“She’s with me,” I growl.She’s been with me since she stood under that streetlight, her face hidden in the glow, and I forgot how to be anything but hers.
Dmitry leans more weight into me, pinning my shoulder with his forearm, never easing the pressure on my chest.“And you’re with me,Machine.She shot you in the fucking chest.I don’t know how you’re talking.So stubborn even the Devil won’t take you.”
Nikola lifts a phone to his ear.“Status?The status is a hole in his chest.Jesus, Adrian.”
Dmitry grabs the phone and hits the speaker.“LVPD is less than two minutes out,” Adrian says.“Detective Blake included.Get out of there.”
“Hole in chest,” Nikola repeats.
“Hurry the fuck up,” Caleb’s voice.“Elsie’s scrubbed in and waiting in the OR.”
“Did you get her?”Adrian asks.
“No,” Marco says.“La Viuda is in the wind, but we have her face now.”
“La Viuda,” Dmitry echoes and slaps fresh gauze against my thigh.“You’re going to hate this,” he says, and yanks tape tight.
We have her face, but she’s got ours too.And by morning, the whole fucking web will have them.
“More pressure,” Nikola tells Dmitry.“Don’t let him talk you out of it.”
“I’m right here,” I mutter.My voice sounds far away.
Dmitry presses harder.“Shut up.”
“Adrian,” I say.Dmitry holds the phone closer to my mouth.“Make sure Blake can’t get to us at the hospital, bury our identities so deep she’ll think we’re recovering in Russia.”
“On it,” Adrian says before the call goes dead.
Lindy’s face is white around the mouth in my mind.Her eyes are open.She’s counting in odds.
“Cassius,” Nikola says, low enough only I can hear.“Don’t fight sleep anymore.We have you.She has Sava.”
“I can’t—” trust sleep.I swallow iron.“Keep her safe, alive.”
Darkness pulls at the corners, a silhouette in a Bolo-Hat rides the glass.I pin my eyes to the slice of night in the back window until it’s gone.If this is the wave that takes me under, I go with one thought branded into bone: She’s breathing.And I’m not done killing for those breaths.
“Hold on, brother,” he grinds out.“Don’t give up.”
“Stop,” he bites out.
thirty
Tape,tubing, pulse ox—gone.
Pain detonates across my chest, bright and mean, but I’m already swinging my legs over the side.
“Sir, absolutely not.”A nurse appears out of nowhere, small and pissed off, hands up like she can body-check a bull.“You will lie back down right now.”
“Where is she?”My voice sounds like gravel.“Melinda.”
“She’s stable and in recovery.”She plants a palm to my sternum.I grunt; she doesn’t flinch.“You move again and you’re bleeding internally for an audience.”
“Then bring her here.”
“That is not?—”
“Bring.Her.Here.”I tip my head to meet her eyes.“Or you’ll be bleeding externally for an audience.”
