Steele: Into Your Heart (Carolina Bad Boys #3 (30 page)

“Swollen abdomen.”

“Possible fractured or broken ribs.”

“Vitals weak but holding.”

I stood against the wall as they brought in a stretcher, my eyes never leaving Ashe.

She didn’t wake up.

They hung IVs and placed monitors.

She didn’t wake up.

From the moment I’d reluctantly moved from Ashe’s side to the time she was rolled out on a gurney, I felt like I was in a fog.

When they pushed her into the waiting ambulance I snapped back to life. “I’m getting on that goddamn rig with her. I’m next of kin.”

The paramedic made a million excuses, but I stood my ground.

Boomer bared his teeth beside me. “You heard the man.”

Vigil

A FULL SQUAD OF Crown Vics and police cruisers met the ambulance after we sped to the same goddamn hospital downtown that had seen the birth of Jolie Stone and the death of Myra Loveland.

They wheeled Ashe’s stretcher straight back between two swinging doors, the paramedics shouting all kinds of medical info to the nurses and doctors who had run out to meet her.

Within minutes of her disappearing behind closed doors, I paced the waiting room, staring at my cracked, bloody fists.

When I saw Davies making his way toward me, I sprang like an uncaged beast. I shoved him against the wall, snarling in his face—the one that was unbruised, unharmed, and still goddamn fucking clean-shaven.

“Where were you? Where were you, you useless . . .” I tore myself off him with curse. I wanted to call him
pig
, but that would disrespect Ashe, too. I jabbed his chest with two hard fingers. “Where were you, Davies, when Ashe was getting kicked and hit and abused? Where the goddamn motherfucking
hell
were you when she was rolled inside a stinkin’ rug and shoved inside a car trunk?” I pushed my face against his. “WHY WASN’T IT YOU?”

The spit-shined Boy Wonder blinked at me and swallowed. He looked at the floor then back at me, and his lips set in a grim line. “You will never know how much I wish it was me in Kingston’s place.”

His cop cronies watched us as they took up more and more space in the small room. They waited to see how this would play out. With more blood spilled or . . .

We all had one thing in common. Concern for Ashe. That was the only reason I stepped back from Davies.

I rolled my neck. “If I’m not around, I expect someone capable to look out for Ashe. If that isn’t you, she needs a new partner.”

“I understand.”

“Just so we’re clear? I will end your fucking life if something like this happens again while you’re on watch with my woman.” I made my parting shot.

After an endless amount of clock-watching, Boomer, Cole, and Hunter stomped inside the white-tiled, white-walled room. The three big dudes in black leather looked as beaten up as I felt. They cut a path through the milling cops.

We exchanged hard hugs. Even though Cole wasn’t yet cut from the same MC cloth, he was part of the brotherhood now.

“Tell me about Dirk.” I led the way to a huddle of chairs in the corner.

“In custody. Different hospital. Twenty-four-hour guard.” Hunter dropped into a seat like the weight of the world pressed him down.

“I didn’t bash his brains in then?”

“Near enough.” Boomer sat tense in his chair, a lethal weapon still waiting to be uncoiled.

“What’s next with the cunt?”

“Trial. He’s not getting out of this.” A muscle flexed in Hunter’s jaw.

“I’d prefer it if he wasn’t getting out of a pineboard coffin,” I said.

“Could still be arranged.” Cole’s eyes glittered with a feral light.

Probie was growing on me.

In return for the info about Dirk, I filled them in on what I knew about Ashe’s condition, which so far was absolutely fucking nothing and about to make me mental.

Finally one of the doctors I recognized from earlier swept through the pair of doors. “I’m looking for Broderick Steele.”

“That’s me!” I raced to her, almost plowing her down.

“Mr. Steele, I’m Doctor Delaney. Detective Kingston has some internal bleeding in her abdomen so we’re prepping her for surgery now. She has several deep lacerations on her head, and we’re keeping an eye on those for the moment.”

“How long will surgery take?” I forced the words out through numb lips.

“We’re not sure, but please know she’s getting the best possible care.”

I watched the doors shut behind Doc Delaney, and I’d never felt more helpless in my life. I growled and pulled my fist back to punch the wall, but Boomer caught my arm. “I got a better idea than going ballistic. Go get those hands taken care of.”

The thought of leaving my vigil for Ashe made my stomach churn.

“Brodie. You can’t do anything here right now. When she wakes up, she’s gonna need you. You really want Ashe to see your hands all messed up because of what went down?”

“Yeah. All right. Do me a favor while I’m gone?”

“You got it, bro.”

“Call Cat and let her know what’s going on?” I rubbed my forehead. “I feel so bad. I forgot all about Cara.”

“Hey, you’ve been a little preoccupied. I’ll take care of it,” he said.

I got my cuts cleaned, stitched, and bandaged. I returned to the waiting room. It was a sea of cops in standard issue dark blues, some of the plain clothes I recognized from the station, and my MC dudes clad in black leather. Bikers usually got a bad rap from police and generally felt the same in return. Not this time. They sat together and stood talking quietly, everyone brought together by shared concern for Ashe.

I noticed quite a few of the guys—mine and theirs—had small gauze squares taped to the insides of their elbows. They’d been giving blood. I asked for an update from Boomer, but he had nothing so I went in search of Tucker.

Upstairs in the donor center, I found him. I lowered down beside him. He didn’t say a single word as he squeezed the little rubber ball in his hand to keep the blood flowing from his veins. He merely reached over, patted the side of my face, and then brought my forehead to his.

We sat that way for a long time, until I nodded and quickly used my sleeve to dry my eyes.

Sipowicz cornered me in the waiting room when I went back down. His polyester suit was even more wrinkled than usual, and the bags under his eyes were puffy. “I don’t condone what you did. But I’m damn glad you did it.” I shook the hand he offered and started to walk away, but he wasn’t about to let me off the hook just like that. “Now you have to go give your statement.”

Fuck
. That was so not what I needed after an endless night that was beginning to turn into a new day, still with no word on Ashe’s surgery.

I had no choice but to go along with Sipowicz, who escorted me to another hallway, with yet more closed doors. Hunter and Boomer exited opposite rooms, and I assumed Cole was being held up somewhere, too. In my own special cubicle of hell I sat across from two cops, tapping my fingers on the table. I had to hand it to them, the officers kept my questioning brief and to the point, and I was done and dusted within half an hour.

The waiting room now packed to the gills, I asked every nurse, orderly, or doctor-looking person I could find for any news on Ashe. They had nothing, and my nerves were starting to shred. My head pounded. My lips got tighter and tighter. I really needed to lash out at something. Someone. Maybe locate Dirk and kick the shit out of him a second, third, fourth time.

I was considering the smarts of going that route when I heard, “Brodie! Brodie! Where’s my mom?”

I turned to see Cara weaving through the cops and bikers, Cat and Nick right behind her. Crouching down, I captured her in my arms as she barreled into my chest. Tears streamed down her face, wetting my shirt as I held her.

“Where is she? Is she okay?”

“
Shh
, baby girl. She’s going to be fine. She is.” I buried my face in her hair and rocked her, reassuring her while not feeling one bit sure myself. “Hey, let’s go grab a seat, okay?”

The guys parted the way, and I sat with her in my lap. Cat carefully took my hand, and Nick angled in close on her other side. I gave Cara a very clean, PG-version of Ashe getting hurt in the line of duty, working to keep my emotion deep inside so I didn’t scare her.

The minutes ticked by, and I felt them in every pulse of my heart. Stroking Cara’s hair, I watched the swinging doors, almost unblinkingly.

Finally, in the early hours of the morning, Doctor Delaney emerged. She made her way straight for me. Standing, I placed Cara on her feet and kept her hand tucked in mine.

“Can we not do this here?” I asked. “This is Ashe’s daughter.”

The doctor glanced at Cara with kindly eyes then motioned for me to follow her.

“Brodie, I’m scared,” Cara whispered with a sniffle.

I squatted down. “Hey, you don’t need to be, okay? Your mom is kind of a superhero, right?”

She nodded, and my throat constricted.

“Cat and Nick and Boomer are right here, not to mention my Retribution dudes and practically the whole police department. See? Tons of people all lookin’ out for you.”

Releasing my hand, she let Cat pull her into a hug. The doctor ushered me down a long, busy corridor. She motioned me into an office and shut us inside.

“First, I want to say I’m so very sorry to have to tell you this.”

I swayed on my feet and reached out to the wall to steady myself. “What?” There was no way, no possible fucking way I could do this life without Ashe.

“Detective Kingston . . . lost a lot of blood. There’s no easy way to say this. She hemorrhaged from her uterus. She lost the baby, Mr. Steele.”

Shock hit me with the news, but I needed to know about Ashe. “Please tell me. Please just tell me. Is she alive?”

“She’s alive.”

The room spun as I closed my eyes in relief. Then a muffled sob broke out of my chest. “She was pregnant?”

“I’m sorry. You didn’t know?”

I shook my head, the bitter taste of bile rising up my throat.

“She may not have known herself. It was very early. We performed a thorough examination. Everything looks normal, and she should heal fine. There’s no reason to think she won’t be able to get pregnant again in the future. Were you trying?”

“Not yet.”

She nodded. “I understand. Accidents happen.”

“The baby wouldn’t have been an accident.” My voice rasped from inside my throat.

Doctor Delaney handed me a tissue and offered me a bottle of water from a mini fridge behind her desk. I took both gratefully.

“Mr. Steele—”

“Please. Just call me Brodie.”

“We have a few other concerns right now, Brodie.”

I moved stiffly to a chair and sank into it. “Give it to me.”

Delaney sat on the edge of her desk. “Because of the trauma to Ashe’s head there is some swelling of her brain. She’ll be in a medically induced coma until it goes down, and we’ll be keeping a close eye on her. It will be a day or two at least before we bring her out of sedation.”

“Okay.” I gripped the bottle of water and tried not to crush it between my hands.

“She has two cracked ribs but no broken bones, which is miraculous, considering. Facial contusions needed a few stitches, but she should heal nicely.”

“I understand.”

“One other thing. We were advised the crime might have been sexual in nature.”

I didn’t think I could swallow down any more pain for what Ashe had been through. My eyes filled, but I took a shaky breath and nodded.

“We used a rape kit. It seems she was sexually assaulted—there is some bruising to her outer labia—but no signs of forced penetration. She was not raped.”

I pressed my knuckles to my mouth, wishing one more time I’d killed Dirk, blown his fucking head clean off.

“She will need OT and, of course, counseling as well as a very understanding partner to help her through this ordeal. We noted she’s been shot before?”

“Twice.”

“Ashe is strong. She’ll make it. She has you and her daughter.” Delaney peered at me, her eyes soft and understanding.

“When can I see her?” I asked, on the verge of losing my shit unless I laid eyes on Ashe pronto.

“I’ll take you to her now. Please remember—”

“I don’t care about tubes, or monitors, or catheters or any of that other crap. I just need to hold her hand.”

I paused at the door to Ashe’s room, taking a moment to let relief replace the gut-wrenching fear that had wracked my body for hours on end. When I walked inside, the bandages and the IVs and the beeping meant one thing: she was alive.

Sucking in a harsh breath, I fell to my knees beside her bed. I placed my hand over hers, gently, so gently. Brushing her cheek with my lips, I whispered against her ear, “I’m here, baby. I’m here.”