Page 70 of Tick Tock, Boom!

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I just stood there, staring at the blood trail left behind, trying to keep my own heart from cracking open all over again. The blood was everywhere on the kitchen floor, and now I had to worry about how the hell I was going to clean this up before Gabriel got out of bed in te morning. That’s when my phone rang and I shut my eyes and took a deep beath.

I didn’t need to look to find out who it was. The screen flashed, and my heart sank.

Dr. Hensley.

I looked down at the screen, my jaw clenched and my thumb hovering over the screen. I could let it go to voicemail. Let him call one of the other nurses. Hell, let him stitch up Tick Tock himself. But no. Deep down, I already knew Iwantedto be the one there. Maybe it was vindictive, maybe it was fucked up, but some part of me needed to see him in pain. To see him vulnerable. To know I’d caused at least an ounce of the agony he’d had caused me.

With a shaky breath, I answered the call. “Yeah,” I said, voice flat.

“I need you. Now,” Hensley snapped.

I didn’t ask why. I already knew.

He never gave me the decency of a please or thank you, and he damn sure didn’t care that I had a kid at home or that I was already juggling too much. But he loved calling me for emergencies—especially when it involved stitching up the Royal Bastards. I’d become his favorite for it, like some kind of on-call mercenary nurse.

I hated it.

I hated him.

But I needed the paycheck. Quitting crossed my mind more than once, but deep down I knew I couldn’t afford to. Not when Gabriel needed a roof over his head, food on the table, and a future I’d kill to give him.

“I’ll be there in five,” I muttered, jaw tight as I grabbed my keys and secured all the locs. I pulled out of the driveway, dreading every red light between me and that damn clinic.

He was already in one of the back rooms when I arrived. Shirtless, covered in blood, and unconscious. Knuckles was pacing, the tension carved deep into his shoulders. Dr. Hensley stood to the side, barking orders at the orderlies, but I ignored all of them.

“Remove his clothes. All these fuckers do is get shot up,” he muttered as I moved him.

I swallowed hard. My fingers trembled as I shifted him carefully, examining the wound. Like I’d never touched his body before. Like I didn’t know every ridge, every scar, every place he used to bite when he wanted to drive me wild.

He groaned, low and broken, but he didn’t wake.

“We need to get the bullet out first,” Dr. Hensley barked, already snapping on a pair of gloves. “Then we’ll reset the shoulder.”

I felt my breath freeze in my chest as I watched the blood continue to seep through the soaked gauze. He was pale, clammy, his pulse thready under my fingertips as I held pressure. We had minutes maybe.

The tray clattered as another nurse prepped it, the glint of the surgical tools slicing into my focus. We looked at one another, giving each other a knowing look, and then I stepped forward grabbing the gauze and suction tube, anything I needed to assist.

Dr. Hensley sliced cleanly through the flesh, working fast, muttering about the trajectory, about how close it was to tearing through an artery. I swallowed hard and kept my hands steady, suctioning the blood, my eyes fixed on the mess beneath his skin.

The metal fragment slid out with a sickening sound, dropped into the stainless-steel tray with a softclink. I didn’t let myself feel anything. Not the sting in my eyes. Not the ache in my chest. Just focus.

“Clamp,” Hensley barked.

“Clamp,” I repeated, handing it over.

Minutes blurred. I didn’t speak, didn’t flinch, didn’t even breathe unless I had to. We stitched him layer by layer, pressure bandages wrapped tight, then finally reset the shoulder with a sickening pop that made me flinch.

“He’ll live,” the doctor finally muttered, stepping back, blood splattered across his coat. “If he doesn’t tear it open being a stubborn asshole again.”

“Will he have full use of his arm?” I asked, worried although I was the one who caused this.

“He won’t be a baseball player, and he’ll have some pain but it’s nothing a man like him can’t tolerate. They’re all used to this kind of pain.”

When it was over, when the room had cleared and the night crew had taken over his vitals, I stepped out into the hall to breathe. That’s when Knuckles caught me.

“Hey. How is he?”

“He’ll live.” I turned to walk down the hallway, but he grabbed my arm, stopping me.

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