Page 52 of Toxic
Gracin sighs like he’s dealing with a roomful of children instead of a couple of grown men armed with knives. He pulls the gun from its holster and points it at the man on my right, who palesconsiderably.
“Step away from her,” hegrowls.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Desmond snarls as he pulls out a phone. “Shoot one of us, but you won’t be able to get us all, and the second you try anything, one of these boys is gonna have a knife to your girl. Don’t fuckin’pushme.”
“You think so?” Gracin asks, and I shouldn’t be surprised he’ssocalm.
“You’re damn right I do,”Desmondsays.
I pull out the gun Gracin had given me and train it on the man on my right and then the knife I kept in my pocket goes to the throat of the man onmyleft.
“You really think so?” I say andsmirk.
While Desmond is staring at me dumbfounded, Gracin lunges with his characteristic feline grace and smashes the gun against Desmond’s head. The two on either side of me are too stunned to move for a second, so Gracin advances on Jasper, this time hitting the man with his fist. Gracin gets the same result, and the man crumples to the floor next to his buddy. The third moves faster than Gracin expects and has me in his arms, his knife slicing right through my shirt and into the meat of myupperarm.
I cry out, and Gracin shouts, stunning the third guy enough that I can drop to the floor and out of his reach without getting hurt. By the time I scramble away and climb back to my feet, Gracin has him in a chokehold. The man bucks, trying to get free, but it’s almost laughable. A moment later, he joins his friends in la-laland.
“Fuck,” Gracin says as he takes in the shallow slice in my arm. I start to protest when he takes off his outer shirt to press it against my wound, but I’m cut short. “Fuck, baby, I’msorry.”
“It’s fine.I’mokay.”
“I shouldn’t have let you come,”hesays.
“Gracin!” I say sharply. When he looks at me, I admonish, “I’m fine. Let’s finish what we came here todo,okay?”
“Keep pressure on the wound, and I’ll take care of these guys and bring the car around back. Don’t move anywhere.” He turns and takes two steps before thinking better of it and coming back to my side. “I fucking mean it. Don’t move from this spot or I sweartoGod. . .”
As soon as he leaves, I slump against the chair behind me, feeling woozy and punch drunk. The men at my feet twitch, but they don’t rouse. I keep the gun in my hand just in case, but no onewakes.
Gracin comes through the back door and helps me down the short hallway to the exit before tucking me in the front seat of his SUV and disappearing back inside. Yes, I can walk perfectly fine on my own, but again, I keep my mouth shut. I’m not sure what he does with two of the guys, but when he comes back out, he is dragging Desmondbehindhim.
Once the Danny look-alike is tied up and tucked into the back of the SUV, Gracin tears out of the parking lot, and I grip the oh shit handle to keep from falling intohislap.
“We’re fine,” I say. “We got what wewanted.”
He isn’t listening to me, of course. Instead, he has his cell phone pressed to his ear. “Get Doctor Haversham. I don’t care if he’s on call for the goddamn Pope, I want him at the house in an hour, or he’ll be hearing from me personally.” He slams the phone into the cup holder, and I try to keep fromsmiling.
“You realize I’m a nurse,” I say to him. “I can probably take care of this by myself. It’s really not that deep at all. Just a couplestitches.”
“We’re going to have the doctor look at it, end of discussion,” he says, his toneimplacable.
“Fine, but I want to know whenever you get any information out of frat boy here.” I jerk my finger over my shoulder to Desmond, who’s stilloutcold.
Gracingrunts.
“Seriously, Gracin.I’mfine.”
“I’ll believe that when Haversham gives you the all-clear.”
Both of his hands are clutching the steering wheel for dear life, and sympathy cuts through my frustration at his insistence that I see a doctor. I press a hand to his arm like I wanted to do when we were drivingearlier.
“Gracin,” I saytentatively.
“Don’t . . . justdon’t.”
I sigh and sit back in the seat. It’s going to be a longdriveback.
As soon as we pull into his garage, two men stride to the SUV to deal with Desmond and Gracin hustles me up to my room where Haversham is alreadywaiting.