Chapter Eighteen
Damion
“I’m dizzy and nauseous,” Alana murmurs, her eyes bloodshot, her complexion chalky. “I really don’t know what they injected me with.”
It’s the second time she’s brought this up, and she’s right to worry. It scares the shit out of me, too, I think, but I wouldn’t dare say that to her. “I got you, baby,” I promise, with guilt stabbing me all over with just how much I’ve proven to be the crappiest protector possible. Everything I’ve done to try to protect Alana our entire adult lives has been wrong.
Where the fuck is Savage. She needs a doctor, and I yell over my shoulder, “Savage!”
“I’m here.” A chair appears beside us, and Savage orders, “Sit, Alana. I need to check you out.”
“Savage is both a doctor and a surgeon,” I explain. “You’re in good hands.”
If Alana registers my words, she simply accepts them without question. She allows me to ease her into the chair. Savage kneels in front of her. “I’m going to check your vitals, but first I need to know if you have any injuries I need to address.”
“No,” she says. “I don’t think so.”
His tone is gentle, but he pushes her. “I’m sorry, but I need to know how to best treat you. Did they touch you?”
My hand settles on her shoulder, telling her I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. “I don’t think so,” she says. “Only when they grabbed me to stick a needle in my neck. I think…I’m fine.”
“If you want,” Savage offers, “after I check you out, we can go to the ER for a rape kit.”
“No!” she says. “No, I don’t want that. I don’t think that happened. I don’t want to go through that. And I’m still fully dressed. I don’t think they could have put my pants back on.”
I kneel beside her, reinforcing the message that I’m here.
Savage doesn’t look at me. He studies her several long beats before he holds up a small light. “I need to shine this in your eyes. Does your head hurt?”
“Throbbing,” she confirms.
He touches her chin and tilts her gaze upward, shining the light in her eyes. Seemingly satisfied with what he finds, he releases her and captures her wrist to check her pulse. Her legs tremble, and the sight guts me. Protectiveness radiates through me, and I press my palm to her knee, relieved when the trembling eases under my touch.
Savage releases her, and my impatience wins. “Well?”
“Her pulse is a bit slow,” he replies, “but considering she’s been sedated, that’s normal. My assessment is that she’s simply living the aftermath of too many drugs.” He pulls a blood pressure cuff out of his bag and wraps it around her arm, asking her, “When was the last time you ate?”
“I have no idea,” she murmurs, “and I feel too nauseous to even think about food.”
He doesn’t comment but waits for the machine to deliver the reading. “Also low, but again, I expected as much.” He trades the BP machine for a small pouch and tears it open. “This is glucose gel. Low blood sugar can produce all your symptoms and be caused by drugs and a lack of food, and yes, even the nausea.” He offers her the pouch. “Get this down, and we’ll get your sugar level to a safe spot. I need to draw blood, and I don’t want you to end up passing out on me.”
She wets her obviously dry lips and just stares at his hand and the offering. “I don’t think I can get it down.”
I reach for the pouch myself, and Savage eases to the side, allowing me the room to shift in front of her. “Try a little for me, baby,” I urge. “I need you to just take a tiny bite for me.”
“No, I—”
“Yes,” I insist, firmly this time. “You have to do this.”
“No,” she whispers.
“Yes, Alana. You have to try.”
She expels a shaky breath. “Stubborn man.”
“Yes, I am.” I hold the gel to her lips, and she sucks a little into her mouth, and then a little more. It’s a good ten minutes before I manage to get most of the supplement down her.
“Give it about ten minutes to work, and then I’ll draw her blood,” Savage says.
“Why are you taking her blood?” I ask.
“We need to find out what drugs they gave her.”
“I’m still here,” Alana scoffs at us both. “You’re talking like I’m not.”
Savage grunts, and then, in a pirate voice, says, “A feisty wench, now, isn’t she? She’ll bite your hand off if you let her.”
To my surprise and pleasure, Alana laughs, because the truth is, Savage says the stupidest shit that no one else would get away with. “Did you just call me a wench?” she challenges, and her voice is stronger now, her cheeks pinched with color that wasn’t there a few minutes ago.
“A wench is, by definition, a lady ,” Savage assures her. “But who really wants to be called a lady? Not me, I’ll tell you.”
“I’m pretty sure no one will call you a lady, Savage,” Alana says, her lips tilted up and her eyes alight over his silliness.
She finishes off the gel, and when I claim the empty container from her, she points a playful finger at me. “If you call me a wench, I’ll have to punish you.”
“Oh no,” Savage says, holding up his hands. “None of the sex talk with me around. You’ll make me miss my wife.” He pulls out a syringe. “Let’s get the bloodwork done so you two can go home and bang the headboard, and I can do the same.”
Alana snorts at his shocking boldness, and by the time she stops laughing, he’s drawn her blood, and not only does she tolerate it well, she seems wildly better now. Her eyes are brighter, her energy level improved. “I’m actually hungry now,” Alana announces, pressing her hand to her belly.
“Then you need to eat,” Savage approves. “And at this point, I’m done with you, but I’ll feel better if I escort you both to your place.”
Alana’s foot begins to tap, and her hand settles on her chest just below her neck, her jovial mood fading into palpable edginess. “Because you think they’ll attack us, or because you think I’m going to pass out?” she asks.
I squeeze her legs, drawing her attention to me, and only when she fixes her pretty blue eyes on me do I say, “They’re not coming back. It’s over.”
She rejects my answer without a prelude. “This one incident might be over, but the war is not. It won’t be over until we end it, and him, and we didn’t this time. He almost ended me.”
The word almost cuts me as deeply as shards of broken glass. This event could have ended differently. She could be gone, the woman I love with all that I am, ripped from this world and my life. It all drives home the foolish way I drove us apart, forced our distance, and just simply believed that life without me would be better for her, if not miserable for me. But my father somehow knew that I’d never let her go, and therefore, he never let her go.
Would have, could have, should have is always a dangerous mental pattern to travel, but I can’t help but do so now. If I’d forced a confrontation over her sooner, maybe, just maybe, we wouldn’t be at war now, and we are at war. Maybe I was wrong about his plans. Maybe he did want to end her—end all of this once and for all—but I will never say that to Alana. I’ll stick with the story I’ve told myself—the one I won’t give my father a chance to prove wrong again. “He didn’t want to end you. That was never his plan.”
“Just torture me?” she challenges, but newfound fear darts through her eyes, and her body stiffens. “Oh God. My mother—”
“Will be on a plane to Italy later tonight,” Blake interjects, stepping into view. “I sent our man, Joey, to deliver her to a close friend up there who will protect her until this is over.”
“When is that?” Alana asks. “When will this ever be over?” She curls her fingers around the T-shirt I’m wearing and hisses at me, “And don’t say when you kill your father. Don’t go there again. There’s another answer.” She glances between Blake and Savage before repeating, “There’s another answer.”
Maybe , I think. Or maybe not.
She releases me and presses her hand to her head. “And my head is throbbing.”
“You need to eat,” I say, pulling her to her feet and successfully dodging the topic of my father’s demise, but now we’re on the topic of the elevator.
I fold her close and capture a loose strand of her hair, caressing it behind her ear. “Do you remember the elevator coming down here?”
“No.” Her brows knit. “Why?”
“It’s tight, but we’ll do it together, okay?”
“I don’t care about the elevator. I just want out of here, whatever that takes, and if I never come back to this building, it will be too soon.”
My hands settle on her waist. “I’ll be with you if you do, just like I will be on the elevator.”
“I’m not afraid of the elevator, Damion. My claustrophobia is not that bad.”
Pride fills me with the bravery behind those words after what just happened to her and the fact that her phobia is real, no matter how much she might want to deny it. I lift my chin at Blake and then Savage. “I’ll go up first in case you get sick on the ride up,” Savage offers.
“I’m not going to have an issue,” Alana objects. “I’m fine now. Really.”
“A feisty wench, for sure,” Savage replies to the scowl she shoots him and offers a wink in return before he heads toward the elevator.
“I’ll have Savage on-call tonight,” Blake says, “and we’ll have a team watching you. I’ll be by in the morning to talk through what comes next.”
I have a lot to say about what comes next, but I keep it to myself right now and focus on Alana, securing my arm around her waist and guiding her away from Blake, who I appreciate but I’m also losing patience with. Had I dealt with my father before now, this might not have happened. No one will stop me from protecting Alana ever again.
And anyone who tries will not be pleased with the results, and that includes Blake Walker.