14. Chapter 14 #3
The door opened without a knock. Scarlet's stride owned every square foot of the room before he'd said a word.
Andre's first read snagged and didn't let go: long, straight, fireengine red dyed hair still pinned up from surgery, a few strands loose at his temple, and eyes that stopped Andre cold.
Not red, like he'd seen them any time he'd run into Sovereign's neutorious partner.
Green, deep like old forests and shot through with gold at the centers, normal in a way nothing else about the man was, and it took Andre a full second to understand why the color felt like a secret he hadn't earned yet.
No kohl. No contacts. Clean blue scrubs instead of leather, a name badge still clipped to the breast pocket that Andre didn't let himself read.
Whoever this man was under the fire-engine hair, he'd walked out of an OR and straight here without stopping to become Scarlet first. Still, the man was possibly one of the most stunningly beautiful he'd ever seen.
Tall, lithe, features sharp enough to kill and a delicate red teardrop subdermal piercing the only break in his perfection.
"Oz." His voice was rough at the edges, worn down from hours of giving orders in a sterile room. His eyes cut to Andre in the chair and didn't slow him down. "New friend?"
"Detective Jefferson. He's with Dray."
"Everyone's with someone tonight." Scarlet dropped into the second chair, the ornate one Andre had already noticed, and it made sudden, obvious sense as his.
Dark circles sat heavy under his eyes. Nothing about him read tired, though.
Coiled was closer, leftover adrenaline that hadn't burned off yet.
Or maybe manic. That seemed more accurate "You're going to want to hear this before I fall asleep standing up. "
"Elijah made it." Sovereign said. Not a question.
"Clavicle, through and through, missed the subclavian by about a centimeter, which is the only reason I'm not currently arranging a funeral instead of drinking your good whiskey.
" Scarlet said it flat, clinical, the register of a man reading a chart aloud.
Then his voice sped up, clinical giving way to something closer to fascination.
"Stable. Sedated. He'll keep the arm, he'll keep the function, he'll have a scar he can bore people with at parties for the next forty years. "
Andre's stomach dropped straight through the floor. "Elijah. Elijah Monroe?" It could have been anyone… but he knew. In his chest, he knew it was Marcus' brother in arms.
Scarlet's green eyes cut to him, assessing in a single pass. "You know him?"
"Through Marcus." The words came out thinner than Andre wanted them to. "What happened?"
"Ambush. Delray, behind some laundromat.
Jack and Elijah pinned in the car, took fire for fuck knows how long before Trip's crew got there.
" Scarlet's delivery had already flattened into fact hours ago, somewhere in the OR.
"Jack's fine. Graze and glass, nothing that needed me.
Elijah's the one who bled on my table for three hours. "
A muscle in Sovereign's jaw went tight, the first crack Andre had seen in him all night. "Who?"
"Unclear. Professional, whoever it was. Clean entry wounds, no wasted rounds.
" Scarlet's mouth curved, and it wasn't a smile, not really, more the promise of meyhem and blood.
"I'm hoping it's someone worth putting in the ground properly, for once.
It's been a slow month. You know I get cranky when I don't have anyone to carve up. "
Andre was already standing. He hadn't decided to; his body had made the call somewhere in the last ten seconds and his mind was just now catching up.
"I need to call him. Marcus. I need to-" Andre stopped himself, because he didn't actually know what he needed, only that every cell in him had turned toward the door.
Sovereign was watching him, the ice from earlier gone out of his face, replaced by something closer to respect. "Go," he said. "We're done here. You got what you came for and then some."
"Scarlet-" Andre started.
"He'll live. They both will." Scarlet's voice gentled, just slightly, just enough that Andre caught it.
"Go be useless and worried somewhere that isn't my man's office.
I need him to fuck me raw over this chair immediately to burn off some of this energy.
" He didn't wait for them to leave before he was pulling his scrubs over his head and giving Sovriegn a lacivious, and hungry, look.
Dray was already up, keys in hand, moving toward the door like he'd been waiting the whole conversation for exactly this exit.
Andre followed him out past Hollow, past the stairs, past the bar and the pool tables and the couple still tangled on the couch who still didn't look up, out into the cold lot where the bikes stood in their silver rows, chrome throwing back the sodium light in hard flat sheets.
His hands wouldn't stop shaking, small enough that Dray probably didn't see it, big enough that Andre felt it in his back teeth.
He had Marcus's number pulled up before he'd cleared the door, thumb hovering over the call button, and the only thing steadying him was the certainty that in twenty minutes, less if Dray drove the way Andre needed him to, he was going to see Marcus's face and put his hands on him and not let go until he believed it.