Page 57 of Wired Fear

“Not yet. Not for a long time.” Sophie’s voice shook with fervor.

The sound of sirens. Voices. Hands. Moving. Jake groaned. His eyes were shut with something sticky—blood. He couldn’t get them open, couldn’t see.

“You’re gonna be fine, Mr. Dunn. Bullet grazed your skull. Head wounds bleed a lot. Just relax.”

“Sophie?”He needed his angel. She had to stay with him. “Sophie!”

“I’m here, Jake. I’ll ride with you.” She squeezed his fingers, hard.

Memories flashed as they lifted him onto something soft and rolled him forward.

He’d been agonizing over Sophie’s text, deciding what it meant, what he would do, how to talk to her. The dogs, suddenly scratching and yelping outside his apartment.

Opening the door. Something was wrong—where was Sophie?

Looking straight across the street at Sophie. She was talking to someone in the alley that he couldn’t see. She raised her hands slowly.Someone had her at gunpoint.

Jake didn’t have to fetch his weapon because it was always on him. He must have run and jumped down three flights of stairs and crossed the road, but he didn’t remember that.

The next memory was Sophie, ahead of him on the sidewalk. She’d dropped to her knees. Her hands were on her head, and she was cursing in Thai.

He flew through the air, slamming into her body, flattening her beneath him, already firing into the alley.

Firing blind at whoever was there.

More lifting. The rattle of wheels, the clang of metal, voices overhead. But Sophie was still holding his hand. That was important.

Something else was important. Something… “The baby?”

“The baby’s fine. I’m fine. You saved us.”

“Good.” Jake relaxed. Darkness swallowed him up.

Chapter Forty-Three

Sophie woke to the rustle and squeak of the nurse’s shoes on the floor as she moved around Jake, checking his vitals. The hospital room was dim and cool, lit solely by LED lighting on the floor and the various beeping monitors.

Jake was still in a medically induced coma. “Your boyfriend has a hard head,” the brain surgeon on duty had told her after assessing Jake’s injury. “But even hard heads can get too much pressure inside, and that bullet creased him good. We’ll keep him knocked out a while until the swelling has a chance to go down. He’s a very lucky man.”

And Sophie was a very lucky woman.There was no doubt he’d saved her and her baby’s life, without a thought to his own safety.

Sophie had fallen asleep on the chair in the corner of the room, a chair with a handy pullout for her feet. Someone had covered her with a blue polyester blanket during the night, and she was grateful for its warmth, tugging the covering tight around her as she scooted the chair closer to Jake. She leaned against his bed and rested her cheek on his hand, longing for him to be awake, to touch her with that hand.

She was thankful for the quiet, for the privacy restriction of the unit Jake was in. She’d been stuck in the waiting room for hours while Jake was assessed and stabilized.

Felicia had brought in a bag containing a change of clothing and toiletries for each of them. “I hope he’s okay,” Felicia had said, handing over the duffel. “I’ll take care of the dogs for you, and I’ve already called Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Bix and let them know what happened.”

Sophie had been so focused on Jake she hadn’t paid attention to the EMTs working on the woman who’d created the situation in the first place. “Penny Chang?”

Felicia shook her head. “She didn’t make it.”

Sophie felt nothing but relief. “Thanks, Felicia. You’re the best.”

“I just…hope Jake is all right.” The young woman raised shining eyes to Sophie. Her feelings were obvious. “He’s such a great guy.”

“Yes, he is. And I intend to make sure he knows it,” Sophie said. “I’ll call you if we need anything else. Mahalo for holding down the fort, as they say.”

“You’re welcome.” Felicia shifted from foot to foot. “So, you and Jake…”

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