Rome (Marked Men, #3)(82)

“We got him, honey.”

I shot my gaze to hers. “He has to be okay.”

“We’ll do everything in our power to make that possible. The blond hottie said you’re pregnant and that you might be hurt. We need you to get checked out.”

I shook my head vehemently. “No. Just worry about him.”

The medic opened her mouth to argue, when there was suddenly a gasp and Rome’s bright blue eyes shot open only to flutter immediately closed again.

“Cora …” My name was just a whisper of sound, but it was enough to have me screaming his name again and to have everyone moving twice as fast as they had before. The paramedics had him on a stretcher and in the back of the ambulance in no time flat.

They didn’t say a word when I scrambled in after them. I wasn’t going to let him out of my sight until I knew for sure he was going to be okay. There was just so much blood and it wouldn’t stop flowing out of the holes that decorated his entire right side.

The female paramedic was all business as she went about hooking an IV into him and started to cut his clothes off so that she could work on getting all that blood to stop pouring out of him. She kept talking to him, telling him over and over that he had to fight, that he couldn’t leave me and the baby. She was rattling off info about the shooter and the bikers, but all of it was a dull buzz. I just wanted him to open his eyes and look at me. She told me to hold his hand, to let him know I was there. Once again the thing I was best at, talking, using words, had fled. All I could do was stare at him and cry. He was my entire world, he was everything I ever wanted, and it was going to turn my heart to stone if I didn’t get the opportunity to tell him that.

Suddenly the paramedic swore and started moving around frantically. Her sharp tone cut through my haze of despair. She told me I had better convince Rome to stay with us because my stubborn soldier wasn’t listening to her. I squeezed his hand, leaned over him and kissed that scar on his forehead. I told him everything, begged him to open his eyes. I told him that he had done his job and fought for me and the baby; now it was time to fight for himself. I would pull him back from the brink of death over and over again if that was what it took to keep him with me. I didn’t think it was doing any good, but when the ambulance rolled to a stop outside the hospital, I saw his eyes flutter open again. He didn’t look good and it didn’t take a medical professional to see that he had lost way too much blood, but those eyes were bright and looking right at me, so I made sure that if it was the last time he saw me, the last thing I ever got to say to him, I would make it matter. There was no way Rome Archer was going to fade away again without me telling him I loved him and needed him.





CHAPTER 18



Rome


“There’s those pretty baby blues. Keep fighting, big man, we’re almost to the hospital.”

I didn’t recognize the voice or the girl who spoke them. She was hovering over my head and I was having a hard time tracking her. I hurt all over and I couldn’t breathe. I was trying to suck air in and out but it didn’t seem to be working. I vaguely heard the sirens overhead blaring and the radio in the ambulance squawking. I couldn’t feel anything other than the hot blaze of pain from the top of my head to wherever my toes were.

“You have some pretty powerful friends. The guy that pulled the trigger already got picked up. I guess he was so scared of what the Sons of Sorrow would do when they found out he shot you, he took his happy ass to the station and turned himself in. Idiot. I guess he doesn’t know how many Sons are doing time.”

She prattled on and on while moving all around me. I didn’t care about the guy that shot me, I cared about Cora. I didn’t know if one of the bullets had gone through me and hit her, didn’t know how hard I had taken her to the ground, didn’t know if the baby was okay … The thoughts ran around and around and I couldn’t hold on to any of it anymore. The pain was too much. I couldn’t get any air and I was tired. So tired, and I felt some of the fire licking across my skin start to dull.

“Hey now, soldier, none of that.” The girl’s voice rose and slapped across me. I thought I heard another sound, a whimper or something that sounded like a wounded animal, but I couldn’t turn my head or even move my eyes to track the noise. They wouldn’t even open when I commanded them to. Something clamped on my hands and squeezed. I was surprised I could feel it amid the living fire that was scorching me up from the inside out.

“You didn’t make it all the way home to have some punk take you out. You need to fight. You got too much riding on coming out of this battle a winner. Fight.”

This chick was good at her job. Had I not been on the brink of death, I would have admired her a lot more. I didn’t know how she knew what I had to lose—my girl, my baby, a future and a family that I was finally, at the worst possible time, starting to understand that I deserved. It was all beyond worth fighting for, but I was so tired and I needed air. It was so much easier to just close my eyes and let the pain and fire take me.

“Shit, he’s crashing.” The stranger’s voice rose and everything around me started to fade away once again. I could hear Remy screaming at me to stop being an idiot, could hear my heart starting to slow down, and felt the pain start to drag me under and the fire shift from hot to freezing cold. “Honey, you better convince your man to stay with us, because he isn’t listening to me.”