Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
I did, carefully, not sure how hurt she was, where the blood I’d seen at the house had all come from.
She was on her belly when she came out, so I dropped down to try to help her lift up.
“Easy. Go slow. Where are you hurt?”
My only answer to that was a little cry that chipped at my heart.
“It’s okay. We’re going to get you some help. Just talk to me, okay?”
“My rib. And face. And head.”
“Okay. We’ll get those all checked out,” I assured her.
“It’s clear,” Cesare said at my side. “We’re going back out.”
I gave him a nod as I gently helped Blair to her feet.
When her legs immediately buckled just before she fainted right out.
“Okay, honey. It’s okay,” I murmured as I pulled her into my arms, even though she couldn’t hear me.
Holding her carefully to my chest, I walked out of the parking garage, past the rest of my family members still gathered around, and back to Leo’s car where I nestled Blair into the passenger seat, then got the hell out of there.
I could deal with the rest of the fallout later.
Right now, I had to take care of my woman.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Nico
“Where’s Salvatore?” I asked when it was Venezio who answered the door at the Family’s clinic. An actual clinic. Exam rooms, included. And I’d heard that he’d somehow managed to get his hands on some sort of imaging machine as well.
“Called ‘em as soon as I saw you,” Venezio said, moving out of the way. “But I can get started.”
“You?” I asked, dubious.
“Don’t got his years in, but I can clean her up and check her for concussion and shit.”
Blair had woken up sometime on the ride over to the clinic, but she wasn’t quite herself. She was slow and oddly distant.
Venezio was one of the youngest members of the family. He’d been a scrappy street kid who mostly worked for Cosimo but was steadily making a name for himself with all the capos.
He wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but he was smart and had good instincts. And he was always up to get his hands dirty.
He didn’t dress like the rest of us. He was always in jeans, a tee, Timbs, and sometimes a leather jacket—weather permitting.
He was tall and a scrappy kind of fit with dark hair, a deep-ass voice, and one fully brown eye and one half-brown, half-green one.
“Okay,” I agreed, following him in through the waiting room—complete with couches, a TV, a coffee and snack station—everything the Family might need while waiting for a loved one to get patched up.
“Is this a hospital?” Blair slurred. She seemed worse since she’d fallen out.
“She drugged?” Venezio asked, glancing back.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He led us through to an exam room where I set the dazed Blair on the table, staying close in case she blacked out again.
Venezio slipped on gloves then grabbed a flashlight before moving in front of Blair, flashing it in her eyes.
“How long has she been like this?”
“I don’t know. Hours.”
“Oh, this shit don’t work then,” he said, flicking off the flashlight. “Pupils only dilate for maybe an hour. But you definitely seem like you’re on something, huh, babe?” he asked, tilting her chin up.
“They stabbed me,” she said, her eyes welling up.
“Yeah? Where?” Venezio asked.
“Arm.”
Venezio pulled down my shirt that she was wearing—now covered in dirt and blood—to inspect the injection site.
“How you been feeling? Double vision? Queasy? Dizzy?”
“Yes. All.”
“Anything else?” Venezio asked, slipping a pulse oximeter on her finger.
“Um. Everything felt weird. Space. Time felt wrong. My heart was pounding. And I had a cold sweat. And… I was crying. A lot.”
That explained how swollen her lids were and how red her cheeks appeared.
Venezio just nodded along like all that was normal as he dug for a blood pressure machine and slid the cuff up her arm.
“Anything else?”
“Maybe some… like… visual disturbances?”
“Disturbances or full hallucinations?”
“I don’t know. It’s becoming blurry.”
“What do you think?” I asked him after he asked her to sit still and not talk for a minute so he could take her blood pressure.
“Could be a few things,” he said, shrugging. “But judging by the injection, symptoms, and the ease of supply, I’m leaning toward ketamine. Salvatore’s got an in at a blood testing place. He can get the results sometime tomorrow.”
“Will there be lasting issues?”
“Nah. Not from just the one dose. I mean, she might be off for a few days. Dizzy, emotional, headaches, fatigue, that kind of thing. But it will wear off. Nothing long-term to worry about.”
“That’s a relief,” Blair said, words still thick and slow.
“Sounds like I get to play nursemaid for a few days,” I said, rubbing her arm.
“Alright. Walk me through,” Venezio said, pulling off the cuff and marking down notes for, I assumed, Salvatore.
“The door hit me first,” Blair said, touching her face. “And then I fell. Hit my head. Ronny climbed on me and slammed my head into the floor. Danny stabbed me. Then I was out. I don’t know how long. It had to be a while. The sun was starting to go down. When I woke up, my head was screaming.”