Page 174 of Protecting Peyton

With the aidof a siren and lights, the ambulance made good time on the trip to the hospital.

“It’s no big deal,” Lucas barked as the paramedic tried for the second time to remove his vest.

I took my life in my hands and turned his own words against him. “Boss,” I insisted. “He’s been ordered to take care of you. Let him do his job.” I said it with as much authority as I could muster.

“Smart ass,” Lucas snorted, but he stopped resisting.

After removing the vest, the paramedic took out scissors and cut the boss’s turtleneck off, showing the source of the bleeding.

Lucas had wadded up cloth under his vest and cinched it down tight. Now that the pressure was off, the wound oozed blood.

“You’re a lucky man,” the paramedic said. “This is just a graze.”

“Like I said,” Lucas snorted. “No big deal.”

I watched the medic wipe the blood away several times and prepare a large dressing.

“Hold this tight,” he instructed me while he pulled tape off a spool. “A slightly different angle, this would have hit the liver.”

Lucas winced as I bore down hard on the dressing.

That’s when I noticed what he’d hidden with the turtleneck—bruising on his neck.

I’d put those bruises there when he’d woken me up from the nightmare this morning, and we’d struggled.

“Keep the pressure on.” Then the medic loosened the gurney straps, urged Lucas to lift up, and wound an elastic bandage around him three times and over the bandage.

“What happened here?” the medic asked, touching the bruise on Lucas’s neck.

Lucas answered quickly without even a glance in my direction. “Wrestling with one of my men this morning.”

“You guys should take it easier on each other.”

I looked away. Lucas was strong enough to fight me off and wake me up, but what if it had been Peyton? What if I’d had my hands around her neck? What if I hadn’t woken up and stopped in time?

A pit formed in my stomach. This changed everything. I’d promised to keep Peyton safe, and now it was me I had to keep her safe from. There was only one way to do that. As much as it hurt, I had to be strong and do the right thing by my woman.

Peyton

They unloadedme from the ambulance at the emergency room entrance.

“You can let me go now,” I complained. The gurney’s straps still held me down.

“What do we have?” a young doctor asked as they rolled me toward the door. His name tag read Larson.

Mindy ignored my plea and answered the doctor. “Neck and frontal abdominal lacerations. Head trauma, possible concussion, second one in a week.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine.”

Dr. Larson saw me. “Good catch, Mindy.” He shone a penlight in my eyes and tugged my eyelid up. “Secondaries can be tricky. Hopefully, it’s mild.” He turned off the light and moved a finger left and right in front of me. “Follow the motion for me.”

Sick of this, I looked him in the eye. “Hey, I said I’m fine.”

“Sure you are.” He patted my shoulder and turned to a nurse. “Burke, start the paperwork and get her the first available CT slot.”

Mindy slid up the bottom of Zane’s jacket, which was all I had since Lucifer had shredded my top.

“What do we have under these bandages?” Larson asked.