Filthy Rich Fae

Chapter One

Death was business as usual, and tonight, business was…good?

No, not good. More like unrelenting. Time didn’t really exist inside a place like Gage Memorial’s emergency room. Maybe that’s why death visited so frequently.

It was a stark, nearly windowless maze of beds and machines, sterilized extensively by bleach and four-foot ultraviolet light bulbs. But by ten hours into my shift, I navigated it instinctively, pausing at the nurse’s station to pull a new chart.

Haley, the charge nurse, passed me one. She was only a few years older than me, but she wore every one of them in the circles rimming her eyes. She tossed her box braids over one shoulder and peeked across as I skimmed the paperwork. “Pediatric blood draw and IV,” she informed me. “You have all the luck.”

I stuck my tongue out at her. Important but boring work. Not that I’d ever wish for something more exciting, exactly, but this late in my shift, I was starting to feel the hours. Sticking a kid wasn’t going to keep the adrenaline pumping. “Tell that to the kid in about five minutes.”

She tried to grin, but her lips flattened instead. “I just sent another overdose downstairs. That’s the third one this week.”

“Trinity?” I asked.

“What else would it be? I miss the old days when clover didn’t kill everyone,” she said with a sigh. “Fuck, I just miss being able to hit some myself.”

I bit back a frown. I’d learned my lesson about messing with shit like that the hard way. Now I just worried about kids like my brother, Channing, making a mistake that might cost them their lives.

“Times have changed,” I reminded her.

New Orleans’s favorite street drug, clover, had once been as harmless as the tequila shots slung on Bourbon Street, almost beloved for its ability to turn any night into the best one of your life—without the risk of addiction. But the criminal syndicate that ran New Orleans must not have been making enough money on it or were greedy and wanted more, so they altered the formula. In the last six months, clover had been responsible for nearly half of the overdoses in the entire city. We’d dubbed the new strain “trinity” because if someone went looking for the high of a four-leafed clover and got trinity instead, their luck would run out.

“I heard that we’re getting funding for more beds to help,” Haley said.

Like that was going to solve the problem. The worst part was that no one was doing anything about it—not when the criminals selling it bankrolled every institution in town, including this one.

“It’s something,” she added when she saw my face.

I couldn’t stop myself. “Or maybe someone needs to lock the monster selling it away.”

“Shhh. Don’t forget who pays the bills.”

“Paying a hospital to keep quiet doesn’t absolve sin.”

Haley’s face softened, and I braced myself for her usual apologetic gymnastics about making tough decisions for the greater good.

But all hell broke loose instead as a blur of blue scrubs rushed toward the entrance.

One caught my eye and shouted, “Full trauma coming in from first district—two males; gunshot wounds, one to left shoulder, one intracranial; estimated blood loss unknown.”

“Get this down to the lab,” I ordered an intern who looked a little too excited by the prospect of seeing actual gunshot victims.

He opened his mouth to protest, but the charge nurse cut him off with a stern, “Now.”

“Bourbon Street?” I shouted to the nurse who had taken the call.

He shook his head. “Waverly.”

The single word told me all I needed to know. If the shooting had occurred on Waverly Avenue, it wasn’t tourists caught in a drunken altercation. Tourists stuck to the well-worn, fabled streets of the French Quarter and its booze and beads. Waverly, farther south, was tucked next to the residential Warehouse District. Waverly’s bars and nightclubs served a rougher clientele, and if two victims were on their way, there was every likelihood more would follow. Even in my delinquent days, I’d avoided that neighborhood. Even now, no one I knew went down there. But for native New Orleanians, there was only one family’s name that struck fear deeper than Waverly.

Gage.

Maybe it was because Waverly could be avoided—and usually was—but for those of us stuck here, the Gages were synonymous with the city itself. Not just because their name was plastered on a dozen businesses scattered around the Big Easy, including the trauma center I was currently standing in, but because it ran through the very veins of the city and into its sinew and bone. The outside world knew us for the French Quarter and the Garden District, voodoo and jazz and food. Tourists were welcome; protected, even. But those of us living here knew the true darkness of the city. We felt it watching us. And the heart of that darkness was Lachlan Gage.

A man I’d never met, never even seen. And now I’d be cleaning up another one of his messes.

Haley’s muttered curse snapped me to attention.

I dropped the kid’s chart and bolted toward the fray, picking up snippets of information from the EMTs as they stood over a gurney. Blood soaked the white sheet beneath the man’s head, his skin waxen and his breath labored and shallow. That much blood coupled with the way his dark hair clung together with a matted, oily sheen was a bad sign. I started toward the gurney just as my eyes snagged on the tip of his ear…and stopped. What the hell was wrong with it?

I blinked as Dr. Garcia, the chief of medicine, stepped into my path with an air of authority completely undermined by his inside-out lab coat. “My team will handle this one.”

I opened my mouth to argue, trying to crane my neck around him for another glimpse at the man’s strange anatomy, but he held up a hand.

“Cate, why don’t you take a break?” He shot me a look before he was off.

A break? We didn’t have the staffing for anyone to take a break. What—

Ice filtered into my blood as the doors opened a second time. Haley was already there, barking instructions, but her gaze found mine a second before the world stopped.

It took me a moment to find my center as I stared at my brother’s body being wheeled inside—mostly because my center was right there on that gurney. Channing was as pale as the sheet covering his shaking body. An oxygen mask clung to his pain-stricken face.

I didn’t process taking the steps to reach him even as every word of the EMTs sank through my carefully controlled panic.

“Stable.”

“…hit in the shoulder with a Gage special. Friendly fire.”

“…fragments missed the subclavian and axillary arteries.”

And finally, “Lucky.”

He was lucky.

My panic shifted to relief, then something darker. He may have been lucky compared to the other man, but that luck was about to change because I was going to kill him. With my hands. My stethoscope. I hadn’t decided yet.

He wasn’t just in trouble—he was in with the Gages.

He had the pieces of a Gage special—one of their custom-made bullets lodged in his shoulder as proof. And if it was friendly fire, that meant he wasn’t just mixed up with them. He was working for them.

I was going to vomit.

Haley moved to my side. “Cate, he’s okay,” she said gently. “Let them—”

“I’ve got him,” I cut her off.

Haley opened her mouth before clamping it shut. She glanced at Garcia, who was now completely focused on the other victim. “You can’t go in with him,” she warned me.

I already knew that and gave a quick nod. I wouldn’t go in, but I wasn’t leaving his side until I absolutely had to do so. Haley held my gaze for a breath and then fell back to speak with Garcia.

I jogged alongside Channing’s gurney, surveying the bloody gauze on his shoulder. The result of the iron slug bullets Gage and his men preferred. The bullets were a brutal, inhuman choice due to the way they shattered into splinters when fired. If Channing had been hit even a few inches over… Heat pricked my eyes, and I drew a steadying, if reedy, breath. This wasn’t my first night on the job. It wasn’t even the first time he had shown up injured.

But it was the first time it involved the Gage family.

Channing shoved the mask from his face, drawing a ragged breath. His blue eyes met mine, their gold-flecked irises a pale contrast to my brown eyes. By appearance alone, it was clear we weren’t related by blood. Where he was fair, I was tan despite my long hours in the hospital. His dirty-blond hair was getting a bit shaggy, but it wasn’t long enough to cover the scar on his right brow. He’d still had stitches there the day he arrived at Gran’s with all his belongings shoved in a threadbare pillowcase. Lately, Channing had gotten a few more scars, but this…

His pupils were dilated as they tried to focus on me. “Hey, sis.”

My own eyes narrowed. “Do not hey sis me.”

“Come on, I’m bleeding. Have sympathy.” His lopsided grin did nothing to soften the sharp edge of my rage.

When Gran died, we’d made a pact to keep her memory alive, look out for each other, and stay far away from the Gage family. Like most, we were raised on horror stories of people who had crossed the city’s oldest, richest, and cruelest family. They never had happy endings. Since I’d come to work at Gage Memorial, I’d witnessed enough of them firsthand. Channing knew this.

“Uh, where should we put him?” the EMT asked, eyes darting to his partner’s.

“In jail,” I snapped. Maybe that would teach him the lesson he clearly needed.

“Room two,” Haley said, pointing to the north side of the ER.

My heart flipped, but I refused to let it show as they wheeled him toward the private rooms reserved for what we all grimly considered our VIP guests. The real reason the Gage name was on the side of the building was because their crew were our best customers. That meant they’d endowed the hospital, not just with money but also state-of-the-art equipment, so that they would receive special treatment when their people showed up bloodied, battered, and beaten.

And tonight, my brother was a VIP.

“What happened?” I demanded as soon as the EMTs left us alone to wait for an attending to assess my brother.

He tried to grin and failed. “I got shot.”

Well, that was clear as mud. I glared at him.

“I owed someone some money.”

“Gage?” I guessed.

He turned his head as if he couldn’t bear looking at me. Answer enough. “I couldn’t repay the debt. It doesn’t matter now.”

“Shooting you was enough?”

“He didn’t shoot me. We were dealing with some guys. They got away.”

I swallowed. “Dealing with?”

Channing avoided my eyes. “I have to pay Gage back.”

Icy fear splintered through me. Paying him back? I searched for the calm I usually mustered at work and found none. Nothing—not even Channing’s previous trips here—had prepared me for hearing those words. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“You try finding a job around this city that doesn’t eventually involve working for the Gage family,” he snapped.

The blood froze in my veins. Being involved with the Gages, owing them, was bad, but working for them was a death sentence. He was on borrowed time. “How hard did you try?”

“I get it. I’m a fuckup.” Resignation weighed down his voice.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember that he was still a kid. That he was only nineteen, five years younger than me, and that I’d once been in and out of trouble as often as him. But I didn’t want him to grow up like I did—abruptly and traumatically. “You’re not a fuckup. You’re just success-challenged.”

Laughter was a survival skill people like us needed in this world. It was usually Channing’s job to deliver it, but tonight he didn’t even crack a smile. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and he attempted to sit up. Pain etched his features, and I held out a hand.

“Don’t,” I warned him.

He groaned, eyes locking on mine. “They own everyone in this city. You’re working in their fucking hospital, Cate.”

“It’s not the same thing.” I couldn’t accept that. I was helping people. I was undoing the Gage family’s damage. I stared at my brother. “You need to get out.”

His laugh was hollow. “You think it’s that simple? There’s only one way out, but unfortunately, it looks like I’m going to live.”

Cold fear twined around my heart until I thought it might shatter. “Channing—”

The arrival of the surgical team cut me off. I backed out of the room, trying to remember how to breathe.

Haley stepped beside me, assessing me like I was in triage. “They’ll take care of him.” She wrapped one arm around my shoulder.

I knew that. Here, he was safe, but out there?

“He’s involved with the Gages.” I needed to say it. I needed to hear it.

“I know.” She hesitated for a moment. “You know there’s nothing you can do, right?”

There’s nothing you can do should be tattooed on her forehead. It would save her the trouble of saying it, which she did a lot when it came to Channing. But this time, it was different. This time, there was no coming back.

“Why don’t you take off?” she suggested.

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. Leaving would be worse. My thoughts couldn’t wander too long at work. Here, I needed to be focused on what was right in front of me. “I need to do that blood draw.”

“You sure?” Her lips pinched when I nodded, but we were too short-staffed for her to argue.

I felt numb as I made my way to the other side of the ER. Each step I took away from the surgical suite, my heart raced faster instead of slowing. I ignored it as I gathered the child’s chart and headed to do my job.

That was all I could do. There was no other choice. Not that I was ever very good at making choices. One of the many reasons I was good at what I did. There wasn’t a second guess in emergency medicine. Lives were on the line.

Like Channing’s life.

I shook the thought from my head as I stepped into the exam room. The little girl, only four, was cuddled in her mother’s arms on the bed, eyes glued to the television in the corner. Her mom looked up, sighing with relief. They’d been waiting a while. Normally I might feel badly about that, but tonight I envied their safe cocoon.

“Sorry for the wait.”

“It’s okay,” the mom said, but she sounded tired. That’s how I’d felt before shit hit the fan tonight.

Behind me, the bright sounds of a cartoon were completely at odds with my pounding heart. I asked a few routine questions as I pulled on a fresh set of gloves.

The little girl burrowed into her mother’s arms as I took the stool by the bed.

“What are those for?” she whimpered, studying the tubes in my hand with suspicion. Her eyes widened as I leaned to tie the tourniquet around her tiny arm and she jerked away. “It’s going to hurt! What is it?”

Probably. Needles, like much of life, stung. Like finding out your kid brother had been shot. That he was a corpse walking. Because owing Lachlan Gage was a death sentence. I forced a smile. “I’m going to tell you everything I’m doing, okay?”

Her dry lower lip trembled. Suspected dehydration, I reminded myself. A life I could save. Right here in front of me. Unlike the one down the hall.

The one I was responsible for now that Gran was gone.

“This is going to pinch just a little but will make you feel better, okay?” I asked the girl, holding out the rubber tourniquet.

When she eventually nodded, I gently reached out and wrapped it around her small arm, careful to keep the rubber over the sleeve of her shirt so it pinched less. I tugged one side over and under the other, and the girl’s chin quivered but she didn’t jerk away again.

I took the time to explain everything I was doing, gaining the little girl’s trust inch by inch, and eventually we were done. Blood drawn and IV fluids dripping.

“Thank you,” the mom said softly. Her shoulders sagged.

“The hard part is over,” I promised.

The little girl cowered into her mother, and my heart broke a little. It would pass. Tomorrow, she wouldn’t even remember this. She would be home. She would be safe. But for kids like Channing, like me, there had never been a home. There still wasn’t. Channing was the closest thing I had to a family—to a home. And tomorrow, he would be recovering in a hospital bed, and he definitely wouldn’t be safe.

Haley appeared as I dropped off the specimens I’d collected. Her face was drawn, and my heart nearly stopped until she said, “They got everything. We’re just waiting for a bed to open up.”

“Can I talk to him?” She was the charge nurse, and I was on shift. I waited for her to order me to another room or to encourage me to head home for the night, but thankfully she didn’t.

“He’s out of it,” she warned me. “Garcia gave him morphine.”

“Good,” I said grimly. “Maybe he’ll be honest for once.”

Getting him to confess to how this happened was the only way I might find a way to help him. I yanked off my gloves, balled them up, and tossed them in the waste container nearby. I sucked air into my lungs until they burned before turning to walk slowly toward the VIP rooms.

He owed Lachlan Gage money. If this was about debt, we could figure it out. I wouldn’t allow Channing to lose his life over money, and that’s what working for the Gage family meant. I didn’t have much. I didn’t have any savings, really. But I did have one thing that might be valuable. I wasn’t sure it was enough. I wouldn’t know until he opened up.

A security guard nodded at me as I approached the recovery room, and I forced myself to swallow, my mouth dry, before walking in.

I reached his side, and Channing gave me a weak smile from under his oxygen mask.

“How much do you owe?” I asked, my voice calmer than I felt.

He fumbled for the mask and lifted it to speak. “It’s too late.”

Because he was already in too deep—the wound on his shoulder proved it.

“Let me worry about that.” I rubbed the inner band of my ring.

Channing’s eyes tracked the movement and narrowed. “Cate.” He shook his head, guessing what I was thinking.

My mother’s ring. It was special. The only possession I’d had after the accident my parents died in when I was two. The ring was the only piece of that life. It had passed from foster home to foster home, tucked safely in the bottom of whatever trash bag I’d been given for my latest move. I had never dared wear it until Gran had spotted it the night she took me in. She’d encouraged me to unpack, even given me a dresser—the first I’d ever had. It was the worst and best day of my life. She had seen the ring and told me to wear it, to never take it off. I’d tried to explain why I couldn’t bear to see it. Why I’d hidden it in every home, afraid it would be lost or stolen. Afraid that the only piece of who I truly was would be taken from me, too.

And then she had said the words that changed my life. “You are safe here. Wear the ring to remember that. Wear the ring because you survived.”

I’d never had the heart to get it appraised. I didn’t want to know if the emerald in the center was genuine or how much it was worth. Knowing that might make it too tempting to do precisely what I was considering now, especially during those times when the only food in my fridge was pickle juice. The ring reminded me that I could survive anything in those moments. I never took it off like she said, but for Channing…

“I can get the money. How much?” I repeated.

His already pallid face blanched. “You can’t get involved with Lachlan Gage.”

I shook my head, crossing my arms. “You got involved with him, so what choice do I have?”

“Cate, no. You don’t understand.” He lifted his head, panic on his face. His mouth opened and closed several times before he finally choked out more nonsense. “Gage isn’t what people think he is.”

“He’s not a rich asshole with more guns and money than human decency?” I snorted, but he didn’t answer. He just sank back onto the bed and stared at the wall with vacant eyes. The change in his demeanor was enough to make me dare to ask one more question. “What is he, then?”

He wasn’t making sense. His jaw tightened, eyes glazing slightly. Morphine in action. So much for it loosening his tongue.

I couldn’t lose Channing. I refused. We would survive. I would give up my ring for that. I would give anything to ensure that.

I set my shoulders in determination. “Fine. Don’t tell me. But I’m not going to let you get killed.”

“Cate!” He tried to shove himself up, but pain sent him crumbling back down. He called my name one more time as I left the room.

I marched toward the nurse’s station, where Haley was bent over, deep in conversation with one of the EMTs who had brought Channing in. A gun was sealed in a plastic bag on the counter. As I approached, I saw Channing’s name written on its label. It was evidence. Not that it would ever wind up in the hands of the police. Just one of the many accommodations Gage Memorial and its private EMS made for their deep-pocketed benefactor. No. My brother was working for the Gage family, which meant that gun would be given back to him when he was deemed well enough to go and try to get himself killed again. I had to do something.

“We found a bed for…” Haley trailed away when she saw my face.

“Where was the shooting?” I asked the medic.

He shared an uneasy look with Haley. “Waverly.”

“Specifically.” I had no idea where to find Lachlan Gage or the rest of his family. No Gage had ever been treated here despite the alarming number of their associates that wound up in our beds—or in the morgue. Tracking any of them down was a long shot. I probably wouldn’t even get close enough to see Gage himself, let alone speak with him. He was notoriously private. No photographs. Not when the Gages owned the newspapers and everything else. But even in the age of everything being on the internet, they weren’t. People who spoke out about his family business had a habit of disappearing.

So no one ever did.

“Crossroads of Waverly and St. Charles. In front of the Avalon hotel.” He paused, a battle waging in his eyes. “You do not want to go down there. Gage owns the Avalon.”

What didn’t Gage own in this city?

The medic held out a hand. “Look, it’s not safe. You—”

“Thanks,” I stopped him. Reaching over the counter, I grabbed the phone and punched in a number.

“What are you doing?” Haley asked quietly.

I ignored her question. When this came down on me, I didn’t want her caught up in it, too. She asked again as someone picked up on the other line. “This is Cate Holloway at Gage Memorial. I need you to send an officer down here.”

Haley cursed. I half expected her to disconnect the call, but she didn’t. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said when I hung up. “When Garcia finds out…”

“When Garcia finds out what?” his baritone interrupted from behind us.

I tilted my head for her to go. I would take the fall for this. Spinning around, I faced him. “I reported my brother for being involved in a shooting and for possession of an unregistered firearm.”

I had no idea how deep Channing’s debt to the Gages went, if they would care enough to get the charges dismissed, or if the police would drop them on their own. But for now, Channing would be protected—at least long enough for me to do what I needed to. I would find a way to pay his debt. Whatever the cost.

Fury gripped his features. “That’s against policy.”

“I do not give a shit whose name is on the side of this building or what deal your team has worked out with those monsters,” I hissed at him. “You might be okay with having blood on your hands, but I am not going to let my brother get sucked into this.”

I waited for him to speak, his face growing redder with each second that passed. “I think you need to take a few days off, Miss Holloway. Your recent trauma is affecting your ability to think clearly.”

I’d expected that. In fact, I was hoping for it. “I’ll finish my shift.”

“No,” he said firmly. “Now.”

Even better.