“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he says.
“Do it again, and you’re a dead man. I don’t give a fuck if you’re family.”
Again, every minute drags on and on, and Eloise doesn’t regain consciousness.
Did he hit her in the head? She has bruises spreading on her face, and that makes me want to go back and burn it all down. I hate that the fucker had a quick death when he deserved to suffer for days on end. For what he did to my girl today—I’ll never unsee her being used as a motherfucking human shield—and all the years of abuse she suffered. I have her in my arms, but I don’t know what she suffered for those few hours when I couldn’t get to her.
I’ll never forget seeing her with him breathing downher neck, believing he could strike a deal with me—as if I would treat her as a pawn on a chessboard.
And Loveland? She was part of hurting my firefly?
I need to know what, exactly, happened, and if any more of my people are fucking traitors.
Because they’ll all die.
“You have Matthews in the cell?” I demand as I bury my lips in Lulu’s hair.
“Yep.”
“How alive is he?”
“Plenty alive,” Luke confirms and watches me in the rearview. “How long is he going to stay that way?”
“Days.” I grin at him. “It’s going to be a long, slow death for that piece of shit. I need answers, and he’s going to give them to me.”
“Christ, you’re scary,” Luke mutters.
“That’s my whole job, remember?”
When we make it to the parking garage beneath my building, I carry Eloise up to the infirmary, and we’re immediately surrounded by Dr. Asgood and her people.
“Lay her on the gurney,” Dr. Asgood directs, her voice tight and strong. She’s good under pressure, which is one of the reasons I hired her to begin with.
It’s often a matter of life and death in this room.
“Where’s the blood coming from?” she demands, and I shake my head.
“It’s from someone else. We checked her over, and she’s not bleeding.”
“Get the scissors,” she barks. “I want these clothesoff. Her left shoulder is dislocated. Everyone out while I take an X-ray.”
Everyone files out while she drags a big machine over and manages to get it settled over Eloise to take images.
“You too,” she says to me.
“I’m not fucking going anywhere.”
“The radiation?—”
“I’m. Not. Going.”
She sighs, leaves the room, and there’s a beeping noise before Dr. Asgood and everyone else return to continue working on my girl.
“Dislocated,” she says again. “No fracture. She’s been hit in the face, the ribs, her legs. Lots of bruising. I would guess that her ribs are bruised as well. She took one hell of a beating. Poor girl.”
Jesus Christ.
“Why is she unconscious?”
