I pushed my weight against Golden’s white picket fence and it crashed open. I fell into his front walk and used my forearms to pull myself the remaining few feet to his porch.
Foster Golden had a welcome mat.
A light came on inside the house, and I pulled myself up using his door frame, fingers gouging into the doorbell. I heard it chime, and another light came on. The door opened and the interior light was blinding, but I didn’t have time to think about it. I couldn’t see anything beyond shapes and colors anyway.
“Sage?” Golden pulled the door open wider and I collapsed forward, landing against his chest with a hard thud. He was so warm and soft, and I closed my eyes wondering briefly if I’d ever open them again. I managed a short breath that felt like razor blades in my chest and his arms closed around me.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” I rasped, and then everything went black.
Chapter Seven
Foster
Ihadn’t realized how big Sage was until he was completely limp in my arms. He smelled like liquor and blood and the sheer weight of him knocked me back onto my ass. My instincts quickly kicked in and I hauled him into the house and scrambled back to the door, checking to make sure he hadn’t been followed before closing the door and locking it.
I grabbed my gun off the table in the entry way and tucked it in the pocket of my joggers then turned my attention back to the man I’d just been hired to kill.
“Sage.” I squatted down and tapped my hand against his cheek a few times. His eyebrows raised and he moaned, but didn’t open his eyes. The band-aids that had been on his face the week before were gone, but whatever wound they’d been repairing had been reopened. A huge gash split his cheek, not to mention the blackened eyes and probably broken nose. He was an absolute mess and he was bleeding all over my parquet wood floor.
I dragged him through the house to the kitchen. Tile was at least easier to clean, and that was when I realized it was far worse than just his face. His stomach and his left side was soaked and solid red. I pulled his jacket out of the way and lifted up his shirt, revealing a grisly looking stab wound.
“Fuck.”
Yanking a dish towel off the handle of the stove, I pressed it against his wound, and that was enough to bring him around. Sage’s eyes fluttered open and he groaned, curling into a ball.
“Hold this.” I took his hands and pressed them against the towel. “How are you even still alive? I need to get you to the hospital.”
“No,” he croaked, bloody fingers slipping against my wrist when I tried to stand.
“You’re bleeding out,” I shared, in case he wasn’t aware.
“No hospitals,” he mumbled, eyes falling closed.
“What do you expect me to do?”
If his eyes had been open, I think he would have rolled them at me.
“What happened to you?” I asked, pushing my hands on top of his, covering the wound on his stomach while I tried to figure out what to do.
“Bad night,” he murmured.
“No shit.”
Sage let out a breath that sounded like it rattled and a small dribble of blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth.
“Fuck.” I pulled myself up and ran through the house back to my bedroom. I pulled my phone off the charger and the screen lit up with the time. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. I called the only person I could think of who could help.
“It’s almost two in the morning,” Ronan answered on the third ring.
“I know. I know. I’m sorry, but I need your help.”
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Sheets rustled in the background and Kevin’s displeased voice echoed through the speaker. I walked back to the kitchen, slipping in a streak of blood where the wood met the tile.
“Fuck.” I caught myself on the edge of the island.
Sage was still on the floor, his skin turning paler by the moment, the pool of blood beneath him growing larger. The towel was as soaked as his shirt. I threw my phone on speaker and dropped it on the counter, pulling my shirt off and pushing it against his wound.
