“Brother,” came another voice I recognized.
Zip.
Why was Zip with the devil taking me to hell? Did devils work in pairs? Deranged thoughts. Thoughts from deprivation of oxygen.
“I can’t lose her.” Colt again.
Bleak.
So, so bleak.
I wanted to tell them that I was still here and I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I wanted to tell them that I had more living to do, more loving. I’d just found my father. I’d just unofficially adopted an eleven-year-old boy that I had no idea how to raise. And Colt. I couldn’t leave Colt.
I finally found the strength to open my eyes and stared into Colt’s intense brown gaze.
And then I died with a smile on my lips.
Chapter 30
Hell looked very muchlike a hospital room.
I blinked heavy eyelids, staring at light blue walls and a white ceiling. The IV in my arm tingled with pain when I moved my hand.
Colt was sitting next to my bedside, his head lolling to his shoulder as he slept. I thought about calling out to him to wake him up, but I didn’t want to disturb him.
Cottonmouth had me doubting I could even form a word.
I slid my finger back and forth across the sheet that was covering me. My nail on the cheap fabric made a sound, causing Colt to jerk upright in sudden alertness.
We stared at one another and then Colt was out of the chair and at my side. “Darlin’.”
“Water,” I growled through a parched throat. “Please.”
He grabbed the pitcher and poured water into a plastic cup. When I had my fill, he set it aside.
I had so many questions I wasn’t sure where to start. So I began with the most obvious one. “How long have I been here?”
“Brought you in last night. They rushed you to surgery for the bullet wound in your thigh. They dug it out, transfused the fuck out of you, and here we are.”
I looked out my window and saw the fading sunlight.
“Gray? He was—”
“Fine. He’s fine. Reap and Boxer found him wrestling one of Dev’s men on the roof. Gray managed to slide his knife into the other one.”
I breathed a sigh of relief that Gray was alive.
“He feels guilty as fuck, you know. Since he was supposed to pick Dev off.”
“Nothing goes according to plan, right? Dev told me he knew about the set up. Is that true?”
“Yeah.”
I peered up at him, feeling drugged and loopy, my brain and words struggling. “Piece this together for me, because I have no idea how you’re not in jail and I swear, while I was bleeding out propped up against the van, I thought I heard your voice.”
“You did hear me.” He raked a hand through his hair and grimaced at the sudden pain from moving his side and feeling his own wound.
The irony, that we both had bullet wounds, courtesy of one insane MC president.