Chapter Forty-Six
L ying in my bed, she looked too small and too damn vulnerable. “How long’s she gonna be out?”
Talon glanced at me over his shoulder. “Trauma doesn’t come with an instruction manual.” He took her temperature again. “Why don’t you tell me what really happened.”
“You know as much as I do.” I was never gonna tell a soul what had happened to her at the hands of that sick fuck, Dante. If she wanted to say shit to anyone, that was her prerogative. “Tyler said she passed out in the elevator. He called you, then called me, and we brought her here. You showed up, stuck her with a needle and now she’s still not waking up.”
“Jesus Christ, Trigger. I gave her antibiotics. The wound on her arm’s infected. I wasn’t just stickin’ her to stick her.”
“You better not have been,” I warned.
“Or what?” Talon chuckled. “You gonna fight me?”
“Fuck you. Make her better.”
His expression sobered. “Workin’ on it.” He studied me a moment. “Heard you took out half the local cartel to bring her home.”
“You heard wrong.” I didn’t even put a dent in the cartel’s numbers.
“This gonna come back to bite you?”
What did he care? “No.” Maybe. Who fucking knew? There was a captain left alive and a couple of caretakers on that island I never laid eyes on, but that didn’t mean they didn’t see me.
Talon nodded slowly before looking back at her. “Antibiotics are kickin’ in. Fever’s coming down.”
Good. “When will she wake up?”
He looked at me again. “I’m only gonna ask one more time. There anythin’ I need to know about besides her arm and her bruised face?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Inhaling, Talon stood and tipped his chin at the supplies he’d left on my dresser. “Antibiotics startin’ tomorrow, make sure she takes them. Change the dressin’ a few times a day. Wash your hands and use the antibiotic ointment. Don’t let the wound get wet till it starts to heal. A couple days at least. Give her Advil for pain if she needs it.” He looked at me. “And take her in immediately if that fever spikes or isn’t gone by tomorrow. Don’t fuck around. You don’t want her gettin’ sepsis, you copy?”
“Yeah, I copy.”
“Good.” He slapped me on the shoulder, then smiled his pretty-boy smile. “Who would’ve thought Trigger’d land himself a Loic.” He paused for effect as his grin amped up. “ After he threw her overboard in Key West.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I growled.
“No fuckin’ way. Next to Rower and his viral video with a certain Hollywood bombshell, this shit is gold.”
Rower was Talon’s nickname for Tyler, and I was insulted as fuck. “I’m nothing like Tyler.” I didn’t do shit that made me fodder for the paparazzi.
“No fuckin’ kiddin’.” Still smiling, Talon grabbed his medical kit. “Keep it real, Marine.”
Whatever the fuck real meant. I tipped my chin, and Talerco walked out.
I pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat.
Then I stared at her.
Real wasn’t a classy as hell woman in my bed, a bunch of dead cartel fucks, and a pissed-off banker with more money than God who wanted his daughter back.
But here I was.
In the thick of all that real.