The Wild Wolf Pup (Zoe's Rescue Zoo #9)(107)

Pipe was still missing.

So were the nomads.

Another ambulance pulls up and Stryker jumps out the back, stepping aside as they wheel in Linc. He was in bad shape and they needed to get him into surgery immediately. The doctors hollered all sorts of medical mumbo jumbo but the one word that stuck with me was paralysis.

Insisting he was fine, Stryker refused medical treatment, but the man was badly burned on one side of his arm. I tore my eyes from him as Cobra walked in covered in blood and froze. The past hit me like a ton of bricks and for a split second I remembered being in his shoes, only the blood I wore was Lauren’s and Bones’.

I watched as he stepped aside, and Pipe came into my sight, walking alongside a stretcher carrying a black body bag.

“Sir, you can’t come with us,” the paramedic told him.

“The fuck I can’t,” he growled, his eyes staring daggers into the man denying him.

I glanced back at Cobra, looking for answers as to who the victim was and notice the pair of red shoes he carried in his hands.

“We’re sorry for your loss, Sir, but you’re not allowed in the morgue,” a policeman informed him.

“Pipe, you have to let her go, man,” Deuce says from behind him.

Every single one of us gave Pipe grief over marrying Oksana, called their marriage a joke and every single one of us were fools. Pipe loved that woman and he loved her just as hard as the rest of us love ours.

His grip loosens from the stretcher and he takes a retreating step back. Changing his mind, he takes a step forward and reaches for the bag but the paramedics quickly roll her away from him.

Oksana wasn’t the only one who lost her life.

Prospects, Mack and Bosco were both murdered too.

Lauren wraps her arms around me, burying her face against my chest as I hold on tightly with everything I am. I glance over her head toward Pipe and watch as he stares at the closed doors they wheeled his wife through. He turns his head, his gaze travels over me and Lauren and I open my mouth to offer my condolences but he quickly looks away. Solemnly he takes the shoes from Cobra’s hand and walks out of the hospital without a word.

Some stand, others fall, in the end we all bleed.

And we’re all bleeding for Pipe.





Leaning back against the cot, I close my eyes as the attending doctor stitches my arm. I’m fucking exhausted but adrenaline is coursing through my body making me antsy. I want to get the fuck out of here, go home, kiss my kids and sleep for a month.

“You about done, doc?”

“Almost,” she says, pulling back the needle.

The curtain slides open and Adrianna comes into my view. She’s in a wheelchair; her feet propped up and covered in bandages. Her right arm is also bandaged from her wrist to her elbow with a fiberglass cast. There’s a butterfly stitch over her brow and a nasty bruise forming under her eye. She’s still the most gorgeous woman I have ever laid eyes on.

“That should do it,” the doctor announces. “I’ll be back to check on you.”

Tearing my eyes from my wife, I turn to face the doctor and narrow my eyes.

“Check on me? Come on, doc, you stitched me back together, isn’t it time to cut me loose?”

“Sorry, Mr. Bianci, but it says on your chart we’re keeping you for observation,” she informs me before pulling back the curtain and disappearing out of my view. I grunt and turn to my wife as she wheels herself over to my side and struggles to stand on her injured feet.

“Why don’t you let Riggs take you home?” I question as she climbs into the tiny bed with me.

“Looking to get rid of me?”

“Never,” I answer, wincing as I lift my injured arm, making room for her, careful of her own injuries. “But, I know you’d rather be home in our bed with the kids.”

“Lucky for us, I snatched Riggs’ phone,” she says, producing the phone she had tucked between her breasts.

“Lucky phone,” I tease as I place my finger under her chin and tilt her head back. “Hey,” I started.

“Hmm?”

I search her eyes for signs of despair, recalling how closed off she became after the shooting at Temptations, but there are no traces of shock or PTSD like last time. I don’t know if this is the calm before the storm, if she’ll break once she’s home and the dust has settled or if her skin has grown thicker since the last time we faced certain death.

“What’s going on inside that head?”

“I lost my shoes,” she replies flatly. I follow her gaze to the gauze wrapped around her feet.

“I’ll buy you a new pair,” I tell her, kissing the top of her head. “Now…the truth, what are you thinking about?”

“What happens now?” She asks softly, lifting her eyes to mine.

I stare at her silently, deciding how to answer her since I’m not sure what happens from here. I don’t want to frighten her and tell her there will be a motherfucking war, one that will likely make the shit we’ve been witness to in the past look like a church picnic.

“I mean whoever the fuck did this will pay for this, right?” She questions, surprising me.

“Come again?”

“You can’t get up but I did, and this emergency room is full of everyone we know and love. If my father was here, he’d be on the streets already, looking for mercy. So, again, whoever did this, whoever ruined Jack and Reina’s wedding, jeopardized their baby, and scarred the lives of all of us, they will pay, right?”