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Kingston curses but neither of us gets up. The fact they’re touching each other means they’re not currently trying to kill one another, and they need to sort their shit out if we have any chance of living a peaceful life.
If that’s even what my brother wants. He’s spent his whole life living up to someone else’s dream for him and never had the chance to have any of his own.
The nurse at the triage desk looks up at them with an unamused stare. In a town like this, she knows there’s no chance two gunshot wounds are coming in so close together.
A wheelchair appears out of nowhere, and Ryker helps Damon sit down, saying something to the nurse, which I can only assume is a lie, before she wheels the chair through the same doors Chloe disappeared through just minutes ago.
He doesn’t move immediately, his body tight with the same tension that bleeds through my every muscle.
We may have started as enemies, but we’ve built a bond these past few weeks, one that makes me itch to check on him.
Eventually he joins us, dropping into the seat beside me and causing the entire row to groan under his weight.
“Did you shoot Damon?” Kingston asks.
“Yep.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why?”
“Because he allowed her to take a bullet for him.”
“I don’t think she gave him much of a choice in the matter,” I sigh.
He shrugs and leans back in his seat. He reaches for the knife he keeps tucked in his pocket but pauses, remembering he’s in public and drops his elbows to his knees instead.
“We need to talk about what comes next,” Kingston says.
“Not without Damon,” I reply.
A growl rumbles from beside me, and I spare Ryker a glance before turning my attention to King.
“I’ve never seen anyone look as wrecked as Damon did when I walked into that house. He’s been repressing his feelings for Chloe for a long time, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.” I massage the place over my heart as if it’ll do anything to ease the ache there. “Plus, if we want to take down my father, he’s our best shot.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
RYKER
NOW
Unfortunately, shooting the annoying Lombardi didn’t alleviate any of the anxiety running rampant through my body.
It’s a foreign feeling, one I’ve only felt a handful of times in my life, mostly because the woman my heart has attached itself to keeps getting herself into these situations.
Never again, though.
From now on she’s going to be wrapped in cotton and protected at all costs.
I wonder if Kingston would sign off on one of our teams being on her detail full time. Obviously I’ll be with her twenty-four seven, but you can never be too careful considering how often she almost gets herself killed.
It’s been hours since they took her into surgery, and no matter how many threats of bodily harm I dish out, they refuse to give us any answers.
Damon came limping into the waiting room they moved us to an hour ago, but he hasn’t said a word. Hasn’t so much as looked at any of us, and I finally see what Ronan was talking about. He’s every bit as wrecked as he said.
Footsteps in the hallway drag my attention from my least favorite part of this little family Chloe’s collected for herself, hope bubbling in my chest that we might finally be getting answers.
But then a five-foot-nothing brunette appears in the doorway with two of her men on her heels, and I sigh.
I guess I know who Kingston was texting earlier.
