“Vi!” Carver yelled.
“Violet?” I clarified, but Carver didn’t respond to me. He was frantically trying to get the man down.
“Yeah,” Campbell answered me as she moved to help Carver. It was terrifying the way she popped up out of nowhere. She was the silent and deadly type. “Is he breathing?”
Dune went to help them get Violet down, which was probably a good thing since Violet looked as tall and built as Dune.
I turned away, knowing they had it. I kept my eyes open. I wasn’t about to be caught off guard.
Dune would check the man over. I hoped Violet wasn’t dead.
Violet let out a long whimper as they lowered him to the ground. I glanced at the action and nearly cringed when I took in his visible injuries. His nose was broken, probably his eye socket, and maybe his jaw. His face was a puffy, bloody mess of different shades. Both eyes were swollen shut. And that was just what I could see.
His hand reached out and blindly latched onto Dune’s tactical vest.
“I didn’t tell,” he rasped out and it sounded wet. “I didn’t…”
“Shhh,” Dune said softly as he grabbed Violet’s hand and held it while he used his other one to check over the severely injured man.
Ford was right. His man didn’t sell him out. I wished I hadn’t even put that doubt in his mind for a second. Ford’s teamwas really as trustworthy as mine. Something like pride welled inside of me for just a second. Ford was a good man, and the loyalty of his people only proved it.
“Where is Lipton?” I asked in a whisper to Jameson, who was still with me.
His lips turned down in a frown.
He wasn’t here, I could feel it.
“Fuck!” I roared as I tossed my fist at the concrete wall.
Yeah, it was a dumb move, but I was so fucking frustrated. We had been so close. So fucking close.
“The hell?” Ford said from the doorway. His eyes unhappily zeroed in on me. “Don’t.”
He rushed over to me. Jameson stepped back with an amused snort, and if I was willing to look away from Ford’s devastatingly handsome face, I would have glared at the fucker.
“You okay?” Ford said in a softer tone, pulling my hand up to check it over.
“Fine,” I choked out. I mean, it was technically a lie, but also, it didn’t count because I’d eventually be okay. Might take a minute or two for the throbbing pain to recede and for the embarrassment of my childish action to fade. I hadn’t broken it, so I’d be fine soon enough.
“He’s not worth it,” he said softly as he brought my hand up to his lips and placed a gentle kiss against my knuckles.
I didn’t think I was the type of dude to swoon, but my heart was feeling quite melty in my chest and my knees had gone a little weak.
“Violet,” I croaked out. I wasn’t afraid to show affection in front of other people— at least, I didn’t think I was— but I figured now we needed to focus on other things. Bigger things. More life-threatening things.
My hand raised, and I pointed to the man on the ground with Dune leaning over him. Dune’s lips moved, but whatever he was saying was too low for us to hear.
The room became full as both teams filed in. Half of them circled around Violet.
Ford let go of my hand as he took a step forward. Before he could get closer, Carver locked eyes with him and headed our way.
“Dune says we need to get Violet to a hospital,” Carver said once he made it to our little group.
Reed, who was standing next to me now, shared a look with Ford. Normally, getting someone to a hospital and keeping things quiet would have been easily done. However, we didn’t have a badge to throw around because Ford was a wanted man, and his team wasn’t supposed to be in the field. We couldn’t risk exposing them and putting a bigger target on their backs. And Reed couldn’t do his normal thing to get things taken care of quietly, because we couldn’t risk being tied to Violet and Ford. It would be all over for us then. Somehow, we’d managed to stay under the radar during this whole thing. We needed to keep doing that.
So it was going to be tough to get Violet the care he neededanddo it quietly.
That didn’t mean it was impossible. We just had to pool our resources and use every contact we could think of.
