Page 106 of Filthy Elites

The line goes dead as I push into the storage room. The first thing I see are her legs, strewn out as she’s collapsed over on her side, eyes closed. I drop the phone and go to my knees, shaking hands moving to her throat as I check for a pulse. A soft, repetitive thump finally gives me what I need—relief and the knowledge that she’s still alive.

“Haley?” I heft her against me, gritting my teeth as I realize that her shirt has been removed and she lays there, her shorts undone, half naked. She doesn’t react. I tap her face lightly. “Come on, sweetheart,” I urge, “wake up and call me an asshole. I know you want to.”

Still nothing.

I don’t think. I don’t hesitate. I lean back, releasing her briefly as I rip off my shirt and drape it over her. My hand reaches for my discarded phone. I type out a quick succession of texts before shoving it back in my pocket and lifting Haley against my chest, getting to my feet.

I’m going to catch hell for this later, but there’s nowhere else I could be now. No fucking way I can leave her like this. Already, my mind is trying to supply a number of excuses I can give to Carter when he inevitably asks, but the only thing I can think is—she needs me.

I shoulder the door to the storage room open and step out into the hallway as a gaggle of girls comes around the corner, giggling in their drunken stupor as they head to the bathrooms. They don’t even spare me a glance. Who the fuck knows what could have happened to Haley back here? She could’ve been … hell, she might have already been—no, the dealer said he wasn’t able to finish.

Gritting my teeth, I shove those thoughts aside and head towards the end of the hall and the waiting exit door. Just as I step outside, a dark sedan comes careening to a stop at the curb and Andrei pops open the driver’s side door. I was right to leave him with the vehicle when I first arrived. "What happened?” he demands as I hurry to the back door.

“I’ll fill you in later,” I snap. “First, we need to get her to a hospital.”

Andrei looks at me like I’ve lost my fucking mind, and shit, maybe I have. “Call an ambulance,” he says. “They’ll take the girl. What happened with the dealer?”

I settle Haley firmly in the backseat, reaching across her chest to buckle her in before quietly shutting the door and turning to face Andrei. “If you’re not driving,” I grit out, “then fucking move.”

His eyes widen as I shove him aside, gripping the driver’s side door with a fist and lowering myself inside. Just before I shut the door, he grabs ahold of it, stopping me. “Nicholas is going to want to know what happened,” he warns.

I nod. “I know.” I don’t know what he sees on my face, what expression I must be making, but it’s enough to have his brows lifting and his hand releasing the door as he steps onto the curb and away from the vehicle. I shut the door and press my foot to the gas.

My gaze snaps to the rearview mirror and Haley’s pale face. “It’s okay,” I say. “You’re gonna be okay, sweetheart.”

The words sound hollow even to my own ears. I say them, but I’m not sure I believe them. I don’t know what saying them will do, or who I’m trying to convince. The unconscious woman in my backseat … or myself.

NINE

Haley

Wakingup from being drugged is like slowly rising to the surface of the deepest pool in the world. I’m aware of things around me before I’m ever actually awake. I can hear the beeping of machines. The sound of a man talking gruffly, though not who he’s talking to.

I shiver, the feeling of cold intruding on my slow ascent to the world of the living once more. That’s how I know I’m in the hospital. Only hospitals are this fucking cold. I crack my eyes open and sure enough, the sight of a hospital gown greets me as it hangs down my chest, covering my body halfway until a plain white sheet takes over for the rest of me.

My head is fucking pounding. My mouth feels like I’ve swallowed a dozen cotton balls and they left some sort of strange fuzziness on my tongue. Most of all, though, it feels as though my whole body was stretched out and flattened while I was asleep. I don’t feel particularly bad other than the headache thrumming at the base of my skull, but I do feel exhausted.

I turn my cheek, seeking out the source of the male voice. My eyes widen at what I see.

Mitchell Vikson is standing in my hospital room, framed by the light of early morning coming in through the double windows to the side of my hospital bed. He hasn’t noticed that I’m awake yet and for a brief moment in time, I’m given a rare opportunity to observe him while he’s not completely focused on me.

Shit. Life just isn’t fair to us regular people.I scan him up and down.How the hell can someone look so fucking good so early in the morning?

He’s wearing a pair of gray sweatpants, tied at the waist, as well as a plain black shirt with the sleeves cut off. Gray sweatpants—God’s greatest gift to womankind, really. I bite down on my lower lip when he turns slightly, but it’s not enough, and just as quickly he turns away—looking out the window. I want to scream.

Come the fuck on, I think.If I’m going to be laid up in the hospital after being attacked by a drug dealer, the least the universe can do is show me a little something.

I sigh in disappointment and return to my earlier perusal of Viks’ body. His tattoos stretch down his arms all the way to his wrists, and though I know that when he’s all dressed up in one of those thousand-dollar suits of his, they cover everything, it’s kind of hard to imagine.

“I don’t care how much it’ll fucking cost.” Viks’ angry tone has me looking up towards his face in surprise. He never gets angry. At least, he never shows it. But now the muscles of his biceps bulge as he clenches his phone in his fist. “I want the new cameras installed by the end of today. End of story.”

Viks hangs up the phone and blows out a breath before turning back to me, his eyes widening when he realizes I’m awake. “Haley.” He slips his phone into the pocket of his sweats and steps up to the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I was drugged by a crazy man,” I reply bluntly, wincing as my voice comes out raspy and dry. I swallow roughly before glancing around the room. “How long have I been here?”

“Only a few hours,” he answers. “They had to pump your stomach in the ER but when you didn’t wake up, I had a room arranged. Now that you’re awake, though, we can probably get you checked out. Are you in any pain?”

I reach up, frowning at the array of cords attached to my arm, before scratching at my neck. “No,” I lie, ignoring the pounding in my head and the soreness over most of my body, specifically my throat, chest, and arms. I’ll take that soreness any day because as I take stock of my body, I realize one very important thing. There’s no telltale soreness between my legs that means I was raped.There’d be soreness if I was … right?I don’t want to consider the possibility that there wouldn’t be. “I just want to go home.”

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