Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
All those times in prison, when I was either attacked or someone from my cell block was attacked, I knew what I had to do.
I had to protect them.
And now?
Yes, I have to protect Savannah. With everything in my being I know this.
But I don’t know where to start.
I find my car, get in.
I sit in the driver seat.
I’ll call Leif. He’ll know what to do. He worked as a bodyguard. He knows how to investigate.
I pull my new phone out of my pocket, but my fingers don’t move.
That crow is still pecking the back of my neck, but with that I feel something new.
Something I’ve suppressed for so long.
I feel fear.
For Savannah.
For what my life might be without her.
I scribble a quick text to Leif.
I need your help. Meet me at the hospital. You know what to do.
Then I head back into the building, back up to the trauma ward, back to Giancarlo’s room.
I walk in, and he’s still lying alone, asleep.
A nurse could come in at any time and check his vitals, but at this point I don’t care.
“Wake up, you fucking son of a bitch.”
Giancarlo’s eyelids flutter and he opens them. “I’m awake. What the hell do you want, Bellamy?”
“Where is she? Where’s Savannah?”
Giancarlo yawns, grimacing. “How should I know? If you can’t keep track of your woman, that’s on you.”
I glance around his room. The bathroom. There’s a mirror inside. I could easily take him out the way Savannah tried to. I won’t, of course. I won’t let him fucking die. But he doesn’t know that. “You tell me everything you know, or I swear to God I will finish what she started right here in this hospital room.”
“You do that and you’ll end up back in the slammer.”
“Do you think I fucking care? I saved your ass. You would’ve bled out if it weren’t for me. Right now, I can take it all back in a fucking instant.”
“Just to know where your bitch is?”
“Where is she?” I hold onto his IV line.
“I’m not feeling too well,” he says.
“Do I look like I care? What do you know?”
“I don’t feel…”
He gasps in a breath.
Then his machines start beeping out of control.
Two nurses race into the room. “Sir, you’re going to have to leave.”
I let go of his IV line. “You’d better not die, you son of a bitch,” I whisper near his ear through clenched teeth.
I wait.
I wait because I don’t know what else to do.
One of the nurses leaves the room.
“Is he all right?” I ask.
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“Yes.” The lie is bitter on my tongue, in my throat, in my gut.
“He should be fine. He just lost his breath. His pulse ox went down a bit. Probably just a panic attack, but we won’t know until the on-call doctor takes a look. He’s on his way now.”
“But he’s okay. He’s breathing.”
“Yes, sir. At this time he appears to be okay.”
Good.
As much as I’d like to strangle the motherfucker with my bare hands, I don’t want Savannah to have a man’s death on her conscience.
I’ve got one on mine, though, and aside from the fact that they might try to put me away because of it, I don’t give a rat’s ass. The world is a better place without that son of a bitch Abel in it.
Without Giancarlo, too, but again… I don’t want that for Savannah.
A panic attack…
The nurse isn’t a doctor, but nurses see a lot of things in hospitals. Most of them are just as equipped to diagnose as a doctor is.
A panic attack…
If Giancarlo was panicking at the site of me, at my questions, then he does know something.
He knows where Savannah is.
And he will tell me.
And he will tell me tonight.
My phone buzzes with a text from Leif.
Got it. On my way.
Good.
Between the two of us, we should be able to figure out where Savannah is.
Once I’m able to talk to Giancarlo again, he will answer me. He will answer me without panicking again.
Because the text I sent held a code.
You know what to do.
It means he needs to arrive armed.
34
SAVANNAH
I leave the hospital willingly, walking by Miles’s side.
His gun is back in his holster.
I could easily escape. Run away screaming.
He wouldn’t dare stop me, and he wouldn’t dare shoot me at this little hospital.
But I don’t. I walk with him, keeping a noncommittal look on my face, even though inside I’m sobbing. Big racking sobs, knowing I’ll never see Falcon Bellamy again.
But another part of me feels at peace.
Because now I know what love is, and I know that it sometimes involves sacrifice.
Falcon will not go back to prison. Not on my watch. I believe he’s innocent of the crime he confessed to, and though he may not be innocent in Abel’s death, he was simply protecting me and protecting himself, which he had every legal right to do.