Page 63 of Every Broken Piece

Chapter fifty-nine

Gabe

H ours later Jack meets me outside the emergency room doors.

“He’s out of surgery and doing well,” he says as we hurry through the ER and turn down a darkened hallway. “The bullet lodged in his upper thigh.” He stabs the elevator button and turns to me. “It was inches from his femoral. It could have been really bad, but it wasn’t.”

I sag against the wall as the blood leaves all my extremities. Femoral artery.

Femoral artery.

Femoral artery.

Fuck.

The elevator doors slide open. Jack pulls me in then pushes the button for the floor Pax is on.

“It could have been bad, but it wasn’t. He’ll make a full recovery. Are you hearing me, brother?”

I nod because words are beyond me right now.

“Tell me what you know about Tess,” Jack says.

I’ve spent the last few hours with the Denver PD detectives who're looking for Tess. Since her abduction is more than likely linked to drugs and drug distribution, they called the DEA.

I run a hand through my hair and over my beard.

“They don’t know where the hell she is. They pulled up footage of the red-light cameras at the intersections.

” Four. There are only cameras at four intersections.

Why aren’t there cameras all over the whole damn city?

“They saw the van heading north, then they lost it.”

“Did they get a license plate?”

I shake my head. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this defeated. My sons in the hospital with a fucking gunshot wound and my girl’s gone. Gone .

Because I didn’t send a car to pick her up. I didn’t walk her to the restaurant. I left that up to my son .

“Stop beating yourself up. That’s not helping anything,” Jack says, reading my mind.

The doors open and he leads me down a silent hall. It’s two in the morning but the nurses don’t stop us as we make our way to Pax’s room.

Jack pushes the door open and lets me enter first. I pause to take a deep breath, not ready to see him laid out on a bed after surgery from being shot .

Fucking hell.

I take a step in and stop. He’s on his back, his arms at his side, eyes closed, so damn pale that it scares the shit out of me. I have to brace a hand on the wall to keep from falling to my knees.

“He’s still a little out of it from the anesthesia,” Jack says.

I find the closest chair and sink into it. Elbows on my knees I lean forward and clasp my hands together studying the monitors that beep a comforting rhythm.

“What now?” Jack asks quietly. “What’s our next move?”

“Find her.” I hope to hell we can find her. I hope she’s not hurt, or worse. I grind the heels of my hands into my burning eyes.

Helplessness is a feeling I lived with for years and eventually overcame. It’s not a place I want to go back to.

“I called Hardwick,” I say softly so as not to wake Pax.

I keep my eyes on the up and down motion of his chest and my ears tuned to the steady beep beep of the monitors.

“She’s calling Chicago PD to see if they have eyes on Carter.

” I know they don’t because he’s here and he has Tess and I don’t know where the hell they are.

They could be out of Denver by now. Out of Colorado.

Pax’s eyes flutter open and he turns his head. I push out of the chair.

“Dad?”

“Right here, bud. How’re you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been shot.” He grins but it’s too soon for me, although if I know Pax he’ll make the most out of this for a long time to come.

“Nothing major was hit. You’ll heal like new.”

“Think I ruined my chances at the Olympics?”

A few of the cracks in my heart heal a little at his joke. “Maybe you’ll run faster.”

His eyes are clouded with the pain meds, but they suddenly widen. “Tess? Did you find her?”

I draw in a deep breath. “Not yet. But a whole lot of people are working on it.”

His eyes fill with tears and his bottom lip trembles just like it did when he was a little boy. “I’m so sorry—”

“Pax—”

“No, Dad. You don’t understand. I know what she means to you. I haven’t seen you this happy in forever and I was supposed to protect her for you, and she ended up protecting me for you.”

I never once told him to protect her, but the fact that he felt the need to breaks me a little more. “That wasn’t up to you, son. She’s my girl. My responsibility.”

A tear drips down his cheek, and I lean forward. “This isn’t your fault, Paxton. Bad people wanted her and were willing to kill you to get her. You couldn’t have stopped them.”

His eyes widen and he lifts his head, digging his elbows into the bed to sit up, then groans and flops back on the pillow.

I put a hand on his chest to keep him still.

“Her phone,” he says to the ceiling. “You can track her phone. I put her on our family tracking app when I set up her new stuff.”

“Her phone was found crushed on the curb.” One of the policemen asked if I could identify it. Right away I recognized the I ?? NY phone case. The screen was completely destroyed and the police took it as evidence.

“She was so excited to show you her new website,” Pax whispers.

I didn’t think my heart could continue to break but each minute destroys it a little more. “She will,” I say. “When we see her again, she can show us.”

His look of defeat is also filled with pity. My jaw tightens because I’m not giving up on her. If I have to search for her for the rest of my days I will.

“Wait!” He wraps his fingers around my wrist. “Her computer. She had her computer with her. In a backpack. She has her computer.”

My brows lower in confusion. The beeping of the monitors intensifies with his overexcitement.

“Pax, you need to—"

“You can track her through the computer. I added it as a device. You can find her. Dad.” He gives my wrist a shake because I’ve gone still. “Dad. You can track her.”

I pull my phone out of my pocket. “How. Show me how.”

Pax takes my phone, the IV lines rattling against the bed rails, and taps a few things then turns it toward me. Theres a circle with Tess’s picture in it, one I took while hiking. Pax zooms out and the dot is now in the northern suburbs.

“There she is,” Pax says. “She’s on...” He zooms in on the dot and frowns. “I can’t find the street name.”

He takes a screenshot and hands my phone back to me. “You have to find her. You have to go get her.”

I glance at Jack who’s hovering over my shoulder, looking at my phone. He pokes me in the ribs. “Go. We’ll be fine here.”

I look at Pax. “I don’t want to leave you.”

Pax grins. “I won’t start my Olympic training until tomorrow. Please go get our Tess.”

Our Tess.

My Tess.

This woman effortlessly slid into my little family, and they love her just as much as I do.

I kiss Pax on the forehead. “Thank you,” I whisper.