Page 43 of Blackbeard
Chapter ten
Leigh
I clenched my teeth until my jaw ached as the shock settled in. People milled around me, hazy at the edges of my vision, rendered in shadows I struggled to make out. The pavement was cool against my back, but the blood staining my hands was so hot…
Blackbeard knelt next to me with the same medical kit he’d used this morning.
“How bad is it?”
I blinked slowly, my sluggish brain grappling to understand what he was saying. Then Baby Doll responded.
“Bullet just grazed her. Didn’t hit anything serious, but she’s bleeding more heavily than she should be.”
“She probably took some painkillers this morning that thinned her blood,” Blackbeard replied. “When I got home last night, she was drunk.”
I frowned, trying to push their hands away.
“Stop—stop talking about me when I’m…I’m right here.”
Baby Doll easily caught my wrists in my weakened state, holding my arms aside while Blackbeard set to work.
“Was this…your plan all along?” I slurred. “Get your Prospect to…to do the dirty work of offing your pain-in-the-ass wife?”
“No,” Blackbeard gritted out. “This was not the plan.”
His bloodied fingers made quick work of cleaning my wound calmly. Baby Doll glanced over her shoulder.
“Can someone bring a cage around? We need to get Leigh home.”
Home. Dad.I shook my head, making the world spin violently.
“No, no, don’t…don’t take me home,” I babbled mindlessly. “Then my dad will know what happened and he…he won’t like this. He’ll be angry.”
“Leigh,” Blackbeard said with an infinite amount of patience. “I’m taking you tomyhome.”
A beat of silence as I processed that.
“Ohhhhh.”
“She’s delirious,” Baby Doll whispered.
“Hallucinating from blood loss,” Blackbeard agreed.
“Hey,” I protested. “I heard that. Are you…saying…I’m crazy? I’m not crazy. I married a totallyhotbiker I’ve never met before, but that…that doesn’t make mecrazy.”
“In about ten seconds, this morphine I’m giving you is going to kick in, sweetheart,” Blackbeard said, and I felt the slightest pinprick of pain in my arm. “After that, you won’t hear anything at all.”
I took a breath to object, but darkness pulsed at the edges of my vision, and my body grew heavy as a stone. I plunged into unconsciousness, with Blackbeard hovering above me, speaking softly.
“Close your eyes, princess. I’ve got you.”
It seemed as if I slept for only a few seconds when I woke to find a shadowed ceiling above me. Cool, silky black sheets wrapped around my body. Blackbeard’s bed. A dull, pulsing throb marked my lower ribs on the left side.
Gingerly, I reached up with tentative fingers, probing the area. I found the rough texture of gauze.
Memories began to tumble back into my mind in a blur—Hot Shot’s garage, the frosty greeting I received, and Crash with that gun…
“Should have seen that coming a mile away,” I groaned.
