Page 78 of Beautiful Rush
She hesitated before answering. “We don’t have a lot of details. We’ve just arrived at the hospital.”
I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. “Okay. Which hospital? I’ll…um, I can meet you…”
“I’ll text you the information.”
“Can you tell me…what you do know?”
She hesitated again as if trying to decide how much to tell me.
“Please. I need to know.”
“He’s been shot in the chest. They’ve taken him into surgery.”
Shot in the chest.
“And honey? Make sure you take a taxi. I know Deacon wouldn’t want you driving when you’re upset.”
“Okay. I’ll see you soon. Thank you for calling. Thank you for letting me know.”
“He would want you to know. And we’ll be here for you when you get here.”
We said goodbye and cut the call and I wondered how she could possibly have sounded so calm when her son had been shot. But that was what you had to do. You had to stay strong. You had to hold it together for the people around you. This wasn’t the time to fall apart or think of the worst-case scenario. It was the time to hope and pray. Beg, barter, and plead with God.
I dragged air into my lungs and scrolled through my contacts.
Call me anytime. Day or night.
I will. You’re my two in the morning person.
Fifteen minutes after I called Connor, Killian’s Range Rover pulled up outside my building where I’d been waiting for them. Now I was sitting in the backseat next to Ava and Eden, on our way to the hospital. Maybe it had helped that they got me talking. I told them the story of me and Deacon, about how we’d run into each other back in June while he was working undercover, and we’d been in a relationship ever since.
Nobody was overly surprised to hear that. I got the idea that I had confirmed something they had already suspected.
But I left out everything that had happened in the past forty-eight hours. Anthony. Ivan. Our twisted connection. And how our worlds had collided.
“Killian, can’t you drive any faster?” I asked from the backseat. It was an unreasonable request. Killian wasn’t a slow driver and Faye told me that Deacon had been taken into surgery so we wouldn’t be able to see him anyway. But I needed to be at the hospital. I needed to be there for him.
“We’re almost there,” Connor said. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Promise?” I asked, knowing that he couldn’t.
“You just have to have faith, babe. He’s a tough guy. He’s a fighter. If anyone can pull through this, it’s Deacon.”
That was the most he could offer me. No promises. No guarantees. Life didn’t work that way.
“There are so many things I haven’t told him. So many little things I still don’t know about him.”
“You’ll have your chance,” Eden said. “You’ll get to tell him all the things.”
Killian glanced at Eden in his rearview mirror. I didn’t miss the look on his face. The silent warning that she shouldn’t be offering false hope.
“Tell us more about Deacon Ramsey,” Ava said, squeezing my hand, trying to dispel some of the tension in the car.
There was so much I still hadn’t told them, but I didn’t know what I could and couldn’t say. Had Ivan and Anthony been arrested already? Why had Deacon been shot?
“It would be a shame if he ended up with a bullet in his head.”
Chills ran up my spine. Was this my fault? Was he shot because of me?
