I regretted getting close to her. I regretted telling Andrea anything about her. But what I hated most of all… I wish I had taken her side. Told Andrea to fuck himself and switch sides before he could use me against her. Whatever twisted loyalty I thought we shared was quickly beheaded like a poisonous snake as soon as Elio found me. Despite the years I’d sacrificed in his service, I was nothing more than a pawn in Andrea’s scheme to get back at Lore. Just a toy for him to throw at her head in his tantrum when Lore denied him.
“Fucking mob bosses.” I muttered and spat the blood that had pooled in my mouth again. It plopped onto the filthy concrete floor with several other splatters.
Having to rely on Lore’s questionable sympathy for my situation was not something I felt comfortable gambling my life on.
In the room’s stifling silence, it was easy to hear anything going on outside the metal door, even if it was a bit muffled. From the clattering and clanking of pots and pans, along with the industrial-looking walls and lingering smell of meat, I assumed this was some kind of cold storage that had been repurposed to hold me hostage. So when the kitchen burst into frantic yelling shortly followed by dullthuds, I immediately perked to attention. Sitting upright had me gasping in pain, but I chose to focus on the unmistakable sound of multiple gunshots instead of the constant stabbing pain trying to tear me apart from the inside.
“Shit, block the doors!” Someone yelled from almost directly above me. “Get the—”
The man’s gravely voice was cut short by another few shots. Whoever was attacking Elio’s men seemed to be doing a damn good job of mowing them down. From the brief view I got of the restaurant staff, it was obvious they were not hired for their culinary skills. Their sole purpose was to put up the front of a functional restaurant while Elio resided here. The fact this place was a cover for mafia business that wasn’t Lore’s was its own problem. One that I hoped she addressed before they killed me.
I wouldn’t let myself hope it was the Red Riot currently tearing up their shit out there. Because if it wasn’t Lore… I would rather someone just put me out of my misery than take over this torture session. My head felt too heavy to hold up, and it lolled forward until my chin hit my bloodied chest. Colors wavered and swirled in my vision, sending a wave of nausea roiling through my stomach that I gritted my teeth against. Like hell I was going to let myself throw up in my own lap. I was already sitting in an acrid mixture of my piss, blood, and sweat.
It was hard to tell how long I sat in the frigid storage room. Time meant nothing to me here. A stampede of footsteps just outside the door was the only warning I got from my visitorsbefore the door was blasted open, falling off the hinges with a solidthudlike it was blown off with explosives. It took my lagging brain a moment to comprehend what was happening as a flood of bodies stormed in and lined the walls of the dank little room.
“Shite!” A familiar Irish brogue cut through the noise, and a black-gloved hand landed on my shoulder hard enough to make me flinch from its grip. Taylor’s hand. A weak hiss left my lips from the pain. “Hey, get Doc in here!”
There was more shuffling of bodies and boots scuffing on the concrete floor, along with the distinct sound of latex snapping against skin. My vision was so hazy now that sounds were my only reliable source of information, and even then my ears was steadily ringing from the deafening explosion in this small space. Cool fingers pressed under my jaw to check my pulse. More hands grabbed at my arms, cuffed behind the chair, and worked to cut the zip tie loose.
My head was tilted up gently, and a sharp light flashed in my eyes that made me flinch and squint. “Pulse is a little slow, looks like a possible concussion.” A calm, level voice reported to Taylor. “I’d need to lay him out to do palpitations for internal damage, but I can keep looking him over in the back of the car until we get to the clinic.” He paused, pulling away and moving to my right. “Help me carry him out.”
“Throw me the keys, T.”
Shameful tears burned in the back of my throat as soon as Lore’s voice broke through the pain-filled haze. From the angle my head hung at, only her black boots were visible as she moved around the chair. That was the only warning I had to clench my jaw against the pain of her jostling my dislocated arms, to keep from filling the room with screams. Two strong grips caught my arms at their biceps to keep them from dropping too much, anda third was gently prodding at the shoulder joint on my right to confirm what I already knew.
“We need to do a reduction, hold him steady and I’ll start on this arm.” He probably saw a lot of shit like this if he was a part of the Red Riot. Whoever it was, at least he sounded competent. “Someone go get some bags of ice from the kitchen. At least four.” His fingers were moving again, prodding along the back of my neck and over my head. “It doesn’t look like he has any severe head trauma beyond the concussion, so once the arms are relocated we can move him out.”
“On it,” Taylor’s reply was sharp. “Kent, with me. They just swept the rest of the building again so there shouldn’t be anyone left of Elio’s. Watch the alley door just in case.”
His head bent low to my ear. “This is gonna hurt. On three, okay? One, two–” The sharp jerk ripped a scream from my chest, and the sickeningpopof the joint being shoved back into its socket had me retching from the pain.
Gentle, leather-clad fingers wrapped around the nape of my sweaty neck in a comforting grip. “It’s okay, we’ve got you,” Lore’s lips pressed just beneath my left ear in a tender kiss. She didn’t seem to care about how horrible I smelled—not that it even registered to me anymore—or the layers of gore covering most of my skin. “Almost done, love. Just a little longer and you’ll be home.”
Home.
The hope that dared to bloom in my aching chest was what carried me into darkness as I faded out under Lore’s gentle touch.
The next time I managed to claw myself out of dark unconsciousness, soft fingers were brushing along my foreheadand temple in a soothing back-and-forth motion. The bed I lay on dipped near my right hand and shifted when my eyes fluttered open. With the first deep breath I risked taking, my ribs screamed their protest, but the soothing autumnal scent I associated with Lore immediately dulled their ache.
“Welcome back,” Lore’s husky voice sounded tired, but relieved. The Irish brogue was thick, betraying the depth of her emotion. She only let her accent through when she wasn’t thinking to cover it. “Shh, stay still. Don’t move around too much.”
I had absolutely no interest in moving. Just from the amount of bandages wrapping my torso and both legs, the results of Elio’s torture was not insignificant. Everything felt fuzzy and airy, like I was floating on a cloud. Whatever drugs were pumping through the I.V. on my left hand was definitely the good shit.
My throat clicked when I tried to swallow down the cottony feeling in my mouth, and in the next breath, the lip of a cup was pressed to my bottom lip. Lore’s other hand slipped beneath my neck to lift me carefully so I could take a small sip. “Thanks,” I finally croaked. “Are you–” The rest of my question choked off with a cough that racked my chest and jostled the tender ribs bound in gauze. I wanted to ask if she was okay. I hadn’t seen her since we found Patty, and she had been an inch from ripping my throat out then. She’d thought I’d betrayed her.
Thankfully, Lore understood what I meant. A small smile pulled her full lips and her eyes sparkled with warmth. “I’m fine, puppy. I’m… I’m sorry you got dragged into all my bullshit with Elio. Or that I doubted you. Finding you like that…” She seemed to be struggling with the right words to say. I wished I could tell her she didn’t need to say anything. I didn’t think my bruised throat could handle anything beyond a sympathetic hum. But I did manage to move my hand over slowly just enough to reachmy fingertips out and brush the side of her jean-clad thigh, and that seemed to be enough.
"I'm just glad it only took a few hours to find you. Elio wasted no time in feckin' you up, so I can't imagine…" Lore's teeth clacked together as her jaw clenched shut. She obviously didn't want to speculate on the could-haves.
"Where am I?" I managed to ask. I couldn’t move my head much to look around, but it seemed like we were in a hospital. Monitors tracking my vitals were mounted on a swinging arm off to the side and beeping away, and the twin bed had similar railings that lowered to let someone off or, in Lore’s case, let her perch on the edge. The left wall was lined with sleek metal cabinets and covered with glass containers holding all manner of gauze and cotton products.
“Doc Leroy’s private ER,” she explained. “We converted a store near the club a couple years ago when Taylor tripped and fell down the stairs. He broke his arm and refused to go to the hospital for, I quote, ‘some dumbass reason like falling down.’” Lore rolled her eyes and looked over to the door like she was expecting someone to come through it soon. Did she not want to leave me alone?
The tubes snaking from my arm seemed to be working fine, so whoever treated me had some kind of medical background. “E… Elio?” I struggled to say his name, but Lore understood what I was asking. Her expression darkened like the horizon before a violent storm.
“Oh, I’ll be dealing with him. Personally.”
Lore’s low-pitched voice was a vicious promise. Elio had done so many horrible things to her, I know she was hungry for the chance to take her revenge. She couldn’t risk taking him on in his homeland, but now that he flew all the way over to torment her in person, he was fair game.
