Page 78 of Saving Wyatt

I fell back on my ass as my breathing got out of control, and I focused on King while I tried to bring it back under control.

Come on, Wyatt. You’ve been in worse situations, and you didn’t lose your composure. You can do it. They need you. They need you.

I tried to invoke the strength and fortitude that had gotten me through warzones, but all that echoed in my head was how badly I’d screwed up. How my desperation, my hubris, my arrogance, had led to this moment.

“Wyatt! Please, do something!” King begged, and I snapped my gaze back to him.

He needed me. His brother needed me. I needed to stop moping and act.

Fucking do it, Goodman!

I gritted my teeth and checked Nino’s wounds. He had been wearing a bulletproof vest underneath his suit, but Salieri’s men had probably already known that, which was probably why everyone else had been shot in the head. Nino, on the other hand, had been shot in the chest above the collarbone. I didn’t know how he was still breathing, let alone how he was still alive.

“Hang in there, son. Hang in there,” I whispered to him and reached for my phone in my back pocket.

I’d done this. I’d wished for this. Gosh, I was a horrible human being, and yet even when I thought of Nino getting in trouble, I’d never thought of this. Of death.

That was why I had to help him. I had to make sure he lived. And I could only think of one person who could help me do that right now. Ari.

I hesitated for a single moment before I dialed his number. His words on the other end of line tasted bitter in my mouth. Yet another person I was dragging into this hell without their consent.

What was wrong with me?

“Ari,” I said. “I…I need you. I need you now.”

I closed my eyes and slouched back, feeling more defeated than I’d ever been.

I’d caused this mess. All of this mess, and now three men were dead and a fourth was hanging on by a thread.

I’d screwed up so bad, but I had to stop him—Wilson, Salieri, whatever name he wanted to go by—he had to be stopped. Before he hurt anyone else.

Before he hurt Ari.

I didn’t know if I could live with myself if anything happened to him.

TWENTY-SEVEN

ARI

“What else did he say?” Warren asked as he swerved the car.

I put my hand out onto the dashboard as if that would ease the centrifugal force spinning me around in the moving vehicle.

“Not much else, Warren. I just heard he needs me to save someone’s life and that’s it. I dropped everything and came to get you. I know as much as you do.”

Warren bit his lip, and after another screeching turn, he glanced at me. “I don’t know everything.”

I let out a huff and looked away from him. “Warren, don’t. Please.”

“Fine,” he snapped back.

After a few moments of dizzying silence, I turned to look at him and saw the ache in his face. Something pounded in my chest, eating away at my insides, and I sighed.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It wasn’t exactly planned.”

He didn’t react.

“I didn’t want this to happen. Okay?”