Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
His questions were starting to annoy me. Linc’s house was my fucking house too. I owned the west wing of the six-thousand-square-foot estate we had purchased. When the day came that Bane Cash took over the Mississippi branch, I knew Linc, his wife, and his daughter would move back to Ocala. This had never really been Linc’s home, but it had become mine. I wouldn’t be leaving.
“No, but hit Doc’s number,” I told him.
Doc Burl was the family’s on-call doctor in Mississippi. He knew what we were, and he had the equipment in our basement to handle anything from emergency surgery to a simple stitch-up from a knife wound.
The phone rang over the truck’s speakers but only once.
“Luther.” He said my name over the line in greeting.
“We’re bringing in a female. We found her beaten behind a fucking dumpster. Her left wrist is messed up. It’s bent back and discoloring. She took some force to her right side. Ribs are cracked or broken.”
He blew out a breath. “How far out are you?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“I’ll meet you there,” he replied.
“Thanks,” I told him before Locke ended the call.
With a heavy sigh, I lifted my chin to the screen on the dash. “Call Linc,” I told him.
If Burl got there before us, then Linc would be pissed he wasn’t made aware of the woman I was bringing into our gates. Normally, anyone allowed inside went through a background check. Most didn’t know that we ran everything on them—from the hospital they had been born in to their checking account number. We didn’t have a name to run shit on this woman. I was breaking a rule, but I wasn’t about to take her to the damn ER and drop her there. Someone had done this. Someone would be looking for her, and she didn’t want to be found. She’d said she couldn’t go home.
Was it a husband? Had she tracked him to the club, and he got angry with her? I dropped my gaze to her swollen left hand, but there was no ring on it. But then, if there had been, it wouldn’t fit right now. She could have taken it off.
“Are you with Oz?” Linc asked when he answered the phone.
“No. Send someone else. Locke is with me, and we’re headed to the house. Burl will most likely arrive before us,” I began, but in Linc fashion, he didn’t let me finish.
“Who’s hurt?” he barked.
“I was getting to that,” I drawled with a roll of my eyes. “We’re fine. But when we were leaving, there was a female near the dumpster behind the building, beaten so badly that she couldn’t move.”
Silence. It was a motherfucking miracle. Linc wasn’t yacking.
I continued, “She blacked out when I picked her up. I’m guessing she’s got some internal damage, cracked ribs, and her wrist is fucked up. It’s too purple and swollen to tell exactly, but I think it was snapped.”
More silence. Okay, that wasn’t like him. Had the call been dropped?
The woman in my arms started moaning as she tried to move, then let out a pained cry as her eyes flew open. She was back with us. That was a relief.
“I’ll send Bane,” Linc said.
With Oz? I was confused. I hadn’t asked who the fuck was going with Oz. Why couldn’t he stay on topic?
“I can go, too, once I drop them off at the house,” Locke said.
“All right,” Linc replied. “I don’t suppose you got a name for the woman?”
I’d expected that question. “No,” I clipped. “She’s struggling to breathe, so speaking is an issue for her.”
“Fuck,” he muttered. “Fine. I’ll meet you in the basement. My girls are in bed, and I don’t want them disturbed.”
His girls were in the east wing of the house. They couldn’t hear shit that went on in the damn basement. We’d had more than one injury treated down there since they’d arrived in Linc’s life.
“Wasn’t planning on walking her in the front door,” I replied sarcastically.
The call ended, and I dropped my gaze back to the woman in my arms. She was staring up at me. Her eyes wide as she studied my face. The bruising that was already forming on her swollen right cheek didn’t mask her delicate features. She wasn’t hard on the eyes. Truth was, if it wasn’t for the clothes she was wearing, I’d have thought she was one of the women inside the club.
“Not much longer,” I told her.
She blinked, and her long, dark lashes that framed blue or green eyes—I couldn’t tell in the darkness—brushed her high cheekbones.
“Need another drink?” I asked.
She swallowed so hard that I could see her throat bob, but she said nothing.
“Probably don’t need to give her any more,” Locke said. “Doc will have the pain drip ready when we get there.”
Morphine, to be exact.