Page 89 of Dual Surrender

“Then you put out a hit on the doctor.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from screaming.

“Weakening your foundation,” she laughed.

“I don’t know any of them, Carmen.” The guy had stopped, his back pressed flat against the wall, gun gripped in both hands and pointed at the floor. He stared up at the ceiling like he’d had a lifetime of dealing with the woman who looked about ready to blast a hole through my heart.

“You know Golden,” she accused.

“Of course,” he said, “but not this one, not the doctor, and definitely not the Italian.”

“Take down one, take them all.”

Downstairs, more footsteps. Loud boots thudded across the entryway and Alistair grimaced, raising his gun. Carmen registered the sound of hurried footsteps and pulled back the hammer on her revolver, taking another step toward me.

“You’re being dramatic,” the man said.

Someone was running up the stairs.

“Tell me killing this architect wouldn’t ruin you? Wouldn’t ruin your whole enterprise.”

I glanced at him, paling when I saw his expression. Sad and sorrowful, without an inch of denial in his face.

The footsteps grew louder and before I knew it, I saw someone I knew. Foster bounded up the stairs, gun in hand, and he ran past the blond man like he didn’t even see him there.

“Foster,” the guy said.

“Oooh. Gangs all here.” Carmen smiled at no one in particular.

Foster reached me in the hallway, and then someone’s gun went off.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Ronan

“Can you assist?” A nurse flung herself around the corner of the breakroom. “There’s a gunshot wound coming in and I can’t find Dr. Meyers.”

I jumped up, brushing sandwich crumbs off my shirt and following her into the hallway.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Gunshot victim coming in from mid-Wilshire, ETA two minutes.”

We jogged toward the emergency entrance and I watched the ambulance pull into the horseshoe driveway. I watched the paramedics wheel out the gurney and then I saw Kevin. I thought for sure I had to be imagining it, but I wasn’t. My fiancé climbed out of the back of the ambulance, whiter than I’d ever seen him, save for the blood that streaked up his arms and across his cheek. He looked shaken, eyes wide in a way I’d also never seen before. He took a deep breath and caught up to the paramedics as they wheeled the gurney in through the automatic doors.

“Kevin,” I barely managed his name, watching him burst into tears when he saw me at the door.

“Doc.” One of the paramedics bumped into my shoulder using the momentum of his body to shove all of us down the hallway toward the ER. I forced my attention away from Kevin, even though it killed me and then I turned as white as he was when I looked down and recognized the blood-soaked body beneath my hands.

“Foster.”

“Gunshot wound to the shoulder,” the paramedic said, stepping out of the way as he wheeled Foster into a waiting room. “He’s lost a lot of blood. The bullet went straight through.”

“Right.”

The paramedics passed Foster into my care, and I stared down at my friend.

My best friend.