I twisted the knob, working the door open, and when I found my buddy, he was lying on one of the beds in there. He had a wad of bloody towels to his abdomen, stretched out with his phone pressed weakly to his ear. In actuality, the bed was more so keeping the phone to his ear, his bloodied fingers hanging off it limply.
My face had to have paled. “Niko…”
I rushed to his side, cringing as I tossed my keys on the bed and held the towels to the wound for him. “Bro, what the hell? Why aren’t you at a goddamn hospital?”
I started to pull towels away, see the damage but the terry cloth was completely caked to the wound. How long had it been before he called me?
Niko roared, and I pressed the towels back. I reached for my phone to call goddamn 911, but he hit my hand away. He gripped my hand over the towels. “No hospitals. Can’t. I’ll get arrested.”
Arrested? I shook my head. “The alternative is you might fucking die. What did you do?”
I tugged off my shirt, too much blood for the towels. Peeling some of them away, I replaced them with my shirt. At this rate my buddy might bleed out, and I reached for my phone again.
“No, Jay. No!” His arm hit wildly at mine. “I can’t, man. It’s the cops who did this. Shot me.”
“What the hell happened?” We were both covered in blood at this point and so much fear ran rampant in my brain, I couldn’t see straight. I had no idea why we were even talking and not in my car driving to the hospital.
“I messed up, bro,” he said like he had on the phone. Cringing, his hand bunched over mine holding down pressure. “I took a job for Alexi. The police got in the way.”
“A job?” Hot fire in my veins, my fear for him worse. “What kind of job? Why?”
“I had to, man.” He bit down on his lip, pain retching across his entire face. He rubbed his head back. “Mom’s medical bills have gotten insane. It got so bad I took out a loan from Alexi. I was working
to pay the debt off.”
I closed my eyes. “All right. Well, what went down tonight?”
“We were moving some cars for him. But usually the jobs aren’t that big. It’s usually smaller stuff, nothing flashy,” he said, letting me know this clearly wasn’t the first time he’d worked for Alexi. His chest heaved, heavy with breath. “This last one had to have been a set up. Alexi’s guys and I barely got to the warehouse before the cops were shooting the place up.” He sucked in a breath, gripping the wound harder. “I just barely got out.”
“Niko, this isn’t getting out. You’ve been shot, man.”
“I know, but I can’t go to the hospital, Jay. They’ll arrest me, and I can’t go away. My mom, my sister… I’m all they got. You know that. I can’t go away. They’ll have nothing. And with my mom being sick…”
“Maybe you can cut a deal with the cops?” I said, nodding. “You’ve obviously been working with Alexi. Give the police something on him. They’ll work with you.”
“Then Alexi will come for me.” He groaned, his roar basically filling the room, and I got my phone again. His eyes flashed wild. “Jay—”
“I’m not calling 911,” I urged, the phone ringing in my ear. “I have a buddy. His name is Royal, and he knows people everywhere.” A phone call, and my boy could get us a doctor here in minutes, lesser tasks easier for him. Royal had resources all over this country, always the one with the hook-up in our group. Even if Niko and I were across state lines. “He’ll get you a doctor over here.”
“Can you trust him?” he asked, panting heavily, and it wasn’t about trust at this point. It was about fear and if my buddy could get someone here in time. I trusted Royal with my life so trust wasn’t the problem. It was time, something I wasn’t sure Niko had much of.
Especially when his eyes fell back in his head.
Chapter Twenty-One
Billie
My new lease didn’t start until the first of the month, and I didn’t know if I could wait that long. That run-in with LJ last week was just about my undoing, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to handle bumping into him during another one of his shirtless runs. The guy still affected me despite myself.
I sighed, my lungs full of steam in the shower. My hands scrubbed lather across my stomach and lower, thoughts of LJ still sending a tingle between my legs. We were like oil and water, undying heat and harsh cold. Whatever those differences, we still burned. And as much as I tried to put him in the same asshole category as my ex, I found myself hard-pressed. LJ may have set up the chess pieces, but Sinclair had acted on his own. That in itself put Sinclair in a completely other asshole ballgame, and though it didn’t let LJ off the hook for the role he’d played, I couldn’t deny some of the moments we’d had together. Those raw moments of all-consuming and undying heat. That passion and attraction I knew had definitely been lacking when I’d been in a relationship with my ex-boyfriend. I’d loved Sinclair, really had, but there’d always been something missing between us. A part of it was obviously him and other details he had going on in his life, but there was also me. We never held the kind of fire I held with LJ the second he kissed me. A fire I felt from day one and every moment since. Being with LJ was an adventure. It was exciting, freeing and something akin to free falling.
Somewhere along the way, I guess I’d just forgotten to put my parachute on.
A noise crashed, and I jumped in the shower, immediately turning the water off. Ripping the curtain away, I forced my head out. “Hello?”
No one should be here but me. I was still in the old house until the first. I’d only stopped by my new apartment last week because my super allowed me to bring some stuff over to make the move easier prior to the first.
With caution, I put my toes out, well aware I was naked and had no weapons. Making do, I grabbed my loofah with the hard handle. It was the best I could do under the circumstances.