Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 39123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 196(@200wpm)___ 156(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 196(@200wpm)___ 156(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
“Be on the lookout for a call,” he ordered, and then, he was gone, the line going dead.
Chase moaned in pain in the passenger seat. When I looked over at him, he was still unconscious, though his face was screwed up in pain. Reaching over, I placed my hand on his bare thigh, my stomach threatening to revolt at all the blood and cuts I could feel beneath my calloused palm. If I could, I’d take his pain and make it my own. I’d heal him, even if it meant giving myself the exact same wounds.
There wasn’t a damn thing in this world I wouldn’t do for him or Sophia. I hoped like fuck he knew that. That he was aware of that the entire time he was being tortured.
I was always coming for him.
My phone rang just as I could see the hospital up ahead. I quickly answered the call, staying silent. I had a feeling it was the hospital calling, but I wouldn’t take any chances.
“My name is Margaret Hanson,” a woman spoke when I didn’t say a word. “Johnston Trim called and asked for assistance to keep an individual’s stay here… under wraps. You can bring him in through the ambulance entrance. We’ll have a gurney waiting for you.”
With that, she ended the call. I turned into the hospital parking lot and headed for the ambulatory entrance, where, sure enough, a doctor and two nurses were waiting with a gurney. I quickly shifted the van into park and got out. Chase’s eyes were opening as I opened his door, and he frowned at me. “What… Where are we?” he croaked, squinting his eyes against the dim lighting of the van.
“We’re at a hospital,” I told him. “Johnston knows, and he’s already arranged things.” I wasn’t sure just how lucid he was, but if he was lucid enough to understand a hospital was usually a no-no for club members, I didn’t want him panicking.
I unbuckled his seatbelt and lifted him into my arms. I grunted beneath his weight now that I didn’t have adrenaline pumping through my veins, but other than that, I showed no sign of weakness.
“Don’t leave me,” he mumbled before his eyes shut again, darkness dragging him back under. I clenched my jaw and gently set him on the gurney.
“What room are you taking him to?” I demanded.
“Triage room four,” the doctor told me as the nurses quickly wheeled Chase away. “Come through this entrance. I’ll let the staff know to send you directly to his room.”
With that, he turned and headed back inside. I jumped back into the van and called Elias, one of the patched members of the Texas Charter. He answered on the third ring as I was backing the van into a parking stall. “Yeah?” he grunted, sounding half-asleep.
“I need you to come pick up this van.” I rattled off the color, make, and model as I got out. When I rounded the front, I gave him the license plate number. “Make it disappear.”
“Got it,” he answered. “I assume you have Chase? How is he?”
I sighed as I headed for the ambulatory doors, my feet quickly eating up the distance. I needed to get back to him. “Yeah, I’ve got him. He’s not good, but he’ll pull through, I think.” He had to. I couldn’t fathom a world where Chase didn’t exist. “I need to go.”
I hung up before he could respond and entered the hospital. Monitors were beeping. Codes were being called. There was a constant hum of people talking behind closed curtains. I spotted triage room four just as a nurse was making her way to me, but I bypassed her, completely ignoring her, and pushed open the door, thankful they’d given Chase a more private room.
“He’s had a lot of blood loss,” the doc immediately began as I stepped into the room. “He needs blood.”
“What’s his blood type?” I asked.
“O-positive,” one of the nurses answered. “But we have—”
“I’m a match,” I told them as I dropped into the chair beside him. “Take from me.”
The next few hours passed by in a blur. After giving blood, I took a nap for a couple of hours, then washed up and changed into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt one of the nurses had brought me from lost and found. Chase was in a regular room now, still unconscious, but he was expected to make a full recovery. That announcement had damn near made me weak-kneed.
Once he was awake and could remain awake, I was under orders from Johnston to get him back home, where he could recover and be protected. The club was out for blood for what had happened to him, and once he was safe within clubhouse walls, I would be, too.
A CT scan showed a major concussion, and the doctor warned me he might have some memory loss. He had stress fractures in his ribs, thighs, and his knees. His throat would take a while to heal from all the screaming he’d done as well as the chains they’d used around his neck to keep him pinned to the table. They’d also had to reset his nose. His chest was a fucking mess; the Russians had cut their coat of arms into his flesh. The nurses had sewn it up, along with most of his other wounds, but they warned me his chest would scar.