“No, he didn't touch me, Sully. Royal is … he wouldn't hit a woman.”
Another derisive snort from my older brother.
“This is unbelievable,” he whispers, looking around the sterile hospital room, anywhere but at my face. “Absolutely unbelievable. My baby sister fucking that diseased biker.” A shudder runs through him, and he reaches for his cell phone.
With a quick snap of my wrist, I pull it off the nightstand and dance back a few steps in my brown slippers.
“Sully, you need to calm down for a minute and listen to me,” I start, but he's in panic mode now, swinging his legs over the edge of the metal hospital bed with a groan. “Sully, stop,” I beg, feeling like I'm fifteen again, pleading with my brother to stop acting like my fucking dad. Like my keeper. “You're overreacting.”
“Overreacting?” He's practically yelling now, lifting himself up to his full six foot three height, impressive even in the ugly hospital gown he's wearing, the white cotton patterned with blue diamonds. “Lyric, you have no idea what you've gotten yourself into. This man, he's the president of an outlaw organization. Criminals, Lyric. A gang.” I start to protest, but Sully isn't having any of it, reaching out for his phone with a shaking palm. “Give me the phone; I'm calling Dad.”
“Like hell you are,” I snort, wondering how a twenty-eight year old and a thirty-four year old ended up in a squabbling argument like a pair of eight year olds. “You whisper a word about this to Dad and he'll learn all about your little dealings with the MCs.”
“He ALREADY knows!” Sully screams and my heart plummets down my throat, crashes into my stomach with a splash of acid. This time, it's my turn to feel the blood drain from my face. “Now give me the phone.”
I'm backing up a step when the door opens and we both pause, turning to glance at an orderly in blue scrubs, a cart in front of him, covered with food filled plastic trays. Dinnertime, I guess. But then the man closes and locks the door behind him. I don't even know where the gun comes from; it's just suddenly in his hand, pointed at my brother.
Fuck.
There it is again, that word.
Guess it's still appropriate for the situation, now isn't it?
“Sully Rentz?” the guy asks, like he doesn't already know.
“Lyric,” Sully whispers, his face white, hand trembling as he raises it and tries to block me from the intruder, like he can protect me from the business end of that gun with his broken body. “Stay back and let me do the talking, okay?”
“Okay, Sully,” I whisper back, but I'm already trying to figure out how to get my Glock from inside my purse without Scrubs noticing what I'm doing. I stare at the man, at the stupid smirk he has on his face, like he thinks he looks cool in ice blue scrubs and nurse shoes. At first I think he's just donned a ridiculous disguise, but then I look a little closer at the badge around his neck and realize that he works here.
What. The. Fuck.
This rival MC, this Mile Wide, has nurses in their employ?
Now I'm totally confused.
“Lay down in the bed, Mr. Rentz, and we'll see about sparing your sister. How does that sound?”
My brother nods, face drawn and grim, like he's already accepted the inevitable fact of his death. When he glances down at me, his green eyes are wet. Holy crap, I think as I stare up at him. He really does love me, doesn't he?
And then he says it.
“I love you, little sis,” he says with a grim smile, turning his attention back to the nurse, squaring his broad shoulders. “Let her walk out of here and I'll do whatever you want.”
Scrubs gestures with his gun and his chin towards the bed, his hair blond and clean-cut, military style. He looks as much like an outlaw biker as I do.
“Get in the fucking bed and I'll see what I can do.”
“I'm not moving from this spot until my sister leaves,” Sully growls, his determination making me even more certain that I have to save him. I have to. Even if he's an idiot and this whole stupid situation is his fault. “Because you don't want to shoot me while I'm standing here, do you?” Sully continues as I slowly slide the zipper on my purse, shuffling my slippers to try to make up for the extra noise. I play the motion off as a nervous twitch, hiding behind my brother's broad back. “In fact, you don't want to shoot me at all, do you? What did you bring with you? Some morphine? Sodium pentobarbital? How exactly do you think you can get rid of me and make it look like an accident?”
“I am done with this fucking conversation,” the man snarls, his face tearing apart like a rabid animal, all teeth and spittle and snapping jaws. He gets up in Sully's face and presses the muzzle of his gun against my brother's temple. “Get in the friggin' bed or I'll shoot you in the leg and you can writhe in agony and watch as I see what your little sister is made of.”