“Lucas! Oh fuck, baby!” he said, his voice breaking. Lucas lay back, trying to get his breathing to even out, but the pain was clamping down on his chest, making it so damn hard to suck in a lungful of air. Andrei ripped off his tuxedo jacket and pressed it to Lucas’s side, causing the pain to momentarily white out his vision.
“I take it I’ve been shot,” Lucas forced out through clenched teeth when he could breathe again.
“One—one to the side of your gut,” Andrei stammered. He carefully leaned Lucas slightly onto his opposite side, causing a hiss of pain to escape him. Andrei cursed loudly, his voice trembling. “It went through. You’re…you’re bleeding pretty bad.” Andrei wrapped his jacket around Lucas’s side and pressed it to both sides of the wound. “Tinkerbell, Nibs is down. We need an ambulance STAT.”
But Andrei’s call for help over the earpiece was met with silence.
“Tinkerbell, report! Nibs is down!” His voice was growing more frantic with each second that no one replied.
Lucas squeezed his eyes shut against the panic that was welling in his own chest. He’d noticed that silence when they’d entered the library, but he’d brushed it aside, too damn focused on getting to Jagger and ending this chase. “Check your cell phone,” he said but he knew the answer before Andrei started swearing again. Jagger or one of his men had placed a signal jammer somewhere in the immediate area. They couldn’t call out for help.
“Go for help,” Lucas pushed. “I’ll wait right here.”
Andrei stared at him for a second, helpless tears shining brightly in his eyes. He knew his lover’s thoughts without him needing to speak. Lucas was almost completely helpless, flat on his back. Andrei was his only defense if Jagger or one of his men returned to finish the job. Time was ticking away, and Lucas was losing blood fast.
Reaching across Lucas’s body, Andrei grabbed the gun Lucas had dropped and pressed it back into his right hand. “One minute. I will be gone one minute,” he repeated before giving him a single, bruising kiss.
Andrei shoved back to his feet and surged across the small room. He grabbed the door, but it didn’t open. Andrei’s panicked scream battered against Lucas as the man fought against the door that barred him from getting help. He flinched when Andrei stepped back and fired two rounds into the lock and handle, but it still didn’t open. They were trapped and he was bleeding out.
“Andrei…”
“No! I’m getting you out of here! You’re not dying in here!” He shouted, but his voice shook with each desperate word.
“Baby,” he whispered. He tried to sit up so he could look at the man he loved, but the pain swamped him again and he cried out.
Andrei was back at his side in a flash, trembling, blood-covered hands pressing the jacket back against the bullet wounds. “Stay still. You need to stay still.”
“They’re already coming,” Lucas said firmly. “Rowe is going to notice we’re missing. They’re coming now.”
“You’re going to be fine,” Andrei said, though the fear in his eyes had him thinking that Andrei was developing the same doubts that were now whispering in the back of Lucas’s mind.
Releasing the gun, he lifted his right hand and cupped the side of Andrei’s face, wiping away a stray tear with his thumb. Some of his long hair had come loose and was now framing his high cheekbones. He loved everything about his man. He loved his strength, his devotion, his wonderful sense of humor, and his amazing capacity for love. He was lucky to have found him, even if they had only a year together.
“I love you,” Lucas whispered. “I have loved you for so long and I am so lucky that you loved me.”
“No! You aren’t doing that shit! You are not dying. Do you understand me? You are not fucking dying on me.” He choked back a broken sob, his hands increasing their pressure on Lucas’s side so he gasped in pain. “If you die, I swear I’ll tell the world that you had a small dick. I’ll fuck everything that moves—man or woman. I’ll go back to the underground fights.”
Lucas tried to smile, but it was getting harder. He couldn’t tell if he was smiling. The only thing he could feel was pain, and even that was starting to fade away so the world was growing foggy and cold. “Still love you.”
“No, Lucas,” he whimpered. “Don’t leave me. I can’t…I can’t go on without you. Please…don’t leave me…”
A muffled gunshot echoed through the next room and Andrei straightened, reaching for Lucas’s gun with his right hand. Lucas clenched his teeth and forced his thoughts through the fog to focus on Andrei’s face. He would remain conscious. He couldn’t do a damn thing to help, but he would not let go of Andrei.