Page 13 of Lose Me In The Shadows

With that last thought, she slid into sleep. And she must have dreamed, because she thought she heard the door yanked open, someone—or someones—standing over her bed, a prick on her neck… and then more disconcerting dreams.

That would be funny. If this bullshit had happened to her again.

But she was only dreaming.

4

Luke was moaning.

Not in the sexy way Conor liked. This was a scared, pained, helpless moan. All Conor wanted was to escape the room and pretend that his best friend wasn’t currently being operated on atop their kitchen island—the most sterile room in the house, thanks to Micah’s anal retentive kitchen cleaning tendencies—by a man whispered about in dark circles as “The Doctor.”

Kara’s kitchen. It was Kara’s kitchen, but she wasn’t here. It was covered in blood, and it was her fault.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. They were supposed to be having dinner in the kitchen, teasing Micah as he cooked, and making dirty promises to Kara about what they’d do to her after dinner until her cheeks flushed and her thighs trembled. Luke was supposed to have her in his lap, and he and Conor were supposed to be trading jibes behind Micah’s back. They were supposed to be getting along, all of them, together, alive and safe and healthy and happy—because Kara shouldneverhave left. She should never have been given the option. They shouldn’t have tested her, but Luke had insisted that she’d want to stay, and Micah had felt that she’d become too docile and she needed to prove she didn’t want freedom in order to get it.

He should never have fallen for her tricks. Should never have fallen for her, period. He knew he wasn’t worthy of love, had told himself he didn’t want it from her. The lie had fucked him.

So here he was, holding down Luke on one side, Micah on the other, while The Doctor inspected his lover’s wound.

“Through and through,” the man said, voice low and gruff. They were the only words he’d spoken since he’d first arrived.

Micah sighed with relief, his shoulders slumping.

But Conor didn’t think it was that simple. “Both of them?”

The Doctor hummed in his throat, digging his gloved fingers into Luke’s shoulder. Luke, unconscious, jerked and cried out, and something in Conor’s chest, something he refused to name, cried out with him.

After what felt like an interminable amount of watching Luke in pain, The Doctor pulled his fingers from the wound in his shoulder and held up a small, blood-covered object in answer.

“Not both of them,” Marcus said from behind them. “He won’t die but his shoulder may never be the same.”

Conor had briefly forgotten the mercurial billionaire was there.

The Doctor just grunted, signaling for the saline solution to flush out the wound. Luke had passed back out from the pain, thank fuck. Marcus passed it to him.

Micah and Marcus were…friends. Colleagues really. The three of them did dirty jobs for Marcus, and in exchange Marcus paid them well, lent them his private plane, and shared his network with them. The Doctor was one of Marcus’s partners—in all the ways that counted. So when Micah had called Marcus to cash in a favor, he’d hopped on his helicopter from his Jackson Hole compound and brought the Doctor with him.

After trading significant looks with the Doctor, Marcus spoke. “You don’t need to hold him down anymore. He’s out, probably for a while. Now it’s just treating the wound and the waiting game. You know how it goes.”

Micah came around to Conor’s side of the table, putting his arm around Conor’s waist. Conor had to stop himself from rejecting his partner, accepting the comfort he knew he didn’t deserve.

“It’s not your fault,” Micah told him as he guided Conor to the small, four-person kitchen table that had gone unused because they preferred to eat and play with Kara near the island.

Stop thinking about her.

Conor sat. Micah stood over him.

“It is my fault. I should never have listened to you about doing that stupid test. Or Luke’s insistence that she’d pass it.”

Did she fail the test, or did you?that voice asked.

“Okay. So then, it’s notonlyyour fault.” Micah wrapped his hand around the back of Conor’s neck, tilting it back so their eyes met. It was rare for Micah to physically control when he could emotionally manipulate, which just went to show how dire the situation was.

“We knew there were risks. We took them anyway. Luke will be fine.”

Conor jerked his head away. “You don’t know that.”

Micah shook his head. Were those tears?

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