Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Did it go okay? Is he alright?”
“We’re not getting a lot of information. No one is family. He’s got no next of kin listed. What we do know is what Fallon has bribed out of the staff.”
But he was alive.
That was something, right?
“Why would you bring me there?”
Rune watched me for a long moment, the look in his eyes wise beyond his years.
“I think we both know why.”
“How long have you known?”
“A while,” he said, shrugging.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“It’s not my business.”
“There are rules.”
“Pretty sure you two are the ones breaking them, not me.”
“Except for now.”
“Yeah, well, this would just be a slap on the wrist. Here,” he said, striding away to one of the many white metal storage cabinets and coming back with an outfit inside a sealed bag.
Cream sweats.
Rune helped me get the pants up over the bandages on my legs, then helped me get to my feet so I could pull them all the way back up.
It was right then that we heard footsteps.
“Shit,” Rune hissed.
Then there was my mom, the image of what I was going to look like in a few years.
In short… lovely.
She paused, taking in the scene, then exhaled hard. “Are you sneaking her out to see him?” she asked, long strides taking her right to Rune’s side.
“Yeah.”
“Well, we better hurry up.”
She snatched up the sweatshirt, pulling it down over my head before untying my hospital gown and slipping it out from under the shirt.
“How are you getting her out without one of the guards seeing?”
“Why can’t I just leave?” I asked. “If Cameron has been dealt with?”
“Fallon just wants to make sure there are no other threats from his former crew,” Rune explained. “The girls are mostly still here. Except for Kit and Ria. But they tapped out a few days ago.”
“Wait… how?” Protection was always mandatory for us.
“Dunno. They talked to Chris. Chris sent guards to the farm. Which is good because the club didn’t know what the fuck they were doing with all the animals. Was funny as fuck to watch my brother get chased by a pack of geese, though. One of ‘em bit him right in the ass when he tripped over a rake.”
A laugh bubbled up out of me at that.
But then my mom was yanking my hoodie over my head and reaching in to tuck my hair away. “Since the girls are still here, most of the guards aren’t going to give you a second look.”
“Just keep your head down,” Rune added.
“I’m going to go distract your father,” my mom said, giving me a quick squeeze then rushing away.
“Alright, so I can see how we’re getting through the halls,” I said, following beside Rune as we moved through the twisting inner world of Hailstorm’s compound, “but how are you going to sneak me into a car and out of here?”
“Got my brother running distraction at the gate. You’re gonna hide under a blanket in the backseat, but I doubt they’re going to look.”
With that, we made our way out of one of the side doors where he had the SUV pulled up right to it.
Really, it was surprisingly easy. Enough that I was shocked one of us hadn’t attempted it in the past.
I guess because we knew we wanted to be safe.
“Hey,” Rune said after rolling down his window at the gate, “I’m gonna head out. See if you can catch a ride back when you’re done.”
Croft made some kind of joke that had the guard laughing and hitting the gate button.
And that was it.
We were out.
“You can sit up,” Rune said when we were halfway down the hill.
“Do you think they’re going to let me in looking like this?” I asked, pulling down my hood.
“The worst of it is hidden by the sweats. But I think it might work in your favor. Say you were there with him, that you were getting treatment, that you want to see your husband.”
“My husband?”
“Right. Here. Rings,” he said, handing them back to me.
“But Perish doesn’t have a ring.”
“They’re probably not going to think about it that much. You look like crap. You’ve clearly been crying. You know his name and room number. They’re gonna let you in.”
“Why didn’t the club bring him to Hailstorm?”
Rune’s jaw tightened.
“The hospital was closer.”
But hospitals meant mandatory reporting, cops, questions. That meant that Perish was likely in even worse shape than I thought.
A little sob escaped me, making Rune’s gaze look at me in the rearview. “He survived surgery. That’s a good sign.”
I nodded, but that didn’t stop the tears as we drove to the hospital.
And Rune was right; they worked in my favor when I made my way onto the ICU where he was being cared for after surgery.
I tried not to think that meant he was at serious risk of death as I moved into the room and listened to the steady, slow beat of his heart on the monitor before I could make my way over.