Wait…what?“Forgive you for w?—”
Whatever she was going to say next ended in a shriek as he scooped her up, tossed her over his shoulder, and took off at a jog, taking her away from Cole.“No!Put me down!Cole!!”
She pounded her fists against his back and kicked and struggled with all her strength, but it was useless.He was too strong.
Her scream of pain and rage and frustration echoed through the empty warehouse as she got farther and farther away from the only man she’d ever loved as he lay dying on the cold, hard concrete.
Chapter39
The next ten days were the longest of Hadley’s life.
Ren had been trying to explain his actions every day since he forced her to leave Cole’s side, but she didn’t want to hear it.She told him to fuck off until he could tell her where Cole was and how she could get to him.
She wouldnotallow herself to think, even for a minute, that he was dead.If he was gone, she’d feel it.There’d be an…emptiness that couldn’t be explained any other way.And she wasn’t feeling empty at the moment.Just angry and scared and pissed off.
Her brain had been working nonstop since that night.Where the hell would the CIA take a wounded man?Would they even bother patching him up if they suspected him of espionage, or would they just throw him into a cell and let him rot there?If they did help him, how long would it take for him to recover?
She’d done so much research on sucking chest wounds in the past two weeks that she was practically an expert.By her estimation, Cole had a penetrating gunshot wound resulting in a collapsed lung that would require a chest tube.He probably needed a thoracotomy.If that was the case, his recovery would be rough and he’d be at risk for complications—infection, blood clots, persistent air leak—and even re-collapse if he wasn’t careful.
And he was going through all that alone.Fuckingalone.
When her phone rang, she fell on it like a hungry lion on a baby gazelle without even bothering to see who was calling.“What?”she snarled in lieu of a proper greeting.
“Nice to speak with you, too,” Tenley intoned dryly.
“I’m not really in the mood for banter.What do you want?”
“Ren is headed your way.He’ll be there in a couple minutes.He has something for you.Don’t send him away again, got it?”
“I have nothing to say to him.”
She knew she was being mulish.It wasn’t Ren’s fault that Cole had been shot.But the memory of him lying on that floor, cold and wounded and alone as she was being hauled away, haunted her.And Ren was the only person she had to take that pain out on.
“You don’t have to talk to him.But trust me, you’ll want what he has for you.”
Her heart rate kicked up.He must have news about Cole!Maybe he even knew where he was.
Hadley grabbed a hair tie and wound her uncombed rat’s nest of hair into a sloppy ponytail, slid her feet into her gardening sandals (they weren’t stylish, but hey, they were by the door and that’s all she really cared about at the moment), grabbed her purse, yanked her door open and stopped short at the sight that greeted her.
Cole stood in her doorway, arms braced on the frame as if he’d been trying to find the strength to lift his finger to the doorbell but hadn’t yet.
Shock and joy warred in her.He had dark circles under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in months.He looked several pounds lighter.Sweat dotted his forehead like making it to her door took all his remaining strength, and he was way paler than usual.
No one hadeverlooked better to her.
“Iknewyou were alive,” she whispered.
Ren snorted from where he stood, leaning against her porch post.“Even though his appearance would suggest otherwise.”
Hadley ignored him, still fighting every urge she had to grab Cole and bear hug the crap out of him.It was only her fear of hurting him—and re-collapsing his lung—that made her keep her hands to herself.
She wasitchingto touch him, though.
“Are you OK?”she asked, her voice wobbly as hell.
“Not really.My lungs are on fire.I feel like I’m going to fucking pass out if I move too fast.”He paused and reached out to brush his knuckle across her cheekbone.“Seeing you makes everything better, though.”
Her eyes filled with tears—the good kind for a change.“Shouldn’t you still be in a hospital?”
