Please take it. Please take it. Please take it, I pleaded silently.
The muscle in his jaw danced as he worked it back and forth for a few seconds. “We’ll discuss why you refuse to talk to the police later, but right now, I want you to tell me everything you remember.”
There wasn’t really anything I couldn’t recall. Well, except for one thing. Answering his question with a question, I asked, “How did I end up in your truck?”
That tension in his jaw grew even tighter. “You called me,” he gritted out. “You don’t remember?”
My memory was a little fuzzy at the moment, but I vaguely recollected coming to in the parking lot just long enough to think first, “ew, gross, I’m lying on the dirty ground and am going to have to burn this shirt,” then thinking I needed help. I’d managed to locate my phone that had fallen out of my purse when I dropped it and scrolled to West’s number on the freshly cracked screen, because yes, I was the chump who’d saved the hot guy’s number in my phone.
At some point during that call, I’d blacked out again, and here we were.
“Oh yeah. That’s right.”
“Scared the fucking shit out of me,” he grunted. “I walked out that door, and I thought you were fucking dead.” Wow, he was pretty liberal with the F-bombs when he was in a mood.
“I’m totally fine,” I attempted to placate, even though I worried that wasn’t completely true. I was pretty sure I had a few cracked ribs. If my wrist wasn’t broken, it was definitely sprained, and I was absolutely sure I had a concussion. You didn’t black out from a beating and come out unscathed.
I could have sworn he growled from the front seat, so I decided it was best to spend the rest of the ride in complete silence.
West
I paced the small emergency room bay like a caged tiger as Stella was examined. If the nurse had been anyone other than Temperance Walker, Hayes’s wife, I probably would have snapped by now at the number of gasps and winces coming from Stella each time she was poked and prodded.
There’d been no missing the surprise on Tempie’s face the moment I walked in carrying a bruised and beaten woman, and the million questions she wanted to ask, but she was a professional, keeping everything about Stella and getting her as comfortable as possible before the doctor could see her.
“One a scale from one to ten, what’s your pain right now?” Tempie asked while taking Stella’s blood pressure at the same time.
“About a four,” she said through a hard jaw and clenched teeth, her nostrils flaring on an inhale. She really was the world’s shittiest liar. I gave her a look that had her curling her lips between her teeth before remembering the bottom one was split and swollen. Then she rethought her answer and tried again. “Maybe a seven . . . or like, seven and a half?”
I had a feeling she was still down playing it, but I let it go. I’d gotten her to agree to come to the hospital, after all. And given that she had been lying broken and bruised in the back seat of my truck and had still argued about it, I had a feeling she didn’t give in very often. I decided to call this one a win.
The image of her lying unconscious and beaten on the ground was burned into my brain and would be for a good, long while. My stomach still twisted at the thought of it, and I couldn’t make myself sit still for more than a few seconds.
There was a part of me that revolted at the idea of leaving Stella alone, but there was another part, a part that felt wild and feral, that wanted to be out on the streets, hunting down the motherfucker who had hurt her. I wanted to make him suffer, make him hurt the way he’d hurt her.
I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this out of control. The Marines had hammered patience into me, yet one look at Stella, and all that training went right out the window.
Tempie spoke then, pulling me from my revery. “Okay, Ms. Ryan—”
Stella interrupted her quickly enough. “Please. Call me Stella. No need to be so formal when you’ve literally seen me at my worst, right?” She attempted a smile and chuckle that made her wince and let out a soft curse.
Tempie gave her a kind, gentle look. I was sure this wasn’t the first time she’d seen a woman come in, beat to hell. “And you can call me Tempie. It’s really nice to meet you, Stella.” She cast me a sly look before asking, “So how do you and West know each other?”
Jesus. The woman was covered in bumps and bruises, but did that stop Tempie from grilling her for information? Of course not.
“Oh, well, um . . . We don’t really know each other all that well.”
“So you aren’t dating or anything?”
“Christ, Temp. Enough with the third degree, already. This isn’t the time or place, yeah?”
She held up her hands in surrender. “Hey, I was just making small talk. Is it really my fault you’re one of the most eligible bachelors in town?”
“All right, out,” I ordered. “Let her rest for a bit, would you?”
She gave out a little laugh and started for the curtain. “All right. I’ll be back with the doctor once your labs come in. If your pain gets any worse, hit that button on the side of your bed, okay?”
“Thanks.”
The curtain flapped behind Tempie, closing Stella and me into the small, tent-like area together.
“Most eligible bachelor, huh?” Stella asked with a teasing lilt to her voice. I cut my eyes to her, giving her a look that had her lifting her uninjured hand in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. No joking about your bachelorhood. Got it.”
How she could be so casual after what had just happened to her blew my mind. I wasn’t ready to let it go just yet—or ever, so I turned to her and crossed my arms over my chest, bracing my feet shoulder width apart as I demanded, “I want to know what the hell happened tonight. And don’t bother trying to lie to me. You’re fucking terrible at it.”
“Am not,” she muttered indignantly.
Against my will, my lips hooked up in a smirk. How she could make me want to laugh while sitting there with a black eye and a busted wrist was something I was sure I’d never understand, so I just let it go. “Quit trying to change the subject. Start talking, or I’m calling the cops in.”
That had her changing her tune real fast. She blew out a heavy sigh that must have tweaked her ribs from the way her face pulled tight. I gave her a moment to collect herself, and, fortunately, she started in right after. “A few months back, my dad pulled a con on the wrong person in Philadelphia. Now that person is determined to make us pay by tacking interest to what we took—even though we paid it back,” she added quickly.
This wasn’t starting off very well. “Who did he con?”
She bit the uninjured corner of her lip as she swung her legs back and forth off the side of the hospital bed. “Um, well, let’s just say he’s not a very nice person.”
Clearly, I thought grimly as I took stock of her injuries once more. “A name, grift.”
“Uh . . . you ever hear of Grady O’Brien?”
“Fucking shit,” I hissed, reaching up to rake a hand through my hair. That reminded me, I was overdue for a cut, but that was going to have to be backburnered until I got this shit sorted. “Your dad conned the Irish fucking mob?”