Page 11 of Tate
His gaze slipped to the purpling bruise over her eye, and he closed his eye as if in pain.
Yeah, well, she knew how he felt.
“Slava is in custody. And both Knox and I gave statements to the police. He’s not going anywhere.”
Tate opened his eyes and looked at Knox, who was nodding at her words.
But that wasn’t the end of trouble, was it? Because it didn’t solve the bigger problem.
The looming death threat against Glo and her family, one that Tate had vowed to protect her from.
What, from his hospital bed? With two broken ribs?
In a way, she was relieved. In her worst nightmares Tate stepped in front of a bullet or protected her body as a bomb exploded around them.
For years she’d gone to sleep with the images of David’s death in her brain. No details, just an IED on the side of some road in Afghanistan.
It left her imagination way too open.
Tate had added brutal, vivid color to the scenarios in her head.
She ran her thumb over his hand, pasting on a smile. If she’d learned anything from her senator mother, it was to deflect, deny, and pretend. “We’re safe, tough guy. Shh…”
The hospital room door opened again, and a doctor came in, followed by the nurse. A lean, blond man with a short haircut, he looked like a marathoner. “Let’s check that throat of yours, Tate, and see if we can’t get that tube out.”
Glo moved away, her arms folded across her chest as the doctor gloved up, then probed Tate’s neck. Knox, too, had stepped back, allowing the nurse to take Tate’s blood pressure.
“I think the swelling has gone down sufficiently.” He turned to the visitors. “Can you step outside? Just in case he vomits.”
Glo felt like vomiting herself as she nodded. “I’ll be right back, Tate.” She met his eyes, then took a breath and exited the room.
Knox and Kelsey followed her into the hallway.
Glo leaned against the wall, her entire body vibrating.
“You need sleep,” Kelsey said.
“He’ll be okay, Glo,” Knox said and put one of his warm hands on her shoulder.
She nodded but sank down onto the floor. Sighed. “I have to fire him.”
A pause, then, “What?” Kelsey crouched before her. “Why?”
Glo raised an eyebrow.
“Fine. I get it. But…we can’t go to the CMGs without Tate.”
“Then we don’t go.”
Kelsey considered her, her mouth tight. She scooted beside Glo and leaned her head on her shoulder. “Maybe we need a break. I know we just landed the NBR-X tour, but Knox was talking with his friend Rafe, who is on the board, and given last night’s events?—”
“The one that included your stalker trying to kill you?”
Kelsey sat up, glanced at Knox, who’d given her a grim look. “Yeah. That. And the rest of it—the past six weeks of shaking off the bombing in San Antonio, not to mention the news about the threats from the Bryant League against you and your mother.”
Yeah. Some ultra-left radical group wanted to keep her moderate-leaning mother from running for president. Clearly, they didn’t know Reba Jackson like Glo did.
Nothing ignited a fire under her mother more than controversy and opposition. It was akin to waving a red flag in front of a bull.
