Page 138 of Devilish Ink

I felt a crack against my ribs from the other’s baton. I let out a grunt and threw back my elbow, hitting the guard behind me.

He let go of me with a loosened grunt.

I was free. All I could see were the swinging ER doors just ahead of me.

Somewhere beyond them was my wife. My baby. My family.

I was pumped up on adrenaline, dripping with sweat that stank of fear, and exhausted to the point of insanity.

I reached out an arm to shove through the doors.

“Liam. Stop.”

A hand grabbed my shoulder.

I thought it was a security guard, up for another round. I whirled around with crazy eyes and a lifted fist.

It was Rian.

My brother.

I was certain that nothing in the world would have kept me from ploughing through those doors to get to Ry. They could have sent a dozen more security guards after me and I would have fought through them all.

But just one look into my brother’s eyes had me frozen in place. The deep sympathy in his steady gaze made it difficult to stay standing. I wanted to collapse into a heap. Everything felt so heavy. I was so tired.

“Liam,” Rian said, his voice firm yet gentle. “Everything’s going to be alright, okay?”

Rian dropped his hand from my shoulder and turned around. With the doctor and the security guards close behind, it felt like he was protecting me. My little brother. The brother who hated me. Protectingme.

The air in the ER was still electrified, an uneasy silence ready to spark back into violent chaos. I could almost hear the growls, see the hackles raised on the guards ready to strike.

“This man that you just saw is not my brother,” he began, speaking firmly. “My brother is kind and loving and devoted. This is a man who almost lost his family tonight. The manall of uswould be if we were put in the same position.”

I saw the eyes of the doctor slide from Rian to over his shoulder. To me. His gaze softened and he exhaled slowly.

It was like he was seeing me in a different light. Even though I was still hunched over and fuming like a rabid dog.

“He needs to see her,” Rian said. “To touch her. To hold her. Your words mean nothing. He needs to know for himself that she is alright.”

Beneath Rian’s wet shirt, slick to his back, I saw his musclesroil. His fingers curled into fists. He might be talking calmly, but I knew he’d be fighting there alongside me if it came to it.

A piece of my heart swelled.

“You need to let him see her.”

The security guards behind the doctor looked at each other and then the doctor: they’d take their cues from him now that I wasn’t an active threat.

I felt my heart smash against my chest as the doctor shifted his jaw from side to side.

Finally he nodded. “Room 307.”

Rian thanked him and took me by the arm. He pressed open the swinging doors and guided me through before I had the time to do the same. Not that I would have been capable of thanking the doctor in my state. I still wanted to bash his head in, the need for violent release still simmering in my blood.

The lights were dim outside the bank of elevators down the hall. Nurses worked quietly under the yellow light of desk lamps across the way. It was almost eerily silent after the noise of the waiting room.

Rian didn’t even trust me to get into the elevator without his arm on me. I let him hold on to me as the door hissed closed. I don’t think he knew how close I was to leaning against him.

“Where in the hell did you learn how todothat?” I asked in the silence of the elevator.

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