker yelled from the far side of the door.
“Don’t shoot,” I shouted as I got to my hands and knees. I looked at each of the men.
They nodded, lowered their weapons. “Tell the idiot not to run up on us like that again,” one of them said.
I smiled. “All clear, Ryker. It’s been requested you not –”
“I heard him, cupcake.” Ryker appeared in the doorway. He looked at the men, too. “Sorry. All I heard were gunshots and I started running.”
The men nodded. “This is your sister, yes?” One of the Death Squad asked from his post by the bed. He looked down at the woman. His gaze was soft.
Ryker helped me to my feet before pulling me behind him to the corner of the room. “Yeah.” He let out a long breath. “That’s her.” He reached down, took her hand in his.
She didn’t respond.
“Corrie?” he shook her hand.
Nothing.
I searched her body. Wanting to make sure she hadn’t been hit with a bullet. When my visual inspection found no blood, I heaved a sigh of relief. “Could she just be out of it?” I asked softly.
Ryker shook his head. “I don’t know.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. Handed it to me. “Call Jessa, please.” He reached down, grabbed Corrie’s shoulders. Shook her gently.
I pulled up the contacts list, hit Jessa’s name.
“Hey girl, we’re still on for drinks and debauchery tomorrow night, yes? You’re not cancelling are you?”
“No, not cancelling. We found Corrie. She’s not responding to stimulation,” I said it quickly and quietly.
“What do you mean you found Corrie?” Jessa asked.
I looked at Ryker. “Did you not tell anyone else that she’d been kidnapped?” I asked him softly.
“WHAT?!” Jessa exploded. “Where the fuck are you?”
I gave her the address. “We’ve got Nik and Daphne waiting downstairs with an ambulance from Good Shepherd en route.”
“I’m on my way. Do you see any bags hanging on an IV tree?” Jessa asked as I heard doors slamming down the line.
I looked over the room. “No. I don’t see a single bag of anything in here.” I looked at the monitor. “Her vitals look good though. Pulse is in the sixties, regular heartbeat.”
“Thank the good Lord. Do you see a chart anywhere?”
“Anyone see a medical chart?” I asked out loud.
Everyone began searching. Across the room, one of the Death Squad guys came over. “I found this. But I’m not sure what it is.” He handed me a clipboard with a couple of papers under the grip.
“Thanks.” I looked through the papers. I felt my stomach roll when I read the list of drugs. I was intimately familiar with at least two of them. “Jessa, they have her on paralytics,” I said as I turned away from Ryker and Corrie.
“Shit. Which ones?”
“Vecuronium and Pancuronium are listed. Each in suggested doses. But there’s no indication on which one, or both, they gave her.”
“Shit, shit, shit. Patch Nik into the call. I’m almost there. I’ll come up with the EMTs.”
I added Nik to the call. “Hey Nik, Jessa’s here. She needs to coordinate with you and the EMTs.”
“On it. Let me do a full conference. Stay there,” Nik said.
“Hello, you’re all on the same line. Willow, you’re up first,” Nik directed.
“Hello, I’m with the patient who has been positively identified as Corrie Sheridan. I have a series of drugs listed on a chart with her name at the top. I’m familiar with only two of the drugs. They are paralytics.” I gave the drug names again.
“Vitals?” an unknown male voice asked.
I read them off again. “Same as two minutes ago. She’s still unresponsive to stimuli.”
“Breathing? Assisted?” Jessa asked.
“On her own. At least I don’t see any cannulas or breathing tubes.”
“You’re doing great, Willow,” Jessa said. “Read off the other drugs on the sheet.”
I started reading them. Stumbled over most of the terms. Of all my familiarity with paralytics, that was about all I could comfortably pronounce.
“Three of those are her regular medications,” Daphne said over the line. “I recognize their names.”
“What’s the official diagnosis?” the man asked.
“Acute lymphoblastic leukemia and systemic lupus erythematosus,” Daphne answered.
Everyone on the call was quiet for long moments.
“Hello?” Daphne called.
No one answered. I didn’t certainly didn’t say anything.
“Are they still there, Nik? Hello? Hello?!” Daphne
yelled.
“We’re still here, ma’am. We’re pulling up information on the treatment. We need to know all of her drugs, dosages, timing, everything you can think of. We’ll need to get her to her oncology ward as quickly as possible,” the male said.
“Yes. Of course.”
I heard someone running down the hall. “I’m here,” Jessa called through the phone and in person. “I’ll be on Ryker’s phone.” She hung up hers and darted forward.
“How long has she been unresponsive?” Jessa asked as she nudged Ryker out of the way.
“About thirty minutes now. Maybe forty,” one of the men called.
Jessa nodded and continued her exam. “Willow, get to the service elevator. We need to get the EMTs up here.”
I laid the phone in Ryker’s hand and ran out of the room and back down the hallway. I grabbed the box from the doors and pushed inside. Stabbing the PG button and the DOORS CLOSED button down together, I made sure no one could call for the elevator before I got to the parking garage.
As soon as the doors opened, Nik, Daphne, and two uniformed people with medical gear pushed on. “Up, up, up,” Daphne said.
Nik had her arms around the other woman.
I repeated the process and took us back up to the seventh floor. After the slowest ride in the history of elevators, we made it to the seventh floor. Everyone darted forward. I waited for them all to clear out.
Doing my original job, I stood in the way of the doors. I put the device back in place and kept the doors open. Good thing, too. In less than five minutes, everyone came running back. Corrie and the hospital bed included.
I got out of the way, removed the device, and took us all back downstairs. Ryker pushed up behind me, wrapped his hands around me, and just held me against his body. He pressed his lips into my hair.
I held the door open as we hit the parking garage one more time. Jessa darted forward with the EMTs. One more person waited with the ambulance, ready to receive the hospital bed and her charge.
“Ryker?” Daphne called.
“Go, mom. I’ll get a car and follow behind you.” Ryker waved his mom on.
Daphne scrambled up into the back of the ambulance. The last EMT shut the doors and slapped the back of them. The truck pulled away, sirens blaring.
Jessa crawled in the front seat of the next ambulance with the remaining driver and that one pulled away as well.
Ryker, Nik, and I all looked at each other.
“Well, technically we’ve been disinvited from the rest of the party here. I vote we go to the hospital,” I said.
We ran back across the street and piled into one of Ryker’s Rovers. “What the fuck happened up there?” Nik asked as Ryker got the car out onto the street and zipping through traffic.
I gave them what I knew. Shrugged when I was finished. “Other than that, I have no idea. I know with Mas hurt, Rafe is on his way to the OF building.”
“His men had him coming around. Looks like a blow to the head,” Ryker said, his voice tight as he flitted through traffic like an angry mosquito. He smacked his horn when people didn’t get out of his way fast enough.
I blew out a breath. “Good. That’s good.”
Ryker reached over the center console, grabbed my hand. “Sorry for not telling you sooner. Thank you for helping with Corrie.” He squeezed my fingers.
I squeezed back. “I understand and you’re welcome. As long as he was coming around, I know he’ll be fine.”
We rode in silence the rest of the way to the hospital. Ryker rocked to a halt in the drop-off area and abandoned his SUV without a backwards glance.
“You can’t park that here, asshole,” someone said as we ran inside.
Ryker didn’t even bother to look back. He ran past the reception desk and straight to a bank of elevators.
I sighed as we waited for one. “You know, I’m getting really tired of elevators.”
Nik laughed. “You and me both, girl.”
One opened and Ryker almost threw people out of the way so he could get inside. Pretty sure he nudged some older woman in her walker off to the side so she couldn’t make it through the doors to our car.
I glared up at him. “That was incredibly rude.”
He shrugged. “She was taking too long. I’ll send her some flowers or something.” He stabbed the button for the oncology ward.
For the first time in almost seven years, I wasn’t afraid of being in this hospital. It was such an interesting experience. I was just a normal visitor, here to see my boyfriend’s sick sister.
I didn’t have to worry about any of the doctors. Any of the security staff. In fact, if they bothered me at all, there was no doubt in my mind that Ryker would make them scared to even utter my name out loud.
The thought made me all warm and fuzzy on the inside. I sidled up next to him, slid my hand inside his pocket with his own. Snuggled up against his arm.
He looked down at me, one eyebrow raised.
I shook my head, smiled. Turning, I looked at Nik. “How are you doing?” I asked her.
She gave me a smile. Or tried to. It was a little wilted at the edges. “I’ve certainly been better.”
“How do you know Ryker’s sister?”
Nik chuckled. “She walked in on me in a delicate situation during my first week here. We’ve been best friends ever since.”
I laughed. “You were having sex at the office?”
Nik shrugged. “I can neither confirm nor deny any such accusations in the presence of said employer.”
Ryker snorted. “Yeah. Keep telling yourself I don’t know the truth. HR was up my ass for a solid month because I wouldn’t let them fire you.”
Nik goggled at him. “What? Why the hell did they want to fire me? He was my boss, not the other way around.”
Ryker nodded. “Exactly. You will notice you work directly for me now. Mattheson got the boot. You got his office.” The elevator chimed with our floor before Nik could say anything else.
She didn’t let that stop her. She reached out and grabbed for Ryker’s arm. “Why? Why did you keep me and not him?”
Ryker stopped walking even though she hadn’t made contact with him. “Because any man who wants to toss his subordinate under the bus when he can’t keep his pants zipped doesn’t deserve to work for me. If he’s that shady with sex, I can only imagine he could have been bought. I don’t let dishonest people work for me.”
Nik stood there, her mouth hanging open slightly. She shook herself after a moment. “Dammit. Now I want to hug you.” She shuddered. “I won’t, because eww. But still.”
“Hey now. His hugs are not ‘eww.’ He isn’t allowed to hug you back anyway, you little turd. He only gets my girl cooties,” I said.
Nik laughed. “Thank goodness someone doesn’t mind getting his cooties in return.” She looked up at Ryker. Nodded. “Thank you, bossman. Sincerely.” She spun on her heel and strode off before Ryker could say anything else.
Ryker put a hand on my arm to keep from following after her. “Give her a moment.” He pulled me into his arms. “So I’m only allowed to have your girl cooties, huh?”
I slid my hands up his arms to his shoulder. Twisted the slightly long lengths of his hair between my fingers. “Oh yeah. I ever find other girl cooties on you, she will die a long, slow torturous death. And you will soon follow after her.”
He whistled low. “Damn. Not even going to keep me around for long and slow torture?”
I shook my head. “Nah. It will have broken my heart. So I’d kill you quickly, out of love.” I pushed up to my toes, pressed my lips to his. As I pulled back, I nipped his bottom lip. “So keep that in mind, mister.”
He growled low in his throat. “I don’t want any other girl’s cooties. Hazardous to my health, or so I’ve been told.” He kissed me again.
“Ahem,” someone said as they walked by. “This is an oncology ward, not a hotel. Please conduct yourselves appropriately.”
Ryker snarled as he set me
back on my heels. I grabbed his arm before he could pummel whoever had interrupted us.
“He wasn’t wrong, hero. Throttle back. We need to find your si—”
“Willow?”
I froze in place at the sound of that voice behind me. Memories and nightmares tried to invade my mind. Tried to sweep me under in one fell swoop.
“Willow, darling. Is that you?” a woman called.
My heartbeat triple timed through my chest so hard it felt like my ribs were about to crack. I’d been stupid. Stupid to think I was safe here. So fucking stupid.
Ryker pulled me into his arms. Wrapped himself around me as my vision went white at the edges. “Who the fuck are you?” He bit out the question at the person behind me.
“My mother,” I answered in a whisper.
Chapter 13 – Ryker
My girl’s body was trembling in my arms as she spun in a slow circle to greet her mother. The woman who paid a monster ten million dollars to take her daughter off her hands. Searing rage and hate swamped through my mind.
Willow pulled my arms tighter around her. She huddled against me. “What do you want, Beverly?”
Beverly jerked as if the words were gunshots. “You know I hate it when you call me that. What are you doing here?” Her voice changed from soft inquisition to hard and impersonal in a matter of seconds.
“Why does it even matter to you?” Willow asked. “You paid Ethan ten million dollars to take me off your hands. I can’t imagine you’re overly concerned with my well-being.” I felt Willow lock her knees and stiffen against me.
Beverly stalked forward, her dark blonde hair a stiff helmet around her head. She shared her mossy green eyes with her daughter. “How dare you say something so vulgar to me!” She raised her hand as if she were about to slap her daughter across the face.
I grabbed Beverly’s wrist. Squeezed until I felt the bones rub together. “That’s your one warning. Even think about striking her again and I’ll destroy you and your disgusting husband. State your business or leave.” I didn’t bother to lower my voice. Didn’t flinch away from the scowl she shot in my direction.
The bitch was this close from being physically removed from the hospital on my orders. That or chucked down the stairs like the trash she really was.