Page 4 of Hooked On Victor
She didn’t let go.
“You keep those goddamn eyes open,” she said.
He obeyed. Barely.
Above them, the trees sighed in the wind, black needles brushing each other like skeletal fingers. The Ducati’s headlight cast them in weird, monstrous shapes.
She glanced at it, then back at him. “You know, you’re paying for my fucking tetanus shot after this.”
He choked again, but this time it was close to a laugh.
Her lips twitched. Just for an instant.
Then she was all business again, checking his pulse, leaning in so close he could see the flecks of gold in her green eyes.
He felt the ground vibrating under them as a distant vehicle approached—maybe help, maybe not.
He didn’t care.
He just kept staring at her, memorizing her face in case it was the last thing he ever saw.
And she didn’t look away.
Chapter two
Chapter 2 – Thorns and Bruises
The ER doors banged open with an angry squeal of old hinges, and Rose Pepper didn’t even flinch. The harsh fluorescent lights overhead flickered for a heartbeat before settling into their steady, sterile glare, humming with that electric buzz that made everything feel just a little more anxious. She could smell the familiar cocktail of antiseptic, sweat, and fear before the gurney even crossed the threshold.
They rolled him in hard, wheels rattling over cracked linoleum that smelled faintly of bleach and age. He was strapped down with old leather restraints that dug into his biceps, the canvas of the gurney darkening in irregular blotches of blood. She tracked those spots automatically, noting where they spread fastest, cataloging the way the color seeped and pooled.
Victor Roman.
She didn’t know that yet—not really. But she knew enough in the half-second her eyes skimmed him.
Leather jacket shredded like he'd crawled through a shredder, one shoulder peeled nearly off his frame. Black hair matted tohis forehead with dried blood and sweat, strands sticking to skin already taking on the ashen cast of shock. There was a jagged split over his right brow, skin hanging in a sloppy flap, leaking blood that had clotted into a thick black smear across one closed eyelid.
But even half-conscious, he had the gall to turn his head slightly as they wheeled him in and crack open one blood-caked eye.
She saw it.
That smirk.
It was so faint most wouldn’t have noticed. But she was trained to see micro-expressions—the tightening at one corner of his mouth, the barest twitch of dark eyebrows.
Cocky son of a bitch.
She didn’t slow down as she moved alongside the gurney, gloved hands brushing against the rails, matching their pace.
“Vitals?” she snapped.
The paramedic on the near side was breathing hard, face shining with sweat under the too-warm overheads. His gloved hands trembled on the gurney’s frame. “BP’s dropping—ninety over fifty. Tachycardic. GCS fourteen. Suspected rib fractures, possible lung involvement. Open scalp laceration. He’s combative.”
“Combative?” she asked flatly.
He gestured helplessly. “He tried to punch me in the rig. Even half-dead.”
Rose snorted, pulling up her gloves tighter. The latex snapped against her wrist, loud in the hush that settled when she stopped walking.
