Page 96 of Velvet Vaughn

They found Remi in a curtained bay off the main trauma unit, propped up with pillows and a nurse hovering near his IV line. His color was better than it had any right to be given the amount of blood he’d lost. A bandage the size of a dinner plate wrapped his ribs, and someone had cut his shirt away, leaving him in a hospital gown that did nothing to disguise the collection of scars peppering his torso from whatever he’d done before COBRA Securities. The nurse didn’t seem to mind as she fretted over him.

He should’ve been wearing his Kevlar vest. He’d taken it off to go inside the bar and spy on Brad. If he’d been wearing it, he might not have been hurt as badly.

“There they are.” Remi’s grin came out lopsided, the drugs clearly working on him even as he fought them. “Tell this nice lady I don’t need to stay overnight.”

“He needs to stay overnight.” The nurse didn’t look up from the monitor she was adjusting. “The wound’s deep enough that I’d feel better with eyes on him for the next twelve hours, minimum.”

“I had worse than this from an IED in Kandahar and walked it off in six.” Remi’s chin jutted. “I appreciate the concern. I do. But I’m not spending the night in a bed with a call button watching a television bolted to the wall while whatever’s left of this case gets handled without me.”

“You lost a significant amount of blood,” the nurse reminded him.

“I’ve got a pulse and a working brain. That’s all I need.” Remi looked past her to Anja. “Tell her, Anja. I’m not staying.”

Anja was torn. Though she wished he would spend the night in the hospital to get proper care, if their roles were reversed, she’d want him to have her back. He’d been stitched up and prescribed medication, so she didn’t argue.

“He’s not staying,” Anja confirmed. The nurse shot her a look that suggested she’d expected the two of them to gang up on her from the instant Anja had walked in. “But he’ll follow every discharge instruction to the letter, and somebody will be with him around the clock until the wound’s fully closed. I’ll see to that personally.”

The nurse exhaled through her nose, clearly recognizing a losing battle when she saw one. “If he leaves against medical advice, I’ll need a doctor to clear the discharge, and then I’ll need a signature.”

“Where do I sign?” Remi reached for the clipboard with his good hand, wincing at the pull it cost him.

The curtain shifted, and two men in plain suits stepped into the bay, badges displayed. The older of the two had a receding hairline and green eyes that logged the room in a single sweep.

“Special Agent in Charge Davis.” He nodded to each of them in turn. “This is Special Agent Weaver. We won’t take much of your time tonight. The detective at the highway scene flagged this as connected to the incident at the funeral home the other day, and we need statements from all three of you while the details are fresh. We can do it here, or we can do it at the field office. Your choice.”

“Here’s fine,” Remi answered before anyone else could.

“We’ll need to speak to each of you separately,” Davis explained, not unkindly. “Standard procedure. Won’t take more than fifteen minutes each. Twenty tops.”

Leo’s eyes flicked to Anja, and she nodded, conveying: Go ahead and tell them everything. Let them do their job. Weaver produced a recorder and a notepad and gestured Leo toward the hallway. He looked as if he’d already had a long night and expected several more hours of it before dawn. “Name?”

“Leonardo De Luca.”

“Mr. De Luca, if you’ll come with us.”

Leo went, throwing one last glance over his shoulder before the curtain fell closed behind him. Anja dropped into the chair beside Remi’s bed to wait her turn, listening to the distant hum of the hospital carrying on around them. She was surprisingly indifferent to how thoroughly their night had just been rearranged.

“They’re not going to make this quick, are they?” Remi murmured.

“No,” Anja confirmed. “That was a lie. But it means this is officially bigger than us now. It’s a federal case whether we love the timeline or not.”

“How bad’s it going to get?”

“Super bad. Athletes throwing games, money running through at least three agencies, and a body count trailing behind it. Once this breaks, it’s going to rock more than one professional league. Reporters will be camped outside Pinnacle by lunchtime.”

Remi exhaled slowly, wincing at what it cost his ribs. “And Leo’s boss doesn’t know any of it yet.”

“No.” Anja glanced toward the curtain. “He doesn’t.”

It took another four hours before Davis and Weaver finished with all of them, their questions patient and exact. They circled back twice to confirm the timeline of the confession in the Escalade before they seemed satisfied enough to close their notepads. By the time Weaver walked off to consult with someone on the phone and Davis turned to Leo with a final round of thanks, Remi had traded his hospital gown for blue scrubs, determined to prove nothing hurt as badly as it looked.

“We’ll be in touch.” Davis handed Leo a card. “Don’t leave the state without letting us know.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Leo replied.

As soon as the agents cleared out, a restless energy took over Leo that had nothing to do with statements or federal case numbers.

“I need to go to Curtis’s room,” he insisted, “before he hears what happened from a news alert, or God forbid, from Lydia getting a call from some reporter fishing for a comment. He trusted Brad. He should hear about it from someone who cares about him, not a headline.”