"I've been keeping tabs on Ms. Mancuso off and on since you guys came in. She's stable. Despite the depth of the cuts on her face, she lost minimal blood. The skin will take time to heal, and it will scar over, but she's lucky."
"She's lucky? That girl is anything but lucky, lady."
"That was a poor choice of words. I'm sorry." Vicky sounds like she has more to say, but the whooshing sound from the opening of the glass door distracts me from listening. A tired smile overtakes my face at the sight before me.
"There's my man," Ruby says as she pushes her way through the door. Her lips are turned up at the corners, but I wouldn't call it a smile because it doesn't reach her eyes. She's wearing the same blood-stained clothes like a shield. I know my woman. If she changes and has to wash the blood off, it makes this all real, and then she has to deal with it.
With a few steps, she's hovering over me awkwardly. Tentatively, I reach up and grab the back of her neck and pull her lips to mine. My shoulder is stiff, and I'm weak, but I do my best to keep from showing it. I give my toes a wiggle and move my legs as much as I can bring myself to. My arms are lethargic, as is the rest of me, but they don't hurt exactly. When I deepen the kiss and pull my woman in closer, my abdomen aches from the strain of it. We keep on like this, just indulging in each other. When we finally pull away, I notice Vicky in the corner, her cheeks bright red and her nose shoved in her clipboard. Ruby sucks in a ragged breath and licks her lips as she stares at me through hooded eyes. My dick is at half-mast, as is evident through the thin, aging bed linens. Vicky does her best not to notice, but I catch her looking anyway and give her a wink.
Just as I'm having fun with the pretty nurse, my mobile phone buzzes from somewhere near my head. I try to reach for it, but Ruby slaps me away, saying, "You're going to pop your stitches." She stares at the notification screen. "Text from Duke," she says before handing the phone over.
Twenty years ago I knew she'd be the perfect old lady. Didn't take the club long to catch on. The day after I brought my girl home, I asked the club to vote her in. Eighteen months later, after we'd already been married for almost six months, Rage inked her with the Forsaken warrior. Part of the warrior's blade peeks out from under her leather jacket on her collar bone. Twenty years and she still looks at me with the same amount of love and trust she did the day I made her mine.
"Will you check that text message?" she chides playfully. "It might be important. Once we're back home, we'll have forever to stare at each other like lovesick teenagers."
"Still won't be enough time," I say with my eyes on my phone. Pulling up Duke's text, I stare in horror at the image that comes through. Duke's face is bloody and bruised, with cuts over and under his left eye. His nose is clearly broken, and dried blood is coming out of his nostrils. His right eye is swollen. There's an anger in his expression that matches the hate I feel in my heart right now. What the fuck is going on now? Another text arrives, this one reading, TAKE OUR KING, WE TAKE YOUR DUKE. SWAP. 6A. PLACE TBA.
"Fuck," I say a little louder than intended and quickly forward the messages to Wyatt. I'm guessing whoever in Mancuso's organization had the nerve to take one of our guys doesn't have any more inside intel, because shit like this gets directed at the top. I'm not at the top anymore.
Vicky the Nurse pulls her attention from the computer screen she's staring at, in shock.
"Sorry. My son just texted me. I've been asking him to come see me, but he's in the other room with my stepdaughter. He, uh, won't leave her side."
Vicky looks through the glass door, her eyebrows raised in surprise. Ruby leans over me, seeing something I can't, and clears her throat as she focuses her attention on the nurse. "They only met two years ago. They weren't raised together."
"Uh-huh," Vicky says, mouth agape.
"We're not like that, I swear," Ruby says with a disturbed look on her face. Vicky blinks and then turns toward Ruby, who says, "Hey, uh, nurse, do you think it'd be okay to bring our daughter in here to see her dad?"
The nurse turns back to the door, bites her lip, and scrunches her face. I groan at the thought of what she's seeing. We really need to find a better way to explain our family to people so they don't look at us like we're a fucking freak-show. Once Vicky composes herself, she says she doesn't think that will be a problem and then excuses herself. She also promises to keep Detective Davis away from my room for as long as she can.
When she's gone, Ruby tells me how Ryan was lying in bed with Alex, groping one of her boobs with his mouth at her neck. She swatted him away, at least, but otherwise, it was a straight-up PG-13 scene going on in there.