“I’ll stay with you,” Verek offers from behind me.
“Thanks,” I tell him over my shoulder with a nod of my chin.
“If you’re sure?” Charlotte asks. “I know Tessa and I both would feel safer with you here. She thinks…she keeps saying that those men are going to find her again.”
“We’ll sit outside her room, and no one without a legitimate hospital badge will get past us,” I assure her and am rewarded with another quick peck on the lips.
“Then I guess I’ll see you in the morning?” she asks.
“I’ll see you then,” I promise her before she turns around and walks out of the waiting room.
“Verek and I are staying, but the rest of you should go on home and get some sleep,” I tell my guys.
“What about the fuckers responsible?” Winston asks.
“Tomorrow, we’ll start hunting them down until we find all four of them who were in the van and anyone else who knew what they were doing.”
Everyone nods their heads in agreement, all of them wanting revenge as much as I do, before they say their goodbyes and head out.
“Do the Emerald Isle Kings know we’re in town?” Verek asks.
“Yes. Marcus gave all the chapters an update and told the originals we were in their state. Torin said to let him know if we need anything.”
“Good,” he replies with a sigh.
“So why are you staying?” I ask him.
“You saw her, prez,” he replies. “That shit was wrong on so many levels. Tessa told the paramedics she saw their faces, all of them. They weren’t planning on letting these women go alive.” Lowering his voice, he says, “What if they do come back to try and silence them?”
“I didn’t know all of that, or I would’ve had more men watch the doors,” I admit. “Grab a chair and let’s get down the hall. I think all the women are on the same floor. We’ll keep watch there.”
“Good,” Verek says.
We both pick up one of the waiting room chairs and head toward Tessa’s room where we place them directly across from each other in the hallway.
“Guess we can take turns sleeping.”
“No need,” Verek says as he takes his seat and I lower myself into my own. “I’m wide the fuck awake.”
“Me too.”
“Do you think we should call some of the guys back to watch the parking lot?” he asks, glancing up and down the hall.
“Nah, I think we can handle it.”
“Yeah,” he agrees.
“They would have to be idiots to show their faces here.”
“Or ruthless,” Verek mutters. “That’s why I’m not sleeping a wink tonight.”
“Me either, man. Me either.”
Chapter Ten
Charlotte
* * *
The next morning, the doctor comes in bright and early for an exam closely followed by a woman, who identifies herself as a psychologist. Since they asked me to step outside, I go out into the hall, intending to find some coffee to get awake after only nodding off on the cot for a few minutes at a time.
I had no idea I would find Roman and Verek sitting in chairs in the hallway. Roman told me that he would sit outside her room, and he literally did.
“Hey,” I say to them.
“Hey,” Roman replies, his eyelids heavy and voice gruffer than normal.
One minute I’m standing, and the next he’s pulling me down onto his lap and burying his face in my hair while his arms lock tightly around my waist. “Did you sleep any?”
“Not much. You?” I ask, enjoying his strong arms and warmth more than I should.
“Nah, but that’s okay,” he says. “Saw the doc and shrink go in.”
“Yeah, we’ll see what they say after talking to Tessa this morning.”
“Verek, you mind going to get us some coffee?” Roman asks the other man, who is slumped in the chair across from us, arms crossed over his chest.
“On it,” he agrees when he gets to his feet and stretches his arms over his head, so tall he can nearly touch the ceiling. The stretching shifts his cut around, revealing the gun holster underneath his arm. After he walks away, I reach underneath Roman’s left arm and find a similar holster holding a hard object that can only be a firearm.
“You’re wearing a gun?” I whisper to him.
“Always,” he says. “I have a concealed carry permit, although no one is supposed to have them in hospitals.”
“How did I not know that?” I ask.
“Is that a problem?” he asks, brushing my hair back behind my shoulder.
“No,” I tell him. “I mean, after what happened, I may consider getting one myself.”
“Only if you know how to use one.”
“Maybe you could teach me,” I suggest.
“Yeah, I could…” he trails off as we both think the same thing. Today, Tessa and I may be going home to Raleigh, and I don’t know if I’ll see Roman again.
Before either of us can discuss it further, the hospital door opens, and the doctors come out.
“So?” I jump up off Roman’s lap to ask them.
“Physically, I would feel confident in releasing her to go home,” he starts. “But mentally…”
“We think Tessa would do better to transition into a therapeutic center,” the psychiatrist explains. “Some place with tough security, group and one-on-one therapy sessions. Thirty days would be the least amount of time I would recommend, with six months being the longest.”
“You want to commit her?” I whisper.
“No, it’s not an involuntary commitment or anything like that. It’s completely voluntary, and it’s more of a rehabilitation to help Tessa feel safe to return to her normal life. Right now she doesn’t, and she’s verbalizing some severely paranoid thoughts that may be exacerbated if she tries to return to her normal life too quickly.”
“And she wants to go to this place?”
“Yes, she seemed very interested, as did the other women. The only problem is that it costs around twenty thousand a month, and she had concerns about her health insurance that she wanted us to check into.”
“I’ll pay it,” Roman speaks up and says.
“What? No, you don’t have to do that,” I tell him.
“I want to. For all of the women,” he declares. To the doctors, he says, “If this is what they want to do and it’s what you think is best for them, then just tell me where to send the money.”
“I would be happy to provide you with the contact information for the center’s financial department,” the psychiatrist says, flashing a beaming smile at Roman. “If you want to come down to my office with me?”
Is this woman seriously hitting on him right in front of me while we’re talking about how to help my best friend recover? The nerve of some people.
“I’ll come too,” I say. “I want to know more about this place, where it is, their accreditations and all.”
“Of course,” she replies, looking only a little disappointed that I’m going to be a third wheel.