Page 29 of Pulse

They weren’t alone anymore, and she was about to be wheeled out, so the hundred questions he had would go unanswered for now. But when she returned, he’d do whatever it took to carve out a few minutes alone to get some answers.

Ricco unlocked the casters on her bed and then wheeled her out of the room. Pulse stood staring after her until he was looking at an empty hallway.Fuck!He mouthed, though he wanted to scream it at the top of his lungs. He gripped his hair and paced the length of the empty room. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

The DEA had gone after Talia.

What the hell did that mean? Did they want something from her? Was this to get at him? He barely knew the woman. Hell, he didn’t know her. Why would they think injuring her would get to him?

Yet there he stood, his heart pounding and the fire of rage heating his blood, wanting to go to war, not because the DEA wanted him back but because they dared to involve Talia.

“Gabe, you okay?” Sharon appeared next to the open curtain at the mouth of the trauma room.

“What?” He dropped his arms and rolled his shoulders. “Yeah, all good.”

She eyed him with pursed lips before shrugging. “Okay, room eleven’s IV is finished, and he needs his next dose of antibiotics hooked up.”

“Okay, thanks. I’ll head in there now.”

After casting a final concerned frown his way, Sharon nodded and left the room.

Pulse sighed. He still had hours on his shift, and they would drag by slower than a mile-long line at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

He cracked his neck side to side and shook out his hands. Years of undercover work meant he could act his ass off when necessary. Tonight, it was more than necessary. He had to fool the entire emergency room into believing he was fine and not pissed as fucking hell.

You got this.

As he strode from the room, pushing all concerns but work out of his mind, one rogue thought shot itself to the forefront of his mind.

Just what had Talia’svisitortold her? Did she know exactly who he was? And at what point would she call Curly to inform him one of his men was a former federal agent?

He’d be back in this room the second Talia returned from testing.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHE NEVER GOT another chance to speak with Pulse.

Everything moved quickly after she returned to the ER from imaging. Thankfully, she didn’t have any spinal cord issues or brain bleeding, but they did diagnose her with a moderate concussion due to a severe headache. She also vomited in the radiology suite, which was both painful on her sore chest and humiliating.

The staff acted like it was no big deal. They probably saw and dealt with worse every day, but as someone who prided herself on independence and competence, being the center of attention while at her weakest sucked.

Along with the scans of her head and neck, they’d X-rayed her chest and ribs. Thankfully, she didn’t have any fractures, only extensive bruising that seemed to grow a deeper shade of purple by the hour.

By the time she returned to the ER, she was struggling to keep her eyes open. Someone had informed her there’d been a shooting in downtown Tampa with multiple victims, which meant Pulse was back in action and not assigned to her room. Her nurse ended up being a beautiful woman originally from Jamaica who kept her distracted while the sadistic physician shoved a needle in her forehead to numb and then stitched the laceration.

A potent cocktail of pain medications kept the headache at bay and her chest pain to a minimum but made it impossible to stay awake no matter how hard she fought sleep. At onepoint, she lost an argument with her nurse about being admitted overnight. She used every trick up her sleeve and every tactic she’d learned as an attorney to plead her case and prove she was well enough to go home and sleep there.

She lost.

Nurses were fierce as hell.

That was how she found herself in the drabbest room in America, staring at four white walls with a hideous wallpaper border. It had a geometric print that was popular in the eighties when it was installed. She didn’t have to look at it for long. About five seconds after her floor nurse introduced herself and performed another assessment, Talia passed out cold. She woke every time they came into her room to check her blood pressure and give her medication, but she always fell right back out.

By morning, she was cranky from interrupted sleep and groggy from the damn medication.

She still hadn’t seen Pulse.

Which was probably for the best, considering she didn’t want to have a serious conversation while under the influence of narcotics. Somewhere around four in the morning, she’d refused anything stronger than ibuprofen. It didn’t eliminate the headache as well as the strong stuff, but she hoped she’d feel clearer as the day went on and the opioids flushed out of her system.

“Good morning.” A tall woman wearing light blue scrubs with French-braided blonde hair strode into the room with a sunny smile. “I’m Mindy, and I’ll be the nurse taking care of you today.”

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