Chapter 10 #2
“Officially?” She shakes her head. “Not only is she not admitted, but she’s not even here.
” Her lips shift into a soft, almost playful grin.
“I heard some things about insurance and the cost of medication being out of reach for regular Americans. There was some stuff about poor people dying, and this is why her parents worked so damn hard. Figured there might’ve been some administrative concerns on the chief’s part, so I didn’t technically write her name down anywhere.
However, I’m involved now, so I’m led to ask what the hell, Archer?
” She swings out and smacks my shoulder. “No insurance? Can’t afford her meds?”
“She has insurance,” I groan. “She can afford her meds. She’s just going through some shit right now, and that shit led her here.
” To the fucking hospital, because I told her not to come home—where her meds were.
I scratch the back of my neck and try, so fucking hard, to work through the frustration in my blood.
I’m frustrated with her. Frustrated with me.
Frustrated with Anthony Agosti and Sophia Solomon.
Estefan Cordoza, too, and while I’m going, I’m frustrated with Timothy Malone the Second’s entire fucking existence.
“I’ll get her stock sorted so she doesn’t run out in the future. Don’t worry about it.”
“Archer—”
“Infusion always makes her tired.” Sighing, I search Nicki’s troubled eyes. “But it’s barely six o’clock. This is early, even for her.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m not entirely sure she slept last night.
The shadows under her eyes say she didn’t, and the couple of times she almost lost her battle against showing absolutely no emotion at all prove she’s exhausted.
” She reaches across and squeezes my arm, right where she hit me.
“Whatever’s going on, I’m confident you’ll fix it.
Together.” Releasing me again, she settles back on her heels and offers a gentle smile.
“She can stay for a few hours and sleep this off if that’s what you want.
If you have no issue paying for her treatment, then I can have her admitted, and since we’re going, I can hook her up and pump some fluids in, since her dehydrated veins are proof she’s living on caffeine and not a damn thing more at the moment.
Or…” She peeks over my shoulder as Harrison comes to a stop on my right.
“You can take her home. She’s your wife, after all, and she didn’t tell me you couldn’t. ”
“Did she speak about us at all?” God, I’m such a fuckin’ pussy. “Did she say—”
“Not a single peep about you. Just that she was having insurance issues and had run out of time to find alternate solutions.”
“Doctor Cleary?” A nurse on the opposite side of the ER slings a stethoscope around the back of her neck. “Can I get a consult, please?”
“Sure.” She dips her chin for me. And again for Harrison.
Then she meanders away, but spins and walks backwards.
“Also, I’ve been meaning to suggest a double date sometime soon.
Chief Mayet would hate it, no doubt. But that’s what friends do, right?
They hang out. Gasp. They sometimes even hang out outside of the hospital. ”
A soft, shaky chuckle rolls through my chest and up to tickle my lips.
But then she turns, gone to help her next patient, so I start toward Minka and step into her curtained cubicle, comfortable in the knowledge she’s not waking up anytime soon.
We’ve been together for eighteen months now.
That’s approximately two hundred infusion nights spent wrapped in each other’s arms. Two hundred times I’ve carried a stubborn woman from the couch—where she was determined to infuse and continue working—to our bed.
Not once in all that time did she ever wake while I moved her.
Restless, I inhale through my nostrils and fold over the bed, resting my elbows on the mattress until my nose stops just two inches from hers.
For as long as I have this moment with her, a moment she’ll never remember, I drag, ever so gently, the pad of my thumb along the swollen shadow beneath her eyes.
“I’m sorry for doing this to us,” I rasp, licking my lips and releasing a heavy sigh.
“As soon as I’m allowed, I’m coming back for you, okay?
” My heart thunders as I inch forward and press a feather-soft kiss to her temple.
“I picked up a rock for you today. Picked up a few, actually. Already knew I can’t live without you, but the last twenty-four hours proved it. Thought you should know.”
“Boss?”
“Yeah.” I pull back, sniffling and carefully tucking a length of mahogany hair behind her ear before it tickles her cheek and drags her out of her sleep. Straightening my spine, I ignore the vibrations of my phone in my pocket. I’ll deal with them later. When I can.
“I need instructions,” Harrison rumbles. “Anyone else I’m told to watch, I watch and get them where they gotta go. I doubt she wants to stay here all night, but she’s asleep, which means I have to wake her up and force her to walk home in the heat, or I pick her up and—”
“You don’t get to carry her,” I growl. “You don’t get to touch her, unless not touching would immediately lead to her death, and if she dies on your watch, you die long before you get to explain why you did or did not touch in the first place.
” I drag a shuddering breath into my lungs and bring my focus back around.
Then I spy Minka’s heavy purse on the floor, the leather neatly tucked by the bed’s wheels.
“Get her bag. I’ll carry her back to her apartment. ”
He darts around me, fast on his feet and does as he’s ordered, so I carefully, so fucking gently, dig my hands beneath her weight, gingerly tipping her back and scooping her against my chest until her head droops and her arms hang limp.
“Harrison?” I turn his way and watch, eagle-eyed, as he follows my unspoken order and folds her dangling arm up, placing her hand on her belly.
When he’s done, he tears the curtain open and precedes me across the emergency room, a fearsome man, strapped to the nines, with his cute little purse dangling from one hand.
Nicki catches my eye from across the room. She tips her chin, firming her lips. But she doesn’t stop me from carrying the unconscious damsel away. She doesn’t even chase after me and tuck the bill in my back pocket.
I follow Harrison along the hall and through the automatic doors, but where I planned to turn right and walk the block back to her apartment, he steers me left, to the SUV parked in a no-parking zone, the engine still running and the air-conditioning still humming.
“I know it’s only a block, Boss. But those cameras are still hanging around.
I figured discretion was best.” He whips the back door open and makes space, allowing me a moment of contemplation as I consider how best to slide in without letting her go.
I just… do. I step in, silent as Harrison’s palm on my back guides me up, then I carefully sit and hug her to my chest, fixing her legs and, with her weight resting on my lap, I scoop her head up and press her ear over my heart.
Without another word, Harrison closes the door and darts around to the front, and less than a minute later, he pulls up at our apartment, double-parking once more and reversing his actions.
He cuts the engine, snags Minka’s purse, dashes around the car, and pulls our door open. He moves out of the way so I can slide out once more, then he’s ahead of me, opening the heavy glass door and holding it out of the way so I can pass.
“Jesus.” Without the breeze from outside, as pathetic as it is, the stairwell is easily ten degrees hotter.
“I should’ve upgraded this shithole’s HVAC system a year ago.
Freezing in the winter, boiling in the summer, sleeping in this building is akin to flirting with insanity.
” I hold Minka close and make my way up one flight.
Then two. Three. “Have you heard from Felix yet? Did they land?”
“Yes, Boss.” Harrison moves just three steps ahead of me, scouring the stairwell with fierce, watchful eyes.
“They landed a few minutes before I re-entered the ER. Zora’s struggling with the air pressure in her ears.
She screamed her little lungs out. Felix wanted an update.
Agent Hale and former Agent Hale assure us everything is smooth on the New York front.
” He peeks over his shoulder. “Ya know, with the Agosti stuff.”
My jaw clenches and releases. It aches and grinds. “How much do you know about all that?”
Do we have more noses in Minka’s business? More witnesses to her crimes? More fucking men sitting in the box inside a courtroom, ready to convict a woman for doing what’s right.
For doing what the law couldn’t.
Hesitant, Harrison slows his steps. “I’d say I have a reasonably extensive understanding of the situation. The, uh…” He clears his throat. “The NDAs Felix has us sign cover the whole family, though. So you don’t have to worry.”
There are no NDAs. There never have been. There’s just the promise of an early grave, and anyone with half a brain knows it.
“You overheard that stuff at the house yesterday?”
“Only snippets, actually. But I’ve been around a while now, and I’ve heard things while on duty.”
“From other people talking about her?”
He chuckles. “From her, mostly. Micah had me look into some stuff last year, and soon after that, Chief Mayet herself was in the backseat of my car having somewhat of an existential crisis. I believe she was talking to you on the phone at the time.” His cheeks warm, reddening as he drops his gaze.
“I don’t make a habit of repeating the things I hear, Boss, but there’s not much I can do about hearing those things in the first place.
The fact she’s…” He hesitates. “Who she is means I was quite surprised regarding the case she testified on in New York.”
“Which case?”