Bringing the device to my ear, I wait just a single ringtone before the line connects.
“This is Harrison.”
“Why is she in the hospital?” I bark. “Is she okay?”
“I believe she’s here for her standard infusion, sir.” His voice is gruff, partially muffled, almost as though he’s covering his mouth to shield his words from others. “She’s not hurt or anything. She came to see a Doctor Cleary so she could get her medicine.”
“Her Factor?” My brows furrow heavily over my eyes, shading them almost as well as my hat. “But she doesn’t need it today. She?—”
“She does, actually.” He clears his throat, coughing nervously. “She didn’t infuse last night, Boss, and she swung by the pharmacy this morning saying how she needed more, because she didn’t have access to her usual stuff. She was quite…” Uneasy, he releases a soft, almost pained chuckle. “Impassioned on the subject. She might’ve cussed the pharmacist out.”
“But—”Fuck. Fuck!“She was supposed to infuse last night!”
He doesn’t respond. He has nothing useful to say.
“I thought she had access to the things she needed,” I groan. I step off the curb at the end of the first block and weave between almost standstill traffic, crossing over and moving onto the curb on the opposite side. “I thought she took supplies. If she grabbed new meds this morning at the pharmacy, why is she at the hospital now?”
“She didn’t get them this morning, sir.” Again, with the uncomfortable throat clearing. “She attempted to, but eachsupply is, evidently, forty-five thousand dollars without insurance.”
“So?”
“So, she tapped her credit card. It declined.”
“Bullshit! Her credit cards are fine.”
“She usedhercard,” he murmurs. “Not yours.”
“But—”
“I attempted to use the company card, Boss, but she wouldn’t let me. Then she started cussing everyone out. Pretty sure she hit me, so…” His sentence ends with a grin, even if he doesn’t laugh out loud. “She kicked me out just now and demanded her privacy, but I listened anyway, since that privacy was literally just a curtain. She told the other doctor how she was supposed to infuse yesterday, but didn’t, and now she’s a day late and has to do it here. Doc seems mildly okay about it. Like they’re pals or whatever.”
Pals.
I suppose they’re pals, in that Nicki is as close to a friend as Minka accepts from anyone. Except Aubree. And sometimes, Christabelle and Tiia.
Halfway along the second block, I cut right and stride under the hospital driveway awning, stepping around a line of ambulances and through the automatic glass doors. I find Harrison leaning against the wall at the far end of the hall, one foot pressed to the stucco, one arm raised with his phone attached to his ear. From his vantage point, he has a view of the doorsanda view of the ER.
“I’m here.”
Stunned, his eyes swing to mine, and his foot touches the floor.
“Can she see you?”
“No, Boss.” He speaks into the phone, twenty feet still separating us. “She’s got the curtain pulled around.”
I bring the phone away from my ear and end our call, but I lift my chin in summons and wait for his final check in Minka’s direction. Satisfied, he strides my way, all dark muscle and heavy stares. At just five-eleven-ish, he’s one of Felix’s smaller soldiers. Smaller than my brothers and me. Smaller than Agent Hale, even. But what he lacks in size, he makes up for with intellect and control.
Some men might want brawn and firepower watching over their wives. Personally, I want a man with intelligence and the ability to kill a motherfucker quietly. Calmly. Quickly.
“Boss.” He comes to a stop just two feet away. “She’s secure right now. Not sure how long the infusion takes, but she’s been with Doctor Cleary for about ten minutes already.”
“We still have awhile.” After that, she’s gonna be really fuckin’ tired. Irritable.Bet she didn’t eat first, either. “Anything to report from today?”
He brings his shoulders up, shrugging. “She ordered me to stay outside the George Stanley, so I didn’t catch much of anything that happened while she was inside. I just made sure she was in the building, and no one entered who shouldn’t have. If she’d left in search of lunch, I would have escorted her, but that didn’t happen, so…”
So no lunch. No dinner.
“What did she have for breakfast?”
