I looked at him.“Is everything going to be okay?”
He nodded once.“It will be.”
I wanted to believe him.The annoying part was that most of me did.“What is Saint’s Smash?”I asked.
He shifted his weight and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops.“It’s the rage room.”
I blinked.“The what?”
A little grin touched his mouth.“Exactly what it sounds like.People come in, gear up, and pay to smash the hell out of stuff.”
I stared at him for a second.“You’re serious.”
“Very.”
I looked toward the door the others had just gone through, then back at him.“So that’s what all this permit drama is over?”
“Yeah,” he said.“The Ledger is just trying again to run the club out of town by making it hard for us to work on Saint’s Smash.”
Petty, expensive, rich-people villainy.Very on-brand for the names I’d heard.
I blew out a breath and went back to the couch, lowering myself carefully onto it.The TV was still on with some game show host yelling about bonus prizes.
Swift walked to the window and cracked it open enough to keep watch and smoke.
Of course he did.
I tucked my legs under me, picked up the remote, and turned the volume down a little.
Outside, Madison kept moving.
Inside, Swift stood guard.
And I tried to pretend that watching TV was enough to keep my mind off everything else.
Chapter Fourteen
Swift
I leaned back against the wall, arms crossed over my chest, boots planted wide on the tile floor, while I watched the doctor work on her shoulder.
Britta sat on the edge of the exam table, her shirt carefully pulled down off one side so the doctor could get to the stitches.Her jaw was set, and her lips were pressed together like she was trying to pretend none of this hurt.
It hurt.
I could see it in the tightness around her eyes.The way her fingers curled against her thigh.The way her breath caught just a little every time the doctor tugged on a stitch.
My jaw clenched.
I’d taken hits before and broken bones.Had cuts that needed more than a few stitches, and pain wasn’t new to me.
But watching her go through it?
Yeah, that was new, and I didn’t like it one damn bit.
The doctor worked methodically, snipping and pulling, dropping each stitch into a small tray like it was nothing more than thread instead of something that had been holding her together after a bullet tore into her.“You’re doing great,” the doc said.
Britta huffed out a quiet breath.“Define great.”
