Page 86 of Lawless in Leather

Her teeth clenched as she crawled out of bed, flicked on the lights, and tried to locate some clothes. Once she was sure that Marly was okay, she was going to kick Malachi Coulter’s butt. Or something.

Chapter Twenty

Ned delivered her to the hospital—which was in Manhattan—about twenty minutes after he picked her up. The one bonus of three a.m. emergency trips was no traffic, it seemed.

She made her way to the emergency department at a jog. She’d sent Mal several texts on the journey in but he hadn’t replied to any of them. She really was going to smack him when she saw him.

When she asked for Marly Eddison, the nurse gave her an odd look. “She’s in Treatment Room One. Just down the hall. Are there going to be any more of you?”

“How many of us are there already?” Raina asked distractedly.

“At least four. Maybe five. I lost track,” the nurse said. “Is she some sort of celebrity?”

“She’s a Saint,” Raina said with a grin. “We stick together.”

She left the desk and found her way to the treatment room. When she knocked, she heard Marly say, “Oh Lord, who else did you call, Mal?”

The worry in her stomach eased a little. If she was talking, then Marly couldn’t be too badly hurt. Then it clenched again when she realized she was about to walk into a room that had Mal in it.

“It’s me,” she said as she pushed the door open.

Marly was sitting on the end of a bed wearing a hospital gown. She was holding an icepack to her head, and there were several small white strips on her face. The kind that went over stitches.

Stitches? “What the hell happened?” Raina asked.

Alex, Chen, Lucas, Maggie, and Mal all looked at her. And all started to talk at once. Which made the police office standing next to Marly hold up a hand and then bellow for everyone to shut up because he was taking a statement.

A statement?

Raina stepped into the room and closed the door. “Sorry, Officer. But I’d like to know what happened to my friend.”

The officer rolled his eyes, looking exasperated, but then Marly smiled her killer smile at him and said, “Let me just fill Raina in, honey, and then I’ll be all yours.”

The officer went red and nodded. Marly was charming people while sitting on the end of a hospital bed with a beaten-up-looking face. Raina didn’t know whether to be horrified or impressed. She went with impressed. Temporarily.

“What happened?” she asked again.

“What happened is Mal’s plan worked. A little too well,” Marly said.

Raina looked at her blankly. “Plan?”

“Malachi, please tell me you told Raina what you were doing?” Maggie said.

Mal stayed silent.

Maggie looked appalled. “What the?—”

Alex put his arm around her. “Yell at Mal later, sweetie. Raina needs to know what happened.”

“Yes,” Raina agreed. “She does.” She turned to Mal. Damn. He looked good. Tired, with more stubble than usual lining his jaw and clothes wrinkled to hell, but still good. Which ought to be against the laws of nature. Damned beautiful dark lord.

No. Don’t think about the pretty. Find out what the hell he did.

“Mal?” she asked. “What the hell happened here?”

He pushed a hand through his hair, looking kind of pissed off. “We asked Marly if we could take over her Instagram account for a while. She had a couple more messages that ticked some boxes with us. So we started flirting back with the guys. Well, Chen and Marly did that part.”

Marly smiled, then winced. “It was kind of funny at first. We just kept replying and seeing who kept coming back for more.” She looked over at Chen. “Chen’s pretty good at flirting with strangers on the Internet.” She sent him one of her killer smiles .

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