Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
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"How did you know where to find me?" Wren still looked pale and shaken, but according to the team doctor, she'd be fine. The bullet had grazed her skin. If it wasn't for that padding…
"Elenna," Tiger said. "She said you'd been gone for longer than it should have taken to grab what Finley sent you down for. She was worried you got lost."
He sat on the chair beside Wren's hospital bed, looking furious. He’d had that exact expression on his face for the last hour. If I looked in the mirror, I'd probably see the same one.
I was still trying to get my head around the fact those two assholes dared to walk into the arena and try to abduct my woman. Again.
"It is a rabbit warren," I said. "If it wasn't for that first gunshot, we might not have found you in time. We were searching in that area, but hadn't thought to check the laundry yet. We would have, soon enough," I added quickly when she looked like she might take the opportunity to give me shit.
"Says you," she said weakly. "At least you got there."
"Exactly," I said, trying to look smug. I probably didn't pull it off. Yeah, judging by her smirk, I definitely didn't. Whatever, I was happy to see her alive and more or less well.
"I'm sorry we didn't get there sooner." Lex sighed heavily.
"It would have been better if you didn't go down there by yourself in the first place.
Aidan is still looking into how the hell they got in.
As you can imagine, he's out there tearing the arena management a new one.
As far as anyone knows, they entered, intending to steal valuable equipment. That's the official story."
"Sounds accurate to me," I said. "Wren is valuable equipment. Especially her pussy." I grinned and waggled my eyebrows at her.
She rolled her eyes at me, which was totally fair. "My equipment is a lot more valuable than yours."
"Definitely," Tiger said with a grunt.
I turned to him with a mock scowl. "Whose side are you on?" First Lex and now him. They’d both joined in on Wren ribbing me. I loved it. They made me feel like I belonged.
"Me and my cock," Tiger replied unapologetically.
I sat back in my own chair and pretended to sulk. I succeeded in lightening the mood at least. In my experience, humour always helped make a situation easier to handle.
Lex cleared his throat. "Anyway, the arena lockdown just lifted. The cops and arena management insisted we postpone the game, so we're done for the night."
"Good," I said. "Personally, I had no intention of leaving Wren and going back to the arena. She's more important than hockey."
Wren pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. "Now I am hallucinating. Did I just hear you say something in life is more important than hockey? Not just something, but…” She paused dramatically. “Me?"
"Don't let it go to your head," I teased. The smile I gave her was anything but teasing or sarcastic.
I had no idea exactly when I fell in love with Wren, but I had and I fell hard. If I had to give up hockey for her, I'd do it right this minute. Yesterday. Last fucking week. Nothing else mattered.
"Too late, it went straight to my head." She smiled and sank back against her pillows. "I don't have to stay here, do I? I hate hospitals and I hate hospital food."
"You and everyone else on the face of the planet," Lex said. "But no. I've organised a car for us. You just need to sign the release forms and we can get out of here." He rubbed his chin. "My preference is for going straight to the airport and back to Dusk Bay. Or we could drive."
"You have a game in Adelaide in two nights," Wren pointed out. "You can't go home yet."
"Didn’t I just mention something about things being more important than hockey," I said with a slight hint of a teasing sneer. "Maybe the doctor should have cleaned your ears out while she was there."
Wren flipped me off, which was also totally fair. "You can make statements like that, but then you have a contract to do something you love."
I wanted to tell her I didn't need a contract to do someone I loved, but the words wouldn't come. Yeah, I might be the worst kind of coward. She could have died and I couldn't tell her how I felt. I would. I made a promise to myself and to her, I'd tell her soon.
"If they try anything again—" Tiger started.
"You'll be right there to deal with them," she said. "If I have to take you all down to the laundry with me to get the jerseys, then that's what I'll do." She shrugged and winced. Her shoulder was going to be stiff for a while, until the stitches came out.
"Maybe I'll get to kill one next time," I remarked.
"Sorry if Wren's safety was more important than stopping and handing you the gun so you could deal with one of them," Tiger said sarcastically. "I'll bear that in mind next time. And still not do it. The fuckers got what they deserved, and they got it quickly."
"I almost feel sorry for Roach," Wren said slowly. "I have a feeling he wanted a better life than that. He was the one who made the muffin."
"Only you would feel sorry for someone who drugged you." I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. She had a bigger heart than anyone else I knew. Too big sometimes, but maybe mine was too small.
"It's not that," she said with a small voice and a frown.
"It was a really good muffin. If he had the chance to do what he wanted to do, he wouldn't have been trying to abduct people, and hold them at gunpoint.
He would have been happily making cakes.
He was good enough to go on one of those cooking shows. That muffin at least…"
"Excuse me if I don't lose too much sleep over him," I said.
If I thought about it too much, I might also feel a twinge of regret. Some people made the choice to embrace this lifestyle and become a goon, or someone like Reuben who lorded it over the rest of us. Others fell into the job, or had no choice because everyone has to eat.
If I wasn't any good at hockey, that could have been me. Braylon Ellis, hired goon. It had a ring to it, but not as much as Bray Ellis, Dusk Bay Demons’ winger.
"I know," Wren said. "There's no point dwelling on the past anyway. They're both dead and presumably all over the news already."
"Aidan made sure of that," Lex said. "He wanted Nicholas to know he didn't succeed here. In case not hearing from his goons wasn't obvious enough. With any luck, this will make him angry enough to make a mistake. When he does, we'll be right there, waiting to kick his ass."
"I'll shoot his ass," Tiger said. "Right before I put a bullet in his head."
"Priorities," I said approvingly. "Make him suffer before putting him out of his misery. And ours."
"That sounds good," Wren said. "Personally, I'm getting tired of him coming at me. At least now I know it's personal. I mean, it's me he's targeting."
"Because of me," Tiger growled.
"And me," Lex said. "And Aidan, Coast, Orion, Finley, Phoenix, Javey and probably Bray." He looked like he was going to add something, but changed his mind.
I suspected he was going to point a finger at Elenna and Sinclair. Elenna had killed Nicholas' younger brother Oscar in retribution for murdering her brother Ike.
Sinclair had worked with Aidan and the rest of us to try to ferret out who was feeding information from the Demons to the Fiorelli slash Mancini family.
They were both in it as deep as anyone. But they were also Wren's best friends and bringing them into the conversation right now was probably not a good idea. Wren needed to rest and recover.
"Definitely me," I said to distract from Lex's expression. "From now on, we're making sure one of us is with you at all times. Two or three would be better, but at least one."
I slid Wren a sly grin. "You know the situation is serious when I'd voluntarily spend time with my stepsister."
She groaned playfully. The sound went straight to my groin.
"Crap, does that mean I have to spend time with you too?" She wrinkled her nose. "I'm starting to think I should have let them abduct me."
"I could try to contact Nicholas and offer you up?" I said. As if I'd ever do something like that.
"Not if you like your balls intact," Tiger said.
"What he said." Lex nodded to Tiger. "I don't think you'd like how it would feel to have us put a clamp on each of your balls and pull them in different directions."
My balls tried to retreat up into my body.
I winced. "No thank you. Wren will have to learn to put up with me, because she's going to be seeing me every time she turns around."
She sighed, but the expression on her face suggested she was actually looking forward to it.
So was I, but I hated the reasoning for it. If Nicholas had balls of his own, he'd go after one of us, not her. Clearly, he was trying to piss us off. It was working. At the same time, he was making himself look like a coward.
"I don't know about you, but I think we should get out of here." I pressed my hands to the chair on either side of me and pushed myself half the way up.
"Wait a minute," Wren said. She turned to Lex. "Did Aidan say anything about someone in the arena working with them? There's a possibility someone let them in, right?"
I lowered myself back down with a bump. "Fuck."
I was so busy worrying about her, I hadn't given any thought to the way things went down. Judging by the look on the other guys’ faces, neither had they. No regrets, Wren came first, but it was something we needed to consider now.
Lex rubbed his forehead with the tip of a couple of fingers. "Yeah, it's certainly possible. They might have been paid to let them in. In which case, we might find a money trail. That’ll take time though."
Tiger asked. "We can deal with those assholes after we deal with Nicholas. Those dickheads are small fish."
He pointed a finger at Lex and me before we could reply, both surprised he wasn't ready to jump up and rip off heads right now.
"If they're working with that asshole, that's one thing. Chances are, they're just some stadium staff member who needed some cash. They got exploited by their own desperation. If we find out it's more than that, I'll be right there planting bullets in brains."
"Tiger is right," I said. "People like Nicholas look for vulnerable people to use in situations like this. It would be a lot less expensive and a lot less hassle than planting someone here and waiting for us."
"Tiger is usually right," Tiger said. He crossed his arms and waited for one of us to contradict him.
I raised one eyebrow at him, but wisely said nothing.
I saw the way he effectively and efficiently shot both of those goons.
Getting on his bad side would be a bad idea.
Not to mention it might cause friction with Wren and if I was going to annoy her, it wasn't going to be like that.
No, I preferred more creative ways to get under her skin.
"Okay, let's get out of here," Lex said. He helped Wren get up off the hospital bed and walk with us to the door.