Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
W ilder shot out of the emergency exit full of adrenaline and rage. He immediately began to look for Tiffany. He darted toward the road but didn’t see her. The man only had a twenty second head start. He couldn’t be far.
“No.”
Wilder heard the weak, slurred word being repeated over and over from the dark depths of the alley—right out of range of the newly installed security cameras. Wilder sprinted in the direction of the dumpster. It wasn’t until he almost ran past them that Wilder saw her.
Tiffany was shoved up against the wall and the man was unzipping his pants. She was muttering “no” repeatedly, yet she seemed unable to move. Wilder grabbed the back of the man’s collar, ripped him away from her, and flung him against the brick building on the other side of the alley from them.
“Oh, you want to play the hero? Come on, fancy boy.” The man gestured for Wilder to attack.
Wilder didn’t waste time talking. He didn’t waste time facing off, circling each other, sizing each other up. He attacked. Every lesson Damon and Hunter taught him rushed to his crystal-clear mind. Even the red haze of rage cleared. At that moment, all he cared about was inflicting as much pain as he possibly could.
He didn’t go for a face shot or a body shot. He punched the bastard in the throat and sent him to his knees, gasping for air. Was it a dirty move? Hell yeah. And he’d do it every time. Wilder grabbed the man’s hair, lifting his face to look at Wilder’s, and let loose with a series of fierce punches. The man’s nose broke. His eye socket shattered. It was only Tiny pulling Wilder off of the unconscious man that saved his life.
“Easy there, boss,” Tiny said with both arms around Wilder’s heaving chest. Tiny had Wilder pinned to him as he talked calmly to Wilder. “There’s a woman vomiting. You’ve disabled her attacker. Should I call the police?”
“Let me go. I need to check on her.”
Tiny released him and Wilder was at Tiffany’s side in an instant. She was groaning and lying next to her vomit. He brushed back her hair and felt her pulse. It was slow. “We need to get her to the hospital. Tie that asshole up and don’t let anyone see him. Don’t call 9-1-1. Call Detective Max Caldwell. I’m not waiting for an ambulance. I’m taking her directly to the hospital.”
Wilder placed one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees and lifted her up and into his arms. Tiny rushed forward and entered the code to unlock the gate behind the club that led to employee parking.
“It’s okay. You’re safe now. I’m taking you to the hospital,” he said soothingly to Tiffany as he rushed to his car. Tiny opened the passenger door even as he was on the phone with Detective Caldwell. “Thank you,” Wilder whispered to Tiny so he wouldn’t interrupt his phone call. Tiny gave him a nod of his head and then rushed back to the alley to take care of the man who had attacked Tiffany.
Wilder stooped low and set her into the passenger seat. He buckled her in before running around the hood and taking off to the hospital that wasn’t the closest, but was the best in the city. It wasn’t too much farther and he didn’t want to take any chances with her life.
His phone rang and he answered it through the car. He assumed it was Tiny, but then his sister’s voice filled the car. “Hey, Wild. I’m in town for work. Want to get together?” Olivia asked him.
“I do. Right now, in fact. Meet me at Manhattan General’s Emergency Department,” Wilder told his sister as he weaved in and out of traffic.
“Do you need your sister or your lawyer there?” Olivia asked, but he could already hear her running out the door.
“My lawyer. I’m not the one injured. I’ll fill you in when you get here. Ask for me or Tiffany Anderson.”
“Got it.” Olivia hung up and he knew his sister would have his back. He might need it after beating the crap out of a man and for the fact that drugs had been sold at his business.
Wilder flew into the ER lot and parked in one of the few parking spaces reserved for those who were coming into the ER. Wilder was trying to stay calm, but it was hard. Tiffany had been softly moaning and even shaking some as he drove to the hospital.
In less than a minute, Wilder had her in his arms and was rushing through the automatic doors of the emergency room. The registration nurse took one look at him with Tiffany unconscious in his arms and was out of her chair issuing orders. A nurse and a wheelchair appeared before he’d taken five steps into the department.
“What happened?” a hardened ER nurse asked as he placed Tiffany in the wheelchair and they were instantly on the move through the locked doors and into the ER bays.
“She was drugged. I don’t know if it was GHB or something else. She wasn’t drinking, so alcohol wasn’t a factor. She’s vomited everything in her stomach and she started shaking on the way over here,” Wilder said as calmly as he could when he felt anything but calm. However, raging in the ER wouldn’t help her.
“Was she assaulted?”
“No. I stopped it before he could.”
“Name? Age? Relationship?” the nurse asked as two other nurses joined her to help move Tiffany onto a hospital bed. The nurses swarmed her as they took her vitals and got her prepped for an IV.
“Tiffany Anderson. Twenty-seven. Friend.” Wilder left it vague so he could stay with her.
“What do we have?” a doctor asked, striding into the bay. The nurse rattled off the information Wilder had given her and added her vitals.
“Test her for all the usual suspects to see if we need to use charcoal. I don’t want to do that unless we have to. Aspiration risks can be high. Get her hooked up to an IV at full flow and monitor her. If she gets worse, we’ll take it to the next step.”
Blood was drawn. Swabs were taken. An IV was hooked up and blankets were piled on her when she began to shake.
“Don’t worry, it’s not a seizure, so that’s good. I think she’s dehydrated from vomiting so much. The IV will help with that and push whatever she was given out of her system,” the nurse told him. “Push the button if anything changes. I’m running these tests to the lab.”
Wilder shot off a text to Olivia, Max, and Glen Wise telling them that someone had been drugged at his club and which ER bay they were in. Then the chaos was over. He sat quietly in the room with no movement around him at all. Tiffany seemed to be sleeping. Every once in a while, her body would shake.
Time seemed to slow down as the adrenaline wore off. Wilder sat, holding Tiffany’s hand. It was so small and not the typical hand of the women he dated. That was such a strange thing to notice. But since she was his sole focus, Wilder noticed those small details. Her nails were short and unpolished. The pad of her index finger was rough. As he expected from the first time he saw her, her clothes weren’t designer. Her hair was curly, when he usually dated women with sleek long hair. Her hair went slightly past her shoulders and while curly, they weren’t super tight coils, but bouncy and relaxed. Her skin was smooth, but she wasn’t pampered. There were small scars here and here that resembled a rowdy youth, just like he had. For some reason, that made him like her even more.
Wilder didn’t splash his dating life online, but he’d been in a rut. He had had a rocky start with dating after moving to New York City for college. He’d gotten into a great school, one where most students had trust funds. He had lots of dates for the sole reason of being something new to their social circle. He was good for a date or two and for sex when the rich girls went “slumming.”
When he became a millionaire, he could admit he went a little wild. But in the past few years, he’d slowed down on the hookups and tried to meet people who didn’t know who he was and how much he was worth. It worked for short-term relationships, but it also felt disingenuous since he’d end them before they turned serious. They were his refuge. His little bit of normalcy. That’s why he was spending more and more time in Shadows Landing. No one cared who he was there. His sister gave him crap, his brothers teased him, and the citizens cared more about the Clemson vs South Carolina game or who had the best barbeque than him and his clubs. The first Sunday in Shadows Landing he’d been walking down Main Street to find a place to have lunch when the church bell rang and he was run over by two old men in heavily modified motorized handicap scooters.
He'd loved it and now he was staying in town for longer and longer stretches of time. His family hadn’t been this close since they all lived at home as kids and he enjoyed seeing his siblings excelling in their lives and in love.
The woman lying on the bed in front of him somehow reminded him of home. It was why he couldn’t seem to stop touching her hand and why he couldn’t bring himself to distance himself from her.
The door opened and the privacy curtain was pulled back. His sister appeared as if dressed and ready for court at eleven at night. Olivia Townsend-Fox was hell in heels. Her brain was freakishly fast and super-intelligent, and her tongue was sharp as a knife. She never missed anything. Including the fact that her “little” brother was holding a woman’s hand. She raised one eyebrow in question.
“Who the hell are you and how did they let you in but not me?” Bureau Chief Glen Wise spat at Olivia with frustration. “I have the badge here.”
Olivia shrugged the shoulder of her black custom-fitted suit jacket. “No one is scared of a badge anymore. However, threaten their medical license with a lawsuit and suddenly they can find the room you’re looking for.” Olivia turned to Wilder, not the least bit intimidated by one of the highest-ranking members of the NYPD. “You need me to deal with him?” she asked, nodding her head at Wise.
No fear. The Townsends were like that. Damon had raised them that way. Their parents were sweet and hardworking. It was all Damon who taught them to stand on their own two feet and never be intimidated. Wilder smiled at his sister who would go to the wall for every one of them. “Olivia, meet Bureau Chief Glen Wise. Wise, meet my sister, Olivia Townsend-Fox.”
“Sister? Olivia Townsend, the most feared attorney in New York is your sister?”
Olivia smiled at that. “It’s Townsend-Fox. I’m married now.”
Glen shivered. “I’d like to meet the man brave enough to marry you. He either has balls the size of the Big Apple or none at all.”
“I’d like to think my balls are just right since my wife has never complained.”
Wise almost jumped as Wilder saw his brother-in-law lean against the door to the ER bay. “You have perfect balls, honey.”
“Nope. No. No talking about your husband’s balls. Come on, Liv.” Wilder rolled his eyes at them both. “Bureau Chief Glen Wise, this is my brother-in-law, Sheriff Granger Fox of Shadows Landing, South Carolina.”
The two lawmen shook hands and then went back to staring at the woman on the bed. “What happened?” Glen asked.
Wilder recounted what had happened and that Max was now at the club. “Who do you want me to destroy?” his sister asked, dead serious.
“I need to make sure I don’t get taken down for this. It’s obvious my club is being targeted. I had thought it was Fergus Kelly, but the man who attacked Tiffany wasn’t one of Fergus’s men. I also would like to not go to jail for beating the shit out of whoever that was.”
“Done,” Olivia and Glen said at the same time.
Wilder took a deep breath and gave Tiffany’s hand a squeeze. She was starting to murmur as a hopeful sign the drugs were leaving her system.
“Whoa, there can’t be this many people in here,” the nurse scolded.
“Police,” Glen and Granger said, flashing their badges.
“Good,” the nurse said, handing over a printout. “You’ll want this then. Tiffany was drugged with GHB. With the IV, she’ll be waking up soon so you can take her statement then. But try to limit the number of people in the room, please.”
Wilder saw Glen frown. “Tiffany?”
The nurse looked down at her chart and nodded. “Tiffany Anderson according to her ID.”
The nurse headed out and Glen turned to Wilder. “That,” he said to Wilder, “is not Tiffany Anderson.”