The asshole grinned at him as he started half-dragging, half-carrying him out. “Did you think I’d leave your carcass behind?”
Cole couldn’t even manage anything snide, grateful, or whatever. He was too dizzy with relief and pain. Somehow, he managed to croak, “My knee.”
Will didn’t stop to ask which knee, or how bad, or what happened. He just shifted Cole into a fireman’s carry as if he didn’t weigh a goddamned thing.
A moment later, they were in the stairwell. It was cooler out here, and less smoky, and Cole gulped in a few grateful breaths as Will navigated the stairs with ease.
Outside, Will continued across the street, and then he was handing Cole off to other strong hands, and suddenly Cole was sitting on the pavement, leaning against a cold brick wall.
Vanessa touched his shoulder and looked him up and down. “Are you okay?”
“He said…” Will panted, then tried again, “He said something about his knee.”
Alarm flickered across Vanessa’s face. “Which knee?” She glanced at Cole’s legs. “How bad?”
Cole gestured at his right knee, but that was about all he was good for, especially when Vanessa prodded it through his jeans. He wasn’t proud of the sound he made, but it fucking hurt, damn it.
“Desiree’s getting the car,” Vanessa announced. “Then we’ll go somewhere can get a better look at this.” She glanced around them. “Fire department’s almost here, so we need to get the hell out.”
It was only then that Cole heard the approaching sirens.
“We should move now,” he croaked. “I can… If I can lean on someone…”
Vanessa and Will helped him to his feet. Then his arm was around Will’s shoulders, and he leaned hard on him as they left the scene just as flashing red lights started to break up the night.
A van picked them up half a block later, and Cole almost whined with relief as he settled inside. Will sat beside him, and he scowled as he rubbed his hip. “Goddamn. If my ass didn’t hurt before, it does now.”
Cole smothered a laugh.
Across the van, Vanessa eyed them both, then shook her head as if to say,“I don’t want to know.”
Cole was grateful Will didn’t elaborate. He was also grateful Will had saved him, and with each passing minute that passed, that gratitude deepened.
He could barely speak. His throat was wrecked and the pain was awful, but he finally managed to whisper, “You came back.”
Will turned to him. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
Cole chewed his lip. Truthfully? No, he hadn’t. And he felt like shit for that because Will had given him no reason to believe he’d ever abandon him, especially not to be burned alive. In fact, he’d given him every reason to believe he’d do exactly what he did—walk through literal fire to save him.
Cole just wasn’t used to being someone people went back for.
Beside him, Will pushed out a heavy breath, one Cole immediately recognized.
Despite his parched throat, he gritted out, “That’s… That’s not what I meant. I?—”
“We need to you get your leg looked at.” Will got up and moved to the front of the van, where he took the empty passenger seat beside Jansen.
Cole closed his eyes and let his head fall back.
He had a feeling his leg didn’t hurt nearly as badly as Will did right then.
CHAPTER 19
They split up, Desiree with Cheyenne and Vanessa with Will and Cole. Jansen left as soon as he possibly could, citing that he had to return the vans to where they needed to be and “wonder how this is my life, eh? How is this my life? Burning buildings, men with guns, I ask you! I steal art, I’m not a damn Navy SEAL!”
It was a sentiment Will could get behind. If he were talking to Cole right now, he’d be swearing him to secrecy about “never, ever, on your life telling Baby Boy what happened tonight, because he’d kill me and then he’d kill you.” Yesterday—hell, even earlier today—it had seemed inevitable that Cole and Davey would meet at some point. They were both important to Will, after all. And then…
“You came back.”
