Shattered King(62)

Hunter kept driving, keeping quiet, but the energy coming off him was frightening. I kept my mouth shut, knowing he’d tell me what was going on when he could. He was checking the rear-view mirror, scanning the street around us constantly. After a few more minutes, he grabbed his phone and punched in a number. “We’re clear.”

He was quiet a moment. When he spoke again his voice was steel, edged with barely-contained violence. “Someone just shot at us, at my woman, again, with my kid in the fucking car.” I was in the back, but I could still see his jaw getting hard, the way he gripped the steering wheel. “We’ll be there in ten. The cops can come to us. I want them home where I can keep them safe.”

Then he disconnected.

“It was Pierce, wasn’t it?” I whispered, fear reaching up and taking me by the throat.

Those flying bullets weren’t for me. My stepfather wanted Hunter dead. He wanted me and the information he thought I had. His little set-up with Bret hadn’t worked. I’d gotten away. Pierce wouldn’t be happy about that. And now the cops were after him as well. Staying here in New York was stupid, even if he believed the painting was his ticket to freedom. That meant he wasn’t only desperate, he was out of his damn mind. Was capable of anything. He was convinced I had the painting, or knew where it was, and he wouldn’t stop until he had me again. So, yeah, Hunter had been his target. Shooting me didn’t make sense.

“Don’t know. But I’m gonna find out.” Some of the steel left his voice when he spoke to me, but his body was still rock hard, tension rolling of him.

Josh popped his thumb in his mouth, and I kissed him again. “It wasn’t me he was trying to hit, was it?” If Hunter was out of the way, I was a much easier target.

“I’ll take care of this, Lulu. I promise you.”

A wave of nausea hit me. Two thoughts coming at me at once. Hunter could take care of this, or he could die trying. He would put himself in danger to protect us. I loathed that with everything in me. So much so I could actually feel my blood pressure spike, sending black spots dancing across my vision, making my limbs weak.

The second thought sent panic, terror through me so hard and fast, I struggled to breathe. “What if they’d hit Josh?” I shoved down the thought. It was unthinkable, unbearable. “What if they come after us again?” The adrenaline that had been thrumming through me burnt away with the rush of intense fear, and that’s when I felt something warm trickle down my arm. That’s when I felt the pain.

I looked down and gasped. Blood covered my right arm, soaking through my shirt, dripping onto the seat.

“Lulu?” Hunter glanced at me in the rear view mirror.

I grabbed a T-shirt lying beside me on the floor and pressed it to my arm. “I think . . . I think I’ve been hit.”

“What?”

“I’m bleeding.”

The car wrenched to the side and Hunter angled his body, reaching through the seats and pulled the shirt away to get a look. I winced.

He cursed several times. “It’s a graze. Thank fuck. Keep pressure on it, baby. I’ll get someone up to my apartment to stitch you up. I’m not taking you back out in the open.”

Josh pulled his thumb from his mouth. “Fuck,” he parroted.

Wonderful.

“Shit,” Hunter growled.

“Shit,” Josh mimicked, lips curled up at the sides, obviously pleased with himself.

Hunter stared at Josh for a couple beats, then gave up, turned back in his seat, keyed in a text, and we were driving again.

Jude, Zeke, and Van were there when we arrived. They were all carrying guns and not bothering to conceal them as they rushed us inside Hunter’s apartment building. Zeke left again as soon as we were secured—to take position across the street, he said.

Neco arrived with an older man a short time later, a man with salt and pepper hair and an impatient, harried looking expression. The doctor Hunter mentioned. He gave me a shot to numb my wound, which was just a graze and not that bad, stitched me up, gave me some antibiotics, and left again.

I looked up at Van when the door shut. “You have your own doctor on call?”

“We pay him well, and he’s available when we need him,” he said from his position in front of the breakfast bar.

Hunter had a job that required a doctor on the payroll, a doctor who was on call? The guy hadn’t batted an eyelid at what was so obviously a bullet wound. This was something else to lock away and not think about until all this was over.

It was just another reason why Josh and I couldn’t stay. As if reading my mind, Van piped up again. “We don’t use him very often, Lulu, and we’re not the only ones that pay him to do his job and keep his mouth shut.”