Draw (Gentry Boys #1)(57)

I put the broom down, feeling suddenly uneasy about Cord’s worry. He’d been raised with everyday danger. As a result he’d grown an instinct for it. Without even meeting Devin he’d known what a poor idea it was for me to confront him, no matter what kind of peace had been promised.

If Cord was anxious about his brother’s lack of contact there might be something to that concern. Ed appeared and snapped his fingers as a warning against idling around. I returned to work, briefly forgetting everything else but the immediate demands of the dinner crowd. As the sky darkened and I stood before a family of eight, dutifully taking their complicated order, I heard sirens in the background. The sirens seemed irrelevant to me until they came closer. They arrived screaming in my ear and with garish flashing lights which seemed to come from all directions. They parked in front of Western Fitness Gym and were joined by others.

As I went to the window, a knot of incoherent fear rising in my belly, a pair of lanky guys spilled through the door. I saw them gesturing to the commotion across the street and approached them.

“Do you know what happened?”

They weren’t the sort of guys used to being approached. They were eager to talk to me. “Some poor dude got laid out in the alley behind the gym.”

“Who?” I whispered.

They looked at me curiously. “Well, I don’t know who,” one of them said.

The other one piped up. “The way he looked, I doubt his own mother would recognize him.”

I heard Truly calling to me as I dropped my apron on the floor and darted outside. The traffic light took forever to change. I ran across the street, knowing there was no lucid reason why my heart had painfully lodged in my throat. A crowd of gawkers were clotted together on the sidewalk. Officers half-heartedly tried to keep them back for the sake of the poor guy who was being loaded onto the stretcher.

A tall man with a ratty beard held his phone up over everyone’s heads, obviously recording to his sick voyeuristic heart’s content, as if the human tragedy in front of us was staged for his entertainment. When I shoved him and knocked his arm down in a fit of anger he gazed at me in disbelief.

“Bitch,” he swore as his phone clattered to the concrete.

By muscling my way through the throngs and ducking under the arm of a weary cop I managed to get within a few feet of the scene. The stretcher held the shape of a man. A muscled arm rose to touch the bloodied face it was attached to. Those boys who had rolled into Cluck This might have been right. His own mother might not have recognized him. But I did. He looked so very much like someone I loved.

A middle aged woman in a paramedic jacket blocked me from moving forward.

“I know him,” I gasped as the stretcher was lifted into the ambulance. “Chase!”

I saw him roll slightly at the sound of my voice but one of the paramedics gently righted his body before climbing into the ambulance after him.

The female paramedic was gesturing to one of the police officers.

“This girl says she knows him.” She patted me on the shoulder. “He didn’t have any identification,” she explained.

The young officer, who looked like he might have been on the job for all of about ten days, stood there and waited for me to speak.

“His name is Chase Gentry. Please, is he going to be okay?”

The officer didn’t acknowledge my question. “You family?”

“No, I – I’m a friend. Oh my god, I need to call his brothers.”

The officer was already speaking into his radio, repeating the name ‘Chase Gentry’.

The paramedic, who seemed the motherly sort, began ushering me away. “Your friend was apparently jumped in the alley behind the gym. He has some head injuries and possibly some internal bleeding.”

“Where are they taking him?” I asked as the doors to the ambulance closed.

“St. Luke’s,” she answered, squeezing my hand. “If you know how to contact his family, please do so immediately.” Then she left me among the murmuring crowd and climbed into the front seat of the ambulance.

I stared as the vehicle began screaming and pulling away. Part of my mind kept insisting this wasn’t real, that the bloody man I’d seen on the stretcher couldn’t be the strong, wisecracking Chasyn Gentry.

Except he was. He absolutely was.

My legs felt as if they wouldn’t support me so I sank down onto the curb, pulling my phone out so I could say the most difficult words I’d ever had to speak.

“How bad?” Cord asked in a flat voice.

“I don’t know,” I whispered. “They’ve taken him to St. Luke’s.”

I heard Cord repeat the news to Creed. I heard Creed’s cry of anguish.

“I’m going to meet you there,” I said, rising and preparing to cross the street. “Cord, I’m sorry. I love you.”

He had already hung up.

When Ed told me I had no business leaving in the middle of the dinner rush I told him to go f*ck himself. I watched dispassionately as his jaw dropped and then pushed past him so I could grab my purse from the lockers. I figured I probably didn’t have a job anymore but I didn’t give a damn. Truly held a comforting hand out to me and I squeezed it briefly before leaving.

“Let me know if you need anything,” she said, and I knew enough about her to realize she didn’t offer such things lightly.