Page 60 of Murder & Mayhem
“He deserves to die,” I told Jamie. My blood-covered hand cupped his cheek, but Jamie didn’t seem to mind.
“He does. But you can’t do it. You promised Flame.”
That seemed so long ago. So irrelevant. “I don’t care.”
Jamie smiled sadly. “Well, I do. I don’t want you beholden to the Wraiths because of me. Please, Nicky.” When he realizedthat I wasn’t entirely convinced, because I would happily work for that asshole for as long as needed if I got my hands on O’Malley now, he switched strategies. “I heard what you promised him. What you wanted to do to him. You can't if you kill him here. So at least wait? I’m sure Skye and Brooks have somewhere to store him?” Jamie asked that loud enough for the two guys to hear.
“We do. We’ll take care of it. You and Bailey need medical care, and all of you need to get outta here, now. Someone saw us and I’m sure cops are on the way. Brooks and I can handle this. But I doubt you want to be here when they show up.”
Fuck. That was the last thing we needed. I looked at Jamie. Really looked at him. The side of his face was swelling a lot, and there was a little bit of dried blood. He was swaying slightly on my lap, and his eyes were unfocused. He probably had a concussion, and instead of getting the medical care he needed, he was keeping me from losing myself.
“Okay. Let’s get you two out of here.”
“What about the others?” Bailey asked, still hovering close to Gideon.
“They’re at the docks now, Bailey,” Skye told him. “My men. They’re getting the kids out safely. They’ll meet you at the hospital, okay? Everything else, we’ll talk about later.”
I helped Jamie to his feet and then climbed unsteadily after him. “C’mon, beautiful. We need to go.”
Jamie nodded, took one step, and nearly fell. I had him in my arms before he could hit the pavement.
CHAPTER 23
DOMINIC
I’d never liked hospitals. I’d spent too much time there as a kid. Lying about how I’d gotten those bruises, about how my arm had broken. About Ari’s shattered jaw or Gideon’s limp. Always fucking lying. Funny how something I’d hated had become my identity as an adult.
Here I was, once again sitting in the waiting room and once again lying. Luca had called the hospital ahead, and I had no idea what he’d told them, but they’d been ready for Jamie and Bailey and the other eight kids that had shown up about an hour later with Luca and two of his men, Maverick and Wes. The hospital hadn’t asked any questions of us, thank fuck. At least, not right away.
They wouldn’t let Gid or me back there because we weren’t family, so we waited now in the same hard plastic chairs I’d grown to hate. Okay, they weren’t the same. I’d never actually been to this hospital, but the whole thing set me on edge enough to make the comparison.
With nothing to do but brood and worry, my mind driftedback to the ride here. Jamie had drifted in and out of consciousness the entire way. Bailey had sat next to him, with his brother’s head in his lap. He’d insisted that he was fine, just a few bruises, but we’d forced him to get checked out too, which he hadn’t been happy about. I wasn’t the only one who hated hospitals, I guessed. Bailey’s biggest worry had been that the staff would call the cops on Jamie, since he technically wasn’t his legal guardian.
“I can’t go back to Joey,” he’d whispered, half indignant, half terrified. “I won’t.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that,” Gideon had let him know way too cheerfully. “Pieces of his body are at the bottom of the river. The rest are . . . elsewhere.”
I glared at my brother. “Fucking Christ, Gid. A little tact?”
But he’d shrugged unapologetically. “The kid deserves to know after the shit they went through.”
“He’s really dead?” Bailey had asked. He hadn’t sounded scared or angry, only hopeful. “You’re not bullshitting me?”
“We’re not bullshitting. Ask Jamie when he wakes up. He saw firsthand.”
Bailey’s fingers had curled in his brother’s hair. “Good.”
After that, we’d still had to convince Bailey that the cops weren’t going to drag Jamie away for kidnapping and try to throw him in foster care. Ari had come to the rescue there with what he called a simple change in the system, and then suddenly Jamie had been Bailey’s legal guardian for the last six months.
After that, he’d finally stopped arguing, and now they were both back there getting looked at.
“It’ll be fine,” Gideon said as he took a seat next to me. He handed me a cup of coffee, which I took readily. I really needed to get some sleep. The adrenaline was wearing off.
Ishrugged. I didn’t really believe that. Jamie had a concussion—I didn’t need a medical degree to see that—and though I hoped there would be no lasting damage, it wasn’t the physical I was worried about.
“Surprised the cops aren’t sniffing around already. Nine kids rescued from a trafficking ring? That’s gotta hit someone’s radar.”
“It did,” the man himself, Luca Castellano, said as he sat on the other side of me. I had never met him in person before, since most of Ari’s work had been done virtually for him. He was a tall and broad man in his mid-forties with strong Italian features. Most people probably found him intimidating, but I was too exhausted to think anything. “Luckily, I have a contact at the FBI. One who was investigating this branch of the ring after some shit went down with us last fall. It was why we took such an interest after Ari asked us for help. Our adopted son was taken by a different branch of the same ring, and we were working on dismantling it. Slash was one of the big players and one of the two major loose ends we hadn’t been able to stop yet. Unfortunately, she’s in the wind, but the feds got enough evidence from the shipping yard and the guys we handed over to them that were willing to talk. Our contact pulled some favors and agreed to leave you and your brothers out of this completely. They’re going to have some questions for Bailey and Jamie, but they won’t pressure Jamie about why he didn’t call the cops right away or ask him about you guys. They only need to see who they can identify and what information they can provide. Oh, and Sloan O’Malley slipped police custody too.” Luca shrugged. “Maybe he’ll end up chained in a basement somewhere. Serves him right.”
