Page 81 of Saving Wyatt

As soon as Warren made the call, he helped me carry Nino to the back of his car, and we drove off. Wyatt and King trailed behind us. I went through Nino’s phone on the way and saw a lot of messages and a lot of things I didn’t know what to make of. But the important thing was that I got his blood type, so I sent out a group message to everyone so they could figure out who had the appropriate blood type. We were going to do this the old-fashioned way. From source to target. I just hoped it wouldn’t cause any further complications.

An hour later, Nino was sprawled across a bed with Santiago Ortiz, Joey’s husband, lying next to him giving the man who I’d found out was King’s criminal brother, his blood.

I hadn’t seen Wyatt in ages, but that was no surprise. There was total chaos in the house while we tried to get Nino the right care. And yet I kept checking the door. After the hundredth time, Warren turned to me.

“Go,” he said.

“Huh?”

He rolled his eyes and lowered his tone so Azrael’s mom wouldn’t hear. “Go find him. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”

I opened my mouth, but all that came out was a sigh. “I can’t. I need to be here in case anything goes wrong.” I looked from Nino to Santiago, both passed out and fast asleep.

“We’ve got it. The hardest part is done. Go. Check on him. He probably needs you now more than ever.”

I stared at my friend a little longer than comfortable, trying to decide, but he had a point.

Whatever had happened, Wyatt must’ve been beating himself up. He did so when it wasn’t his fault. I couldn’t imagine what he must be telling himself with this apparent mission gone awry.

“Thank you,” I whispered and squeezed my best friend’s hand.

He gave me a sad smile and jerked his head toward the door. “Get out of here,” he said.

I shot up and followed the way to him, my heartbeat easing the closer I got. I’d been going wild with anxiety, not being able to be there to comfort him, to look into his eyes and reassure him it was all going to be okay.

But I also realized something else. How hard it had been to breathe without him.

Fuck my life. I’m screwed.

I’m in love with Wyatt and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

And I don’t want to.

TWENTY-EIGHT

WYATT

“What were you thinking?” Parker asked.

“What the fuck happened?” Teddy shouted.

“Why would you do any of this without us?” Donovan said and then spent the next minute coughing.

Autumn rubbed his back next to him on the couch.

They were all looking at me like the monster I was. As if I didn’t know. As if I hadn’t been there when it all went down. As if I couldn’t hear the gunshots echoing through my very insides ripping apart everything in their path.

Tonight was a total screw-up. A screw-up of epic proportions. Three men were dead. Another was critical. And I had no one else to blame for this but myself.

“Nino, he thought he knew what he was doing. He thought this was going to be a meeting to discuss an exchange of power. He didn’t think he needed the backup,” I mumbled, trying to put my own thoughts into some kind of order.

“What about you, though? Didn’t you think? Don’t you know Salieri better than to trust him to keep his word?” Teddy glared at me, nostrils flaring like I’d never seen before.

“Didn’t you make a deal with him to stop trying to bring him down?” Parker asked.

I nodded. “Yes. In exchange for leaving all of you alone.”

“Well, how did that work out?” Dare huffed next to Teddy.