Page 43 of With A Little Luck

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ridge

Several Hours Earlier

“ T hey took a shot at me with my pregnant baby mama three fucking feet away,” I grind out, lying on the table in the makeshift hospital room that Easton keeps in the Shadow Security outfitting warehouse. “I am going to rip Costa’s heart out with my bare hands.”

“Simmer down,” Easton says blandly.

“I’m serious. I need to get patched up fast so I can get out there and fuck some shit up.”

Easton and Trigg must have some weird psychopath telepathy going on.

That, or weird half-brother vibes.

They each grab an arm, pinning me to the table.

Easton shows no mercy as my wound bubbles with blood. “Trigg and I will regroup to make a plan once you’re safely at home and recovering. For now, keep your ass on the hospital bed, or I will have the doctor sedate you.”

“Fuck no,” I hiss, shaking my right arm out of his hold. It hurts like a bitch since that’s the shoulder that was clipped. Calling it my trapezius would be more accurate, but Shaw already gave me shit about how the bullet likely would have missed me if I didn’t skip leg day.

Whatever.

I like to work my shoulders and arms.

If they’re not going to let me go on the offensive after this, I need to get back to Quincy as soon as possible. She was freaking out, and I know she’ll want to see with her own two eyes that I’m okay.

“Then lie back and cooperate while Dane patches you up. The wound packing Leo did is not going to keep you from bleeding out. You’re concerningly pale,” Easton growls.

“Oh, he’s definitely going to need a transfusion,” Dr. Dane says. Fuck if I know if that’s his first or last name. “I’m just waiting for the database to load to make sure I have his blood type on hand.”

“Ridge and I are a match,” Shaw says, pushing off the wall in the corner. “He direct donated to me last time I got pegged.”

“I still prefer to use cleared donor blood unless we have no other option,” the doc says.

I frown as my vision gets even fuzzier. “Yeah, just hurry up. I’m pretty sure I’m about to pass out.”

And I promptly do exactly that.

I’m not dead.

Dr. Dane hooked me up with the good drugs.

The bullet went straight through and didn’t clip anything vital.

I got lucky.

It’s hard to be grateful when all I can think about is if Quincy is going to say enough is enough.

I don’t think she can technically break up with me when I don’t know if we’re even dating, but I did ask to court her. That’s supposedly like going steady for alphas and omegas.

At least that’s what I was taught.

She better not try to break up with me over this.

Costa was already going down, but I swear to fuck I’m going to make that son of a bitch suffer. This is exactly what I was telling Quincy when I said the bad guys don’t play by the rules.

Even among contract workers, there’s a code we follow.

You don’t involve women and children.

Hell, I’ve had opportunities to take out a target but held off because they had their wife or kid with them.

Sometimes you get a window, and you either take it or you might not get another for a month.

Still, you wait it out, even if your target is a grade-A piece of shit, because the goal isn’t to traumatize the target’s family.

These are unwritten rules, much like you never risk harming a civilian to complete a contract.

Whoever Costa hired has no honor.

Fuck.

My head is swimming with the pain meds. I don’t even know if my thoughts are making sense.

“You are going to be able to keep yourself vertical, right?” Shaw asks, holding open the door that leads from the garage to the back hallway. “The stairs might be pushing it.”

I squint and try to remember how high to lift my foot to hit the step.

Damn.

Dr. Dane is my new best friend.

He came through with the good drugs.

“We should have gone with Easton and let Valor handle getting Ridge inside,” Leo says, wrapping his forearm around my lower back.

“In case you forgot how to climb stairs, you lift one foot at a time.” Shaw cracks a shitty smile.

“I’m more than capable of walking up the stairs,” I grumble. “You guys are dicks.”

I don’t slap Leo’s arm away solely because I’m still light-headed. If I take a header into the concrete, that would take the day from questionable to downright shitty. It’s a slow process, but I make it up the stairs, and Shaw steps inside to get out of the doorway.

“Hartley and Quincy are still here, right?” They better not have bolted while I was in surgery.

“They’re here,” Shaw says as Leo releases me to close the door behind us.

“Well, thank fuck for that. Don’t leave with my meds or the extra dressings,” I grumble, shuffling along down the hallway.

I’m shirtless because mine was ruined, and no one thought to bring me a backup, but whoever is here can appreciate my impressive stomach.

I’ve put a lot of work into maintaining this physique—mainly beer and pizza.

Oh, and wings and burgers.

I love a good Italian spread too.

All the carbs.

Damn.

Now I’m kinda hungry, in addition to being fucked up from whatever Dr. Dane popped into my IV before pulling it. Hopefully, the pills will keep up with the pain because I’m going to have to pretend like this little scratch doesn’t hurt a bit—at least in front of Quincy.

Everything is bright as shit, which might be why I’m squinting so much.

I pull my good arm up, mindlessly checking for my glasses.

Motherfucker.

Those dicks cost me my favorite pair of glasses. Not that my aviators really matter, considering the circumstances, but it’s just another thing to be pissed about.

Low talking spills from the living room as I make the left to head into it, and I squint even harder to figure out why the place is decorated for a baby shower.

Not to mention, Briar and Saylor are here. So is Omen, but at least he has a purpose. I mean, I guess it’s nice that they threw Quincy a baby shower to take her mind off things.

She’s sitting on Hartley’s lap in my recliner and smiling at something Briar said.

It’s good that Briar and Saylor came over. Having female companionship probably put her at ease more than if she had come home to a house full of mercenaries. Shadow Security is kind of a testosterone fest.

King spots me first. He struggles to his feet, and his entire ass shakes with excitement.

“Glad to see you’re in one piece,” Omen says from his spot on the floor where he was busy spoiling King with scratches.

“Yeah, except for that chunk of my shoulder,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I was kinda fond of it, but according to the doc, it’ll grow back.”

Omen laughs. “I believe the word you’re looking for is heal .”

“That too.” I shrug and immediately regret the choice.

“Please help me up. This is getting embarrassing,” Quincy says with a huff.

Hartley grins, leaning the recliner forward and helping her up with his hands on her hips.

I love that chair.

It’s supersized to fit my giant ass, and it rocks and swivels.

Not to mention, it has a lie-flat setting that I used a lot when King was a puppy.

He pissed all over everything the first few weeks after I brought him home, especially at night.

He’d walk to the end of my mattress and piss right there and come back and lie by my head.

Eventually, I realized that if he slept on my chest in the chair that when he walked down by my feet, it was time to go out. Everyone told me to crate train him, but they didn’t see him the night I found him. I don’t think he’d been out of that tiny-ass three-by-four-foot cage in weeks.

“You’re okay,” Quincy whispers, coming to a stop in front of me. “God, I’ve been so worried. Can I hug you? Or will that hurt too much?”

I chuckle, wrapping my good arm around her lower back. “I’d risk popping a stitch to pick you up, if you asked me to.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She buries her face in my bare chest, twisting sideways slightly to accommodate her stomach.

“All I could focus on was hoping you’d be okay, but now that you are, I’m tempted to throat punch you all over again for just standing there shielding me.

You probably could have gotten him first if you weren’t worried about me. We’re never leaving the house again.”

“When we first got back from Germany, my instincts freaked out any time one of my guys tried to leave the apartment,” Saylor says.

I appreciate her trying to help Quincy feel like her reaction is normal, but things are a little different here. We can’t just camp out indefinitely.

“That might be a problem. You still have doctor’s appointments coming up.” I soothe my hand over Quincy’s back.

Not to mention, I planned a special excursion for us tomorrow.

That was before I got shot, but I really don’t want to miss out on a chance to experience at least one ultrasound before she delivers.

I found a 3D/4D ultrasound place that can record the heartbeat so we can keep it forever, along with her movements on the screen. We’ll also get pictures.

Fuck.

I really don’t like the idea of Costa costing me that experience, but I don’t want to needlessly risk Quincy or the baby’s safety.

“Did you happen to see Keir?” Briar asks, shoving off the couch. “It’s probably time for us to get out of your hair.”

“We’ll keep watch once you guys head out,” Leo says from behind me.

I pull Quincy into the living room with my hand on her lower back to give Leo and Shaw room to get through to Saylor. “We didn’t see Keir, but I’m sure he’s out there somewhere.”

“Well, damn. Someone go find my alpha and make sure he’s okay,” Briar says, planting her hands on her hips.

“Give me two seconds to kiss my omega, and I’ll brave the cold to find your husband,” Shaw says, laughing. “Although, for the record, that man is completely capable of keeping himself alive.”

Quincy looks up at me, blinking her big blue eyes. “I’m very overwhelmed. Can we go upstairs now?”

I chuckle. “Yeah, sweetheart.”

It goes back to that whole thing where I couldn’t deny her if I tried.