Sexting the Enemy (Dark MC Romance Stand-Alone #2)

Chapter 1 Wrong Number, Right Darkness

Chapter one

Wrong Number, Right Darkness

Lena

The blood won't come off my hands, which feels diagnostically significant for my entire existence.

I'm scrubbing at the fold-out sink in my definitely-not-illegal van that absolutely-doesn't-treat gunshot wounds without proper documentation.

The water runs pink—hemoglobin dilution, approximately one part blood to three parts denial.

My patient will live.

Prognosis: scarred but breathing.

Treatment plan: pretend the bullets didn't have Iron Talons rifling patterns.

Side effects: crushing existential dread and a desperate need for tequila.

Classic Thursday.

My scrubs are destroyed—forty bucks down the drain, but whatever. I'll steal new ones from the hospital supply closet like a medical Robin Hood, if Robin Hood worked weekends and had questionable coping mechanisms. The girl looked at me with eyes that said 'save me' and 'let me die' simultaneously.

I saved her. My therapist would call this a hero complex. Good thing I don't have a therapist. Can't afford the copay or the judgment.

Díos mío, I need a drink. My liver is already filing a formal complaint, but my executive function is in committee reviewing other poor decisions.

The tequila is for sterilization. That's what I tell myself when I take a pull straight from the bottle—Herradura Silver, because even my disasters have standards.

It burns less than the knowledge that a child had three bullets in her chest. Nursing school prepared me for trauma.

It didn't prepare me for the philosophy of pulling gang bullets from trafficking victims while stone-cold sober.

My phone buzzes. Ray, probably—my sixty-two-year-old mechanic-slash-enabler-slash-father-figure who keeps this van running with duct tape and pure Vietnam-veteran stubbornness. He lost his son to gang violence. I lost my parents to drunk driving. We're a match made in therapy-avoidance heaven.

I text without looking, muscle memory and exhaustion creating honesty I can't afford:

Just performed emergency surgery in a van held together by prayer and WD-40.

Three bullets extracted with the precision of a trained trauma nurse and the legality of a back-alley abortion.

Patient survived. My faith in humanity didn't. Stealing your tequila for medicinal purposes.

All the purposes. Every single purpose that exists.

The response arrives faster than Ray’'s arthritic thumbs allow.

Unknown: Angels shouldn't have to see hell. But sometimes hell needs angels.

I stare at my phone like it's presenting abnormal lab results. My prefrontal cortex and my vagina are having a conference about this development. Neither is reaching sound conclusions.

Who is this?

Three dots appear—tachycardic rhythm, irregular intervals. My emergency response training kicks in, by which I mean I take another shot of tequila.

Unknown: Someone who knows hell intimately. Wrong number, but maybe right timing.

My self-preservation instinct files a formal protest that's immediately overruled by my dopamine receptors, who are apparently staging a coup.

Fantastic. I'm texting either a serial killer or a philosophy major. With my dating history, probably both. Should I be concerned that I'm not more concerned?

Unknown: Philosophy majors don't text back at midnight.

Valid diagnostic criteria. So just a serial killer then? At least you're punctual.

Unknown: I've never killed anyone who didn't deserve it.

My brain attempts to process this like a medical chart. Symptoms: homicidal honesty. Diagnosis: danger. Treatment plan: immediate cessation of contact. What I actually do: keep texting like my frontal lobe is on vacation.

That's literally what every serial killer says. It's probably in the handbook. Chapter One: Justify Everything.

Unknown: Speaking from experience?

I extract bullets from bodies for fun and profit. Well, mostly fun. The profit is negligible. We all have our hobbies.

He gets it. Whoever this is understands gallows humor as a coping mechanism, which means he's either in healthcare, law enforcement, or crime. Based on the midnight murder confession, I'm betting on door number three.

I should block you,

I type, knowing I absolutely won't.

Unknown: You should. But you won't. You're too lonely, and I'm too intrigued.

My emotional state just got diagnosed by a stranger. Accurate assessment. Terrible prognosis.

You don't know me.

Unknown: I know you save people at midnight. I know you drink alone. I know you're tired of being good when everyone around you isn't.

Jesus. He's reading me like a medical chart—symptoms, diagnosis, treatment plan. Everything but the cure.

That's a lot of assumptions from one text.

Unknown: You texted about bullets and children and drinking on a Thursday near midnight.

Medical professional, probably ER based on the trauma comfort.

The anger says personal investment. The tequila says self-medicating.

The wrong number says lonely enough to text a stranger your darkest moment. Diagnostic criteria complete.

My vagina is writing him a letter of recommendation while my brain searches frantically for the emergency exits.

You're not wrong. You're also not safe.

Unknown: Neither are you, Angel. The difference is I know it.

Angel. The word hits like an abnormal EKG—irregular, concerning, probably fatal if I get too close. My dopamine and serotonin are having a dance party while my cortisol levels scream warnings.

I'm not an angel. Angels don't perform illegal medical procedures in vans that smell like blood and broken dreams.

Unknown: No. You're something better. You're real.

I stare at that text like it's presenting symptoms I've never seen. Real. When's the last time someone called me real instead of crazy, dedicated, or 'concerningly comfortable with trauma'?

I need to go. Early shift tomorrow.

It's a lie with a grain of truth. I work Weekend Option—every Saturday and Sunday, twelve hours of controlled chaos that pays enough to keep me in good tequila and questionable decisions.

Unknown: Will you text again?"

My better judgment is filing a restraining order against my fingers, which are already typing.

I shouldn't.

Unknown: That's not a no.

It's not a yes either. It's a maybe with strong reservations and a side of poor judgment.

Unknown: I'll take it. Goodnight, Angel.

Goodnight, Wrong Number.

I save his contact exactly as “Wrong Number,” like labeling the poison will somehow keep me from drinking it. My apartment is fifteen minutes away if I follow traffic laws, ten if I drive like my life choices—reckless but surprisingly effective.

Once I’m home, the shower runs red, then pink, then clear—a hemoglobin gradient that would make a beautiful watercolor if it wasn't human suffering diluted by city water.

I stand under spray hot enough to denature proteins, letting it burn away everything except the memory of being called Angel by someone who admits to murder.

My bed stretches out like a diagnostic table—too big, too cold, too empty. My phone sits on the nightstand, and I absolutely don't check it seventeen times to see if he's texted again.

He hasn't.

My serotonin levels plummet accordingly.

I stare at the ceiling, counting acoustic tiles like they're symptoms of a disease I can't diagnose. Insomnia, loneliness, and whatever the DSM-5 calls 'attracted to danger'—probably something with a long Latin name and no cure.

Three facts remain clinically significant: The girl will survive with scarring that tells a story she'll never want to read.

I'm going to text him again despite every neuron screaming in protest. And my vagina has already started composing the wedding invitations, because apparently, she has a death wish and excellent penmanship.

I close my eyes and see his words burned into my retinas like staring at the sun—dangerous, stupid, and absolutely going to happen again.

Prognosis: Terminal attraction.

Treatment plan: Pending.

Side effects: Everything.