Chapter 55 #2
“Where’s Leo?” I ask, checking Gage for a pulse. It is weak, but it’s there. I try not to slump in relief. He needs an ambulance. Now. “Dex, call nine-one-one, then call Doc. We can’t take care of this at home.” Dex nods and whips out his phone.
“Asleep.”
“Wake him up. Now.” Holden doesn’t answer, but I can hear him run from the room. “Gage. Goddamnit, don’t die on me.”
There is too much blood, and he’s so damn pale; his usually smiling face is slack.
“Fifteen minutes,” Dex says, sticking his head back in. “We can’t be here.”
“We can’t fucking leave him!”
“Ryder,” Dex says harshly. “Doc will meet them there. We’ll wait until we hear sirens, then we can follow them to the hospital, then find Les.”
I don’t even want to think about that. If Gage is this bad and Les is missing, they were ambushed. Could Viktor have organized that fast?
“What’s going on?” Leo’s voice filters through, and I fill him in as fast as possible. “I’ll meet him at the hospital.” I hear him gulp. “Is he going to die, Ryder?”
“No. He’s not,” I say adamantly. Mainly to soothe him but also to soothe myself. “He’s not, Leo, and we will find Les.”
Fifteen minutes is too damn long, so between Dex and me, we lay Gage back in the seat, and his eyelids don’t even flutter.
The front of his white shirt is drenched in blood, and I can’t even begin to look for a wound.
Dex pulls out a knife, flips it open, and slits Gage’s shirt.
What I see makes me want to fucking fall apart.
“Fuck,” Dex whispers, and I can see him fighting it too.
“What is it?” Leo demands, and I can hear him moving through the house.
Gage has a hole in his chest that’s pouring blood. I whip my shirt off and jam it against the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. There are two more bullet wounds, one on his shoulder and one in his stomach.
“Ryder!” Leo yells when I don’t answer. I close my eyes because I don’t know what to tell him. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
I meet Dex’s anguished eyes again. “It’s bad, Leo,” I tell him honestly.
“Fuck,” Leo whispers. “What about Les? You have to find her.”
“We will, Leo,” Dex promises, and I can see murder in his eyes.
“Was this Viktor?” Micah’s voice cuts in. Holden must have grabbed him too.
“I don’t know!” I say miserably, pushing more pressure against the wound. “I don’t fucking know.”
“We need to move,” Dex says, listening to the sirens wailing in the distance. He levels me with a look when I don’t move. “Now!”
“Don’t die on me, Gage,” I say again, kissing his forehead. “You can’t fucking die.”
We take off toward my car, skidding to stop beside it and diving in.
I pull it into drive and hit the gas before Dex’s door is even shut.
We drive down to the next and pull into a parking lot, so I can still see everything going on.
I hate this. We never call the fucking ambulance because cops come with them.
But we can’t do this ourselves, Gage needs serious help, and we can’t provide that.
We watch as the paramedics hop into action. Before long, Gage is being loaded up in the ambulance, and they’re pulling away. I can feel my heart being pulled with it.
“They’re on their way,” I tell them on the phone. “We will meet you there.”
“Go find my niece,” Micah growls. “We will take care of Gage. Holden’s staying at the house, trying to narrow his search on her phone. Bring her home.”
Dex and I share a look. “On it.”
“Take care of yourself,” Micah says softly. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know something.”
I agree and hang up. I take a second to collect my thoughts before calling Holden back. I know Micah can handle this, but I feel torn. I need to find Les, but I need to make sure Gage is okay.
“Micah’s got this,” Dex assures me.
“I can’t do this, Dex.”
He grabs my arm and squeezes. “We need to keep it together for Les and Gage. Micah is Gage’s contact on everything, and he’ll take care of that. We’ll take care of Les.”
I can feel my whole world crumbling. “There was so much fucking blood in her seat.”
“Man, don’t freak out on me,” Dex says harshly. “I’m barely holding it together. Put the fucking car in drive and call Holden. NOW!”
Something about that whip crack in his voice has me pulling myself together. I angrily swipe the tears from my eyes and do what he says. As soon as I speed out onto the road, I call Holden.
“Take the next left,” he says as soon as he answers. I take a sharp left, cut a car off, and stomp on the gas. “Go straight three miles,” he says, tapping at the keys on his keyboard.
“Bello,” I say softly.
“No,” he barks, “Don’t do that right now. Keep driving. She’s fine. I don’t need you to baby me; I need you to fucking find Les.”
I slam my foot on the gas and wait for his next instructions. We take three more lefts and a right and drive ten miles before he yells for us to stop. It’s an abandoned lot with nothing in sight. We jump out of the car and take off running. “It’s right there! To your right!”
Dex and I desperately search; I feel myself growing impatient when Dex stands up with Les’ phone in his hand. “Someone dumped it.”
I spin around in a circle, trying to glimpse that silken black hair. If someone dumped the phone, they knew we can track it. And if they dumped it and then took her, she’s in serious trouble. “I need to call Zane.”
“I’ll try to crack into his. All police departments have tracking on those phones,” Holden replies and hangs up.
I dial Zane’s, and it goes straight to voicemail. I dial it repeatedly while Dex and I search every square inch of the lot. We keep getting weird looks when people ride by, seeing a giant and a guy with no shirt. My phone pings with a text message, and I have to swallow the disappointment.
Micah
They took him straight back to surgery. Anything?
They dumped her phone. I can’t get ahold of Zane. Holden is trying to track him.
Micah
Let me know. We have to find her.
I know, and we will.
I can’t imagine what Micah is going through right now. She might be the girl we love, but this is his niece; they’re the only family they have left.
My phone rings, and I jerk it back to my ear without looking. “Hello?”
“His phone is there too,” Holden says. “Why would his phone be there?”
That’s a damn good question. Gage and Les were going to meet him to drop off Nina, and then Zane would have been going the opposite way. What the fuck is going on?
We follow Holden’s directions and find his phone about twenty feet from where Les’ was, buried under some rubble, which is why we didn’t find it in our search.
I scoop it up and try to power it back on.
The phone looks scratched but otherwise unharmed.
We run back to the car, and I jam a charger back into it, waiting for the logo to pop up that it’s loading.
“It has a fucking password,” I bark at Holden.
“I can get in it,” he assures me. “I’m searching for all the security and street cams they would have passed. We will find her.”
Whoever took her better hope we find her without a hair harmed on her head. Because if they hurt her?
This whole fucking world will burn until they pay for it.