He strode for me. “You tell me what I want to know right now, or I swear to fuck--.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Despite what you might do to this staff, you don’t scare me. And men who beat up my staff don’t get the information they want. Now, go help that doctor to his feet and get him inside. Now.”
The guy who threatened me inside raised his chin up to the sky, and I got the sneaking suspicion that he was the one who called the shots for this motley group of assholes. We stared off at one another for a very long time before he snapped his fingers. The men behind him helped the doctor to his feet, who was bleeding from his nose and generally struggled to walk.
“Get him inside,” I said plainly.
The man in front of me pointed to the E.R. doors and his men tossed the doctor inside. “You didn’t say nicely. Now, where’s that update?”
Here goes nothing.“The doctors did everything they could—and I mean absolutely everything—but his wounds were much too extensive and there was too much blood loss. His heart couldn’t take it and he went into cardiac arrest.”
And that was when he snapped, shoving me against the brick facade of the E.R. “It’s your fucking fault he died, you stupid, idiotic bitch.”
Another guy pulled out a gun and pressed it into my side. “Let me do the honors. It’s only fair that the one who killed him dies.”
I snickered. “Then, you probably want to kill the man who gunned him down. Not the security guard who’s trying to keep the E.R. safe from goons like you.”
“Please let me kill this bitch,” another man growled.
Before I knew it, someone reached for my throat and pinned me to the brick wall. I gasped for air as my vision started to tunnel, but I sure as hell didn’t stop fighting. I threw punches and kicked my legs. I clawed my fingers along one of the man’s cheeks. I felt the grip around my neck let up briefly, but the second I could move another guy nailed me with his knee directly into my gut.
And I collapsed to the ground as I heaved for air.
“We should shoot her.”
“No, we should take her.”
“She’s mine, and you assholes need to back off.”
“Hey! What the hell’s going on out here!?”
I recognized the voice of the other security guard, but my vision blurred with my pain. Someone whacked me at the base of my neck with something hard and cold, possibly the butt of someone’s gun. I coughed and heaved for air as the security guard chased them off. I leaned against the wall as I sat down, trying to get my bearings on what the fuck had just happened. All I did was come in for a part-time security guard job.
And somehow, I ended up on my tiptoes with some man’s hand wrapped around my neck.
“Lexi?”
I paused at the voice that had just called out my name. Shock rolled over my system. Something warm wrapped around my upper arm before they helped me up to my feet, and it wasn’t until I looked up into his eyes that my knees went weak.
“Dean?” I asked softly.
He gripped both of my arms. “Steady, steady. You look a little weak.”
Tears rushed my eyes. “Dean, is it—is it really you?”
“I know who the fuck that is! Get him!”
I peered around his shoulder and saw those assholes with guns drawing them and aiming them at Dean. They pushed off of their low-rider car and charged us while panic gripped my throat. He turned around and shielded my body with his own. They kept calling out a name--Frost--as if they knew who he was, and I wondered how the fuck this man had gotten entangled with the likes of them.
Especially since I was under the assumption that Dean had died two years ago.
“All right, that’s enough,” the security guy said as he stepped between me and a literal ghost from my past, “you guys get out of here before I round up the whole of security.”
I leaned against the wall as Dean’s eyes held mine. “Of course, sir. Not a problem. I was just coming to visit a friend of mine on staff. Will? We have lunch break plans.”
The security guard eyed him down before nodding his head toward the E.R. doors. “Get inside and don’t come back out this way. It’ll only cause more trouble.”
And as Dean’s gaze held mine once more, I regretted ever moving back home to San Diego.
