“Daddy!” Ellis scrambles up from the floor and launches herself into my arms.
“Ellis, are you okay?” Pushing her back, my eyes roam over her, searching for any sign that she’s been hurt.
“I’m scared, Daddy.”
“I know, sweet girl. I know.”
“I’ve got EMTs on the way,” Brody announces as he puts handcuffs on Cole by the front door. “Chief has the guy out front in cuffs…”
That’s when my eyes land on Vienna, lying flat on the floor, not moving.
“Brody, call Jake in here to take Ellis.”
“No, Daddy!”
I takemy daughter’s face in my hands, shielding her from the blood all over the floor. “Ellis, I need to help Vienna, okay? She is hurt, and I need to make sure that she’s okay.”
“Come on, Ellis. Come with me,” Jake says from behind me, pulling Ellis by her hand as she fights him.
Her tiny voice rings out as I watch her leave. “Daddy!” My eyes lock on hers as Jake lifts her from the ground, her legs kicking and her screams growing louder as he carries her away.
“It’s okay, Ellis. I need to help Vienna right now, okay?”
“No, Daddy!”
“I love you!” I yell out to her, keeping the image of her alive and safe in my head before focusing on saving the other girl I love.
Reality clicks back on. “Shit, Vienna! Vienna!” Blood is pouring from her upper chest, right below her collarbone. “Vienna…” I rip off my shirt, so I can apply pressure to help stop the bleeding. “Vienna, baby. Please say something.”
But as my hands make fast work of pressing my shirt around her upper body, her skin goes white, her mouth falls open, and I fear that the universe would be so cruel to test my strength yet again by taking a third woman that I love away from me.
Luckily, a groan escapes her lips, and then the paramedics are rushing through the front door. Two of them approach Cole on the other side of the room, who’s also been shot. Luckily for him, I aimed for his leg. But honestly? I don’t give a fuck about him. He deserves whatever happens to him.
He fucking kidnapped my kid and the woman I love.
He doesn’t deserve to live as far as I’m concerned, and he sure as fuck never deserved Vienna.
When the other two arrive near me and Vienna, they push me aside. “Let us take care of her, Rhonan.” Billie, one of the paramedics I’ve worked with for years, says to me. “We’ve got it from here.”
And even though I know that she’s in good hands now, there is only one thing on my mind that I keep repeating over and over as I watch them load her onto a stretcher, into an ambulance, and take her to the hospital.
Please God—please, save her. I can’t lose her too.
***
It’s been five years since I’ve been in this hospital, and yet the sounds of machines beeping and people running down halls is way too fucking familiar for my comfort.
The last time I was here was supposed to be one of the best days of my life, but it was also the worst—and now, I’m scared as hell of how this day will end.
My hand hasn’t left Vienna’s since they put her in this room after her surgery. The bullet that Cole fired at her—the one that she dove in front of my daughter to take—lodged itself in her shoulder blade. But by the grace of God, it missed her heart by an inch. She also has a concussion and bruising on her head from where that asshole hit her with his gun.
She lost a lot of blood and has a hard road of recovery ahead of her, but she’s alive.
She’s still fucking here.
And all I want is for her to wake up so that I can tell her how much I love her.
I should have told her the night of the wedding, but I didn’t want to scare her. Truth be told, my feelings for this woman have developed so suddenly and strongly that I still needed a minute to wrap my head around the fact that I wanted to start over with someone new too.
