“And he’s not going to,” River assured me. “That bastard isn’t leaving you, especially with you two arguing. He doesn’t leave shit unfinished.”
When we gotto the hospital, Tank, Ink, and Whiler were waiting on us in the waiting room. Tank wrapped me in his burly arms. He got his name because he was huge as fuck, but he was really just a big, soft teddy bear. I’d never met another man who was so kind to everyone. But if you fucked with his family, you unleashed a beast. And this club—we were his family.
“He’s going to be okay. Docs are optimistic,” Ink told River as I sobbed against Tank’s chest. He rubbed my back with his massive hands. “He’s in surgery at the moment.”
Tank led me over to a chair and sat down beside me, his arm wrapped around my shoulders. I continued to quietly cry, my eyes following every doctor and nurse that I could see moving through the back of the hospital. I felt like I was sitting on pins and needles as I waited for some kind of news. Doctors could be optimistic all they wanted, but anything could go wrong during surgery. And I was terrified of the things that could go wrong.
Hours passed, and none of us heard anything. No one even breathed a word in our direction about how Sam was doing. Every once in a while, one of the guys would try to get me to eat something, but holding down food wasn’t going to happen—not anytime soon. I would just throw it right back up. I was too twisted up inside, and my stomach resembled how my mind and soul felt. And God, don’t even get me started on my heart.
All I wanted was to find out if Sam was okay. I wanted to hold his warm hand in mine. I wanted to listen to his breathing and feel the steady beat of his heart.
I couldn’t bear to let him go.
Please pull through, I begged.Don’t leave me.
If Sam left me, that would be it. I would be done—destroyed. He’d saved me on some of my darkest days, even if he didn’t know it, and I wasn’t sure how I would keep going if I couldn’t at least see him every single day.
I need you, I pleaded.Please don’t make me try to figure out life without you.
3
Reina
Some things in life, you never expect. You just don’t think they would happen, especially in the places theydohappen.
As a woman, you’re practically raised to look over your shoulder, watch the men around you. You were raised to know that you could never be too cautious when meeting someone new.
But in a hospital?
You never expect it to happen in a hospital.
But that’s what the fuck happened to me with the Fathers of Mayhem just around the damn corner.
4
Reina
Iwashed my hands at the sink, staring at my pale reflection in the mirror. I was a fucking mess. Dark shadows resided beneath my eyes. My hair was a mess on my head. I looked exhausted and worn down. I felt even worse on the inside than I looked on the outside. I was falling apart, and every fucking minute that passed without news of Sam felt like an eternity of absolute hell.
The doctors still hadn’t told us anything. River had even eventually gone to find someone who may know, but they hadn’t known anything either. They just asked him to please continue waiting.
But I was goddamn tired of waiting.
I felt like I was sitting on sharp, broken glass. I at least needed to know if he was still fucking breathing back there. Had he died on the operating room table at all? Did they have to revive him? Did he need a blood transfusion? I had so many unanswered questions running through my mind and not a single damn answer to any of them.
It was killing me.
The bathroom door opened, and I didn’t think anything of it. It was a hospital, and I knew people had to piss at some point. I glanced up in the mirror and immediately frowned at the two male doctors that were standing there, just staring at me. A bad feeling swirled in my gut, and I willed myself not to show my anxiety and fear.
“You’re in the wrong restroom, guys,” I told them, thinking they were too tired to notice they’d walked into the women’s restroom. Didn’t doctors work long shifts? That had to be all this was. Crazy shit didn’t happen in a hospital, right?
“Oh, we know,” one said, flipping the lock on the door.
I didn’t have the time to scream.
The other lunged forward, a needle in his hand. His hand slammed over my mouth, muffling my scream for help as he plunged the needle into my neck. I fought like hell, but I was no match for them, and eventually, whatever drug they’d injected me with put me to sleep.
How many more hits was I going to take for this fucking club?