Page 21 of Always Been Mine (Always #2)

“No!” Gabe snarled. Where he got the energy, Beatrice had no idea, but he managed to get on his knees, and then using the wheelbase, he boosted himself up in an upright position, shielding her fully. “You will no t touch her.”

“Tsk . . . tsk . . . You’re as good as dead, Sully. Look at you.”

Beatrice readied the gun; Gabe was giving her the opportunity to shoot and she was taking it.

Before she was able to surprise Ryker, shots cracked through the air.

Not losing focus though, she leaned to the right.

Both Ryker and the Latino guy were already on their way down, but because Beatrice liked insurance, she shot Ryker anyway, forcing his body to jerk backward.

Gabe sank beside her. He was done and all strength had left him.

More shots were exchanged.

“Gabe, hold on, please,” Beatrice begged. His eyes were closed and he was about to fall sideways to the ground. She steadied him against the tires of the SUV and took a tentative peek through the vehicle’s windows.

The Iron Skulls!

But how? She didn’t even hear their bikes.

Beatrice leaned toward Gabe and planted a kiss on his cold lips.

“Babe,” he rasped.

“Hang on, Gabe. The Skulls are here.”

There was a wailing of sirens in the distance.

“Ms. Porter!”

“Ashe?”

The Iron Skulls VP walked toward her, the blond biker Duke and an older man about the age of her dad followed close behind.

“Gabe’s badly hurt.” A sob escaped her. She fought for calm, but her knees were like Jell-O. “How did you guys—”

“We had some intel,” the older man said. “I’m Nicholas Crane. Sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances, Ms. Porter. You okay?”

She could only nod.

“Good. We can’t hang around; police and ambulance are on their way.”

“But—”

Crane let out a loud whistle to round up his men. “Let’s go!”

The sirens grew closer.

Crane nodded to her. “Until next time, Ms. Porter.”

The bikers disappeared.

After a few more minutes, the ambulance and police arrived.

Beatrice watched Gabe through the ICU window.

She closed her eyes momentarily as the memory of seeing him loaded on the gurney, pale as death and barely breathing, assailed her mind. He almost died. A few minutes more, it would have been too late.

She had been afraid to tell him she loved him because saying so felt like saying goodbye. She refused. They had put him under a medically induced coma for four days so his body could recover. They were bringing him out of it today.

Right now, watching all the apparatus in the room breathing for him, monitoring his heartbeat and blood pressure, he still looked formidable.

There was a static energy simmering inside him.

He was alive. She struggled to wrap her head around his injuries.

His heart had stopped once. He lost almost forty percent of his blood.

He suffered a collapsed lung and three gunshot wounds to the body.

A fourth bullet took out a piece of his skull.

His skull.

The doctor said if he wasn’t in excellent shape, his body would have succumbed to all the trauma.

Doug came up beside her and squeezed her arm. He was the only other person who had been a constant in the hospital. Not a peep from her father. Beatrice was offended for Gabe, but she guessed she shouldn’t be surprised.

A few minutes later, Gabe’s doctor walked up to them.

“Ready, Ms. Porter?”

Two weeks later

“Gabe, if you don’t stop behaving like an asshole, a piece of your skull missing or not, I’m going to whack this purse over your head.”

Beatrice issued the threat with much conviction.

Gabe paused and clenched his jaw. It had been two fucking weeks for fuck’s sake, almost three if he considered the time he was under.

He’d been going insane with boredom in the hospital.

They had fit a quarter-size metal plate in his head.

Beatrice had started calling him Terminator.

“Wanna get the fuck out of here.” The way he issued this demand was actually the tamest of his recent rants. “I’d rather stay at home than be here.”

When Gabe woke up from his coma, he was relieved to see Beatrice’s face.

Even in the darkest recesses of his medically induced sleep, she had been ever present.

He woke up thinking of her. His second thought was of Rhino.

He found out Beatrice had moved into his house, so she could take care of his dog.

His woman. In his house. Could she really blame him for wanting to be there with them?

“You still require medical supervision and you shouldn’t be moving too much.”

“You can take care of me,” Gabe grumbled.

“I have to work.”

He looked away from her, staring out the window.

“I’m not there to protect you.” A frustrated anger exploded from him.

“I’m stuck here. In this hospital. A damn invalid!

Some kind of bodyguard I turned out to be.

” He slapped his thigh to release some pent-up rage.

Part of the rage stemmed from the fact that Beatrice had refused to leave him when things got desperate, and she could have been killed.

He understood her reasons, because he would have done the same if their situations were reversed, but he was the man, damn it.

It was his job to protect her, not the other way around.

“Calm down.”

“Fuck calm down. Get me out of here,” he demanded anew. “Get me the nurse or whoever the fuck is in charge so I can sign the release forms.”

“You be reasonable, Sullivan.” Beatrice now had both hands on her hips. His annoyance escalated if it were even possible. She totally looked fuckable. His dick was tenting his pajamas, and he couldn’t do a damned thing.

“I am. Before I become truly unreasonable, have me discharged.”

Her jaw, which was set stubbornly since the beginning of his rant, slackened. Her lips trembled, and suddenly, to Gabe’s horror, she burst out crying.

“Babe, what the—”

“You almost died!” she yelled. Tears spilled from her eyes, her fists were now balled at her sides.

“I watched you bleed all over the pavement. There was a puddle of your blood, Gabe. A puddle! Can you even imagine how I felt when I realized I loved you and I wanted you back and all I could do was watch you die? Can you?”

His frustration and anger evaporated. “Babe, come here,” he whispered softly.

“Seven hours in the waiting room. You had a hole in your head. You died on the OR table. I thought I would go crazy because they wouldn’t let me see you.

I’m not your next of kin, and Dad wasn’t returning my calls so I couldn’t have him do whatever magic he does to fix your records. And you had no family. You had no one.”

“But you did get in to see me, babe,” he said gently.

“Thank goodness for Senator Mendoza.”

Gabe scowled at the mention of the senator. “I hope you ripped him a new one.”

“He lost his uncle, Gabe,” Beatrice quietly reminded him.

“It’s still no excuse for putting a lot of people in danger,” Gabe said darkly. “There are protocols for a reason. Was it even worth the information he got from his uncle? Wait. How did you miss the uncle on your background check? Even if he didn’t list him down, he would have popped up.”

“They use the term uncle loosely. He’s the”—Beatrice paused, as though working something in her head—“husband of his mother’s second cousin. His cousin—the uncle’s son, and I’m using the term cousin also loosely here—is the head of the leading paramilitary force in the country.”

“The purpose of the trip was a directive from POTUS though. That’s already a conflict of interest right there. Even with the degree of blood separation, family ties in South America are very close.”

“True, but Senator Mendoza already knows how to work the bureaucracy of the Colombian government.”

Gabe leaned against the pillows, suddenly tired. Maybe he did need to stay longer in the hospital. He held out his hand. She curled her fingers with his as he tugged her closer .

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he whispered. “I know I would lose my mind if something like this happened to you.”

Beatrice gave a small smile, and with her other hand, she stroked the side of his jaw. “Just another week, okay? Please? I don’t want anything to happen to you, Gabe.”

“I love you, Beatrice.”

“I love you, too.”

Three weeks later

There was some truth that an idle mind was the devil’s playground.

He had been home for two weeks after almost spending a month in the hospital, and he was extremely restless.

His brain was working through several theories, none of them making sense.

He wanted to do his own investigation on Steve Ryker.

But since the police were involved, all evidence had been sequestered and inaccessible.

BSI was able to get some information because the attack affected their client.

Domingo Ventura, who was the leader of the Fuego gang’s northeastern chapter, maintained that Steve Ryker, who Ventura knew as Vladimir Volkov, was a Russian mercenary hired by an enemy of the senator.

Ryker/Volkov bribed some gang members who were sympathetic to the groups fighting the Colombian government and who didn’t want the armed conflict to end.

Somehow that didn’t add up, because the Skulls already confirmed that Ventura was aware of Ryker/Volkov’s previous plans.

Did Ventura double-cross Ryker/Volkov and tip off the Skulls?

Was it about money? A cut in the drugs ?

Why did they kill Senator Mendoza’s uncle? They could have easily taken out the senator instead.

Unless the senator was dirty.

“Fuck,” Gabe muttered, rubbing his hand over his face. Rhino whined, got down from his dog bed, and shuffled over to Gabe. Laying his head on his lap, Rhino looked up at him with concerned dark eyes.

“I’m okay, boy.” He scratched Rhino’s head affectionately. “Just a little frustrated and feeling helpless.” And useless.