His brow furrows as he leans in even closer, those warm blue eyes going absolutely icy cold. “Working too hard? You’re not going back to work, Bishop.”
I try to push myself up because I am not going to win this argument while lying prone in a hospital bed, but the slightest movement makes pain sear through my entire body and head. Wincing, I grit my teeth, never getting more than two inches off the shitty mattress.
Gage reaches out and gently presses on my shoulder, forcing me back down. “Exactly my point.”
“But with Gabe out of commission, I need to be there more than ever?—”
“I’m going to help any way I can. Figure out what the fuck happened.”
“What did happen?” I close my eyes, trying to replay the events again, but they’re fragmented. Missing parts. “All I know is there was an explosion…”
Gage’s silence draws my lids open again, and the wary look he gives me makes my blood run cold. “Your mom didn’t tell you?”
I shake my head. “No…”
He sucks in a long breath, shoving his hands roughly through his hair. “Gabe’s car exploded. You were thrown against your SUV with the force of the blast. I was unconscious for a few minutes, and when I came to, I found you crumpled on the pavement beside me and everyone else in various stages of injury strewn across the parking lot.”
“What?”
His large hand comes to rest on my shoulder before I can try to get up again. “We don’t know what caused it…the police are still investigating obviously, but my bet would be an explosive device of some kind. This wasn’t an accident, Bishop.”
Not an accident…
It wasn’t an accident.
“Someone tried to kill Gabe?”
He nods. “Or all of you…”
“Satriano…Gabe said McDonald was an explosives expert, right?”
Gage glances down at where his hand rests on my shoulder, sliding it down until he can pull my hand into his. “Please stop. You need to relax right now, not be trying to do the police’s job.”
“The chief of police is…well, he’s worked with us before. He can get us information?—”
He squeezes my hand. “Bishop…”
“Maybe he can even get us some of the physical materials to run through private labs?—”
Another squeeze. “Bishop…”
My mind keeps racing. “Someone would have had to have known we’d all be there—this was a direct attack on us, and if we can actually pin this on Satriano, we have an excuse to go after him full force.”
“Bishop, stop.”
My back stiffens.
In all the time I’ve known him, Gage has never raised his voice to me. He’s never deviated from being that calm, reassuring person I’ve come to know him to be.
Until now.
GAGE
Bishop snaps her mouth closed, her gaze suddenly wary, as if she’s seeing someone she doesn’t know instead of the person she’s been sleeping with.
I didn’t mean to raise my voice like that, but she said those words so confidently—we can finally go after him full force—that I couldn’t just sit here and listen to her spiraling down the rabbit hole she has no business jumping into.
Here she is, lying in a hospital bed looking half dead, yet all she can think about is taking on a dangerous mobster. Even if she weren’t seriously hurt, I wouldn’t stand by and let her run off after him like she wants to.
