Chapter 9 #2
Rian’s making a call as calmly as a man ordering takeout, while bleeding heavily.
"It's me. Roof's compromised, aerial assault, none down on our side, at least three on theirs.
I'm taking her to the vault. Get me the doc and gather whoever is close enough to mount a response.
" A pause. "I'm fine." Another pause, shorter and harder.
"I said I'm fine, Ransom. I need to go."
As soon as he hangs up, he presses another button and the elevator drops. I grip the railing we fly down past the penthouse, the lobby, the parking levels. When doors open again to cool concrete, I wonder what level we’re on. A sub-basement of a sub-basement, maybe.
The second we step inside, I lose my grip on whatever held me together up on the roof.
"You're bleeding," I say. My voice climbs. "You're bleeding a lot, you got shot, someone shot you, there were men coming from a helicopter. Rian, there was a drone–"
There's blood on my sleeve, I realize. And shit, more of it is dribbling sluggishly from the hole in Rian's arm. I should be fully panicking by now. But somehow, the thought my brain chooses to surface, fully formed, is that I never got to use the bathroom. That's it.
Forty minutes of fine dining, a near-death experience coupled with an assassination attempt, and all I can think about is how I have to pee.
"Breathe." He lowers himself into a chair, grimacing, finally letting the pain show now there's a wall between us and the world. "Is that your blood? It’d better not be."
"It’s yours, you lunatic." I grit my teeth.
“Good.” His eyes glitter. “No one else’s blood touches your skin.”
“You’re such a caveman.” I wave a finger in his face. “If you die from a wound you got while protecting me, I’ll reanimate your corpse so I can kill you again.”
He just grunts. "Look, Noemi, it’s not that bad. I'm not bleeding out. The bullet went through the meat. Worst case, I'm annoyed for a few weeks." He nods at a cabinet on the wall. "There’s a medical kit in there. Bring it here and you can yell at me all you like while you make yourself useful."
My hands are beyond shaky as I bring it. Honestly, I’m shocked I’m not in a full-blown panic attack. I ease his shirt off and look at the wound. It’s ugly, a ragged, bloody tear in his flesh. He has a lot of intricately swirled tattoos on his bicep and the bullet made a mess of the once-pretty ink.
It does appear to have gone in cleanly, through-and-through, like he said.
“I have zero experience with gunshot wounds,” I say, eyeing his arm. “But I did get a Girl Scout badge for first aid.”
Rian tilts his head. “Get to it, then, pretty girl.”
“Sit on the exam table.” Stripping off my coat, I wash my hands thoroughly in the large farmhouse sink, then set to work. Fast as I can, I clean it and pack it, winding a pressure bandage around his arm while he watches me with an expression I can't read.
“Am I good?”
I roll my eyes at him. “Hardly.”
“Eh.” He shrugs his uninjured shoulder. “Feels like I’ll live.”
Ransom comes strolling in, immaculate and furious.
He’s wearing an expensive suit and seems like he’s seconds away from blowing a fuse.
His brother, I think it’s Hale, is right behind him, looking like he sprinted here and possibly killed someone on the way.
He’s wearing a sleeveless shirt and dark jeans despite the frigid weather.
I duck behind Rian. He grabs my hand and rubs soothing circles into it.
"Tell me," Ransom says to Rian. “That you did not take her to the Perch."
Rian says, completely deadpan, "She wanted to get out of the penthouse."
Ransom pinches the bridge of his nose. "You are the most paranoid man I’ve ever employed. And yet you took a girl we’re trying to hide to a rooftop with glass walls because she wanted to get out of the penthouse?"
"It was a controlled space." Rian shifts, then winces. "Private. Plus we had ten bodyguards."
"And thank fuck you did." Hale's voice is a low rasp. "You're slipping, O'Sullivan. Two months ago, you'd have shot yourself before you let her past the lobby."
"Down, boy," Ransom says, but there's no heat in it. Hale almost smiles and Ransom chuckles.
Fucking psychos, all of them.
I look between the three of them. “I can’t believe that Anders Vitelli is going to such lengths to get to me.”
“Maybe.” Ransom purses his lips. "They might have a source who’s feeling chatty about you. Or maybe about Rian?"
“I’ll find out who it is.” Hale grins and cracks his very scarred knuckles. “Don’t worry.”
I can’t do anything but believe him.
Rian says, “I’m going to lock your ass down until this is all over with. If you thought I was overprotective before, you have no idea what’s coming."
He says it casually, as if I needed to be more nervous.
I eye him. “We can talk about this later. Privately.”
Ransom coughs to cover his laugh. "Good luck with trying to tell him anything.
" He turns for the door. "We've got cleanup.
The roof's a fucking mess. I want to know which downstairs door those three snuck in through.
Bernard's on his way down for that arm.” He turns to me.
“Don't let him pretend he doesn't need stitches. "
“And for fuck’s sake, don’t go anywhere but here or the penthouse,” Hale finishes.
“Yeah, yeah,” Rian says. He turns toward me, touching my arm. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Just sit still, you madman.” I step around him, sinking onto the other side of the exam table. Taking a deep breath, I lay my head on his uninjured shoulder. My head throbs.
There’s been so much action in the last two hours that I can’t possibly keep up. He slides his arm around, hugging me to him.
And we just sit in silence.
A doctor I'm getting unsettlingly familiar with shows up and stitches Rian's arm and clucks at him. Once he leaves, the all-clear comes down from somewhere. We drag ourselves back up to the penthouse inside a moving wall of armed men.
The apartment looks exactly like it did when we left, which feels obscene. There should be some evidence. Three men died. Rian has a hole in his arm.
And yet, the kitchen still smells faintly of the croissants we had this morning.
Even after he kicks the bodyguards out of the penthouse, Rian will not sit down. He prowls the perimeter, checking locks I watched the guards check. He holds his bandaged arm close to his side and he’s actually limping a little bit.
I realize he won't stop until he physically can't continue.
"Bed," I order Rian. “Come on. Let’s go.”
He stands up straighter. "I'm fine."
"You got shot keeping me alive. Lie down before you fall down. Now."
To my genuine shock, he listens. Maybe it's the blood loss.
We end up in his room, in his bed. He stretches out beside me, careful with his arm, staring at the ceiling the way he did in the blue room. I lie next to him, scooting closer and laying my head on his chest.
“Is this okay?”
“More than okay. I’ve been aching to hold you, Noemi.”
I sigh. “This is a mess. We’re a mess.”
“I know. Fuck, you should hate me.”
“Hate you?” I glance up at him. “Are you sure you didn’t slam your head into something while we were running for our lives? Maybe get a bad concussion?”
He gives me a humorless smile. “As opposed to all the fun, lighthearted concussions I’ve had?”
“You’re a laugh riot. You know, without you, I'd be dead. Several times over by now. In a box, or in the river, or bleeding on a rooftop. You're the reason I'm not."
His jaw works. “You think I’m just going to lay back and accept your praise? I’m a killer. I’m insane. A murderer who talks to himself. And I think… I think I would’ve kidnapped you eventually if you hadn't been taken first.”
“Hey.” I turn Rian’s head with two fingers, forcing him to look at me. “That didn’t happen. Okay? You can’t sit around and mope about what you might have done.”
His eyes pin me in place. “You’re too pure, Noemi. Too sweet.”
My eyes dip to his lips before I yank them away. Not right now. I’m not allowed to be horny for this guy when he’s wounded.
"Take a painkiller," I say. "The doctor left them. You're allowed to not be in agony."
"I don't like them,” he protests. “They make me feel dull."
"I don't like watching you grit your teeth every time you breathe. We're both going to have to compromise." I get up, find the bottle, bring him one with a glass of water, and stand over him until he takes it. With a put-upon sigh that's almost funny, he does.
I lie back down on his good side, where I won't jostle the arm, and I press myself against him. My cheek rests over the steady beat of his heart. His uninjured arm comes up and wraps around me like it has always been there. It feels good.
Right. Is that crazy? I’ve only known this man for over a week.
The painkiller does its work and his body relaxes, muscle by muscle. The hypervigilance bleeds out of him until he's just an oversized man falling asleep beside me. He snores very lightly in my ear.
And I just lie here, grateful that he didn’t die today so I could have a fancy salad somewhere vaguely more stimulating.
God. I should be plotting my exit. The deal was, the day it's safe, I'm gone. I meant it when I said it. I think I still mean it.
But it's hard to hold onto that thought in a bed that smells like him, under the weight of an arm that took a bullet for me, in a building where a man clearly pines for me.
This is terrible and traitorous, but I could get used to this. Being kept. If being kept means he's always here, then maybe the cage isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me.
Maybe it's the safest I've ever been.
Beside me, Rian sleeps the sleep of a man who has no idea I might be revising the terms.