Page 31 of Forbidden Confessions, Volume 2 (The Forbidden Volumes #1)

With a shaky breath, I stand just enough to flip on the storeroom’s light.

The place is a disaster, but I don’t care.

Ransom tied off the back door with some sturdy rope.

It will hold for a bit, and the front door is locked tight.

From both the parking lot and the alley, the animal clinic appears dark and empty.

Thankfully, the gunfire seems to have ended.

I pray that whoever shot Ransom fled when the police showed.

Dashing back to the surgical room, I hunt down the rolling cart Dr. Robbins uses to carry larger animals who come in injured. Since it can support a horse, it can easily handle Ransom’s weight.

I drag it into the hall, along with a piece of plywood we sometimes use to move an unconscious animal onto the rolling metal slab. I lock the wheels on the cart, then brace the wood against it. I don’t know how I’ll lift him, but I’ll find a way. This may be life-or-death.

Shoving aside my worries, I roll Ransom closer to the board so I can pull or lift him. Something. It’s looking as impossible as it sounds.

But when I get him on his back, the cement floor is covered in rain—and blood. He’s deathly pale.

My heart stops.

I whip out my phone again. He told me not to call 911, but he didn’t say anything about Ethan.

Thankfully, my ex answers right away. “Havana?”

Of course he’s confused. We haven’t spoken since the morning he walked into the kitchen and caught his father and me lip-locked, my body writhing shamelessly while I silently begged for more.

I can’t worry whether that hurt him now. “Your father is here. He’s bleeding. He won’t let me call for help. He passed out. I n-need to lift him, but I can’t and?—”

“Okay. Slow down. Tell me where you are.”

I do. In the background, I hear him grabbing his keys, slamming the door of his car, and burning rubber down the street.

“I’ll be there in five. Fuck it; I’ll run red lights. Make that three.”

“Okay.” I can’t do anything but stare at Ransom while Ethan drives, so I put him on speaker and set the phone down. “Has this happened before?”

Ethan hesitates. “Yeah. Usually, he calls one of my uncles. But I’ve been with him a few times when shit went down. I know what to do.”

Oh, thank God! “We have to help him.”

I try to remove Ransom’s duster so I can get a look at his injuries, but it’s like a second skin, clinging to his mile-wide shoulders. There’s a hole in the arm of the coat where a bullet ripped in…and blood now seeps back out. I’ll probably have to cut this off.

But there’s even more blood around his neck.

Do something besides stand there. Apply direct pressure, idiot!

I don’t stop to think, just strip off my sunny orange T-shirt and press it directly against the left side of his throat, where blood oozes alarmingly fast. When I wipe it away to look at the wound, I see a chunk gouged out of his flesh that’s not inconsistent with a bullet.

Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god .

Trying to keep my head together, I wipe away more blood and look closer. It seems as if the bullet missed his artery…but just barely. And he’s bleeding a lot.

Shit. I settle the T-shirt over the wound again and press my bloody palm down.

“What’s going on?” Ethan asks. “What do you see?”

I fill him in, and he responds with a blue streak.

“I’m applying direct pressure, but he’s lost blood… I think he needs more.”

“Fuck. Dad and I aren’t the same blood type.”

“I’m O-negative.” The universal donor.

“Do you mind giving?”

Tears sting my eyes. “I’ll give him all I have if it will keep him alive.”

“Havana…” He sighs like he wants to ask me about my feelings for his father, but he doesn’t. “You’re at a vet’s office, right? You have medical stuff there? Antibiotics and pain meds?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“Would he really get arrested if we called the police?”

Ethan doesn’t answer right away. “I’ve never asked too many questions.

I didn’t want to know. Uncle Rand is a small-town police chief, and Uncle Rush has been a government operative for years.

I know they’re on the good guys’ team. Dad and Uncle Ridge seem like they might be playing for the enemy. But he’s my dad.”

“I-I’m not judging. I just want to know.” Who I’ve lost my heart to. And who might own me for the rest of his life if he makes it through the night.

“That’s all I can tell you. I’m pulling up now.”

I hate to leave Ransom, but I have to unlock the front door for Ethan. “I’m going to disconnect. Give me a minute. And be careful out there!”

“Sure.” The line goes dead.

I scramble on my hands and knees until I find some bandages and accompanying tape on the storeroom floor. I tear my shirt from the wound and secure the bandage in its place. It won’t stop his bleeding, but it should slow the flow while I let Ethan inside.

On shaking legs, I stand and peer at Ransom’s too-pale face, trying not to give in to despair. “You can’t hear me but please, please…live.”

More tears fall. Instead of getting the man I love for my birthday, I might lose him forever.