Page 64 of Hostile Bond
But I have to.
My hand jumps to her nape, the other slides to her lower back, steadily lowering my wife to the cold floor.
Fuck. I should’ve put a jacket down first for her to lie on. Christ… I should have ripped Uncle Sean’s throat out the second I arrived.
What kind of man fails to protect the only thing that matters to him?
The blazing pain above my hip intensifies when I move with her until she’s flat on her back.
“Make sure they’re all dead!” I yell at the bodyguards behind me. “And tell the pilot we need to be airborne immediately.”
Slick dark fluid.
It’s all I can see soaked into the fibers of her skull t-shirt. Blood. My wife’s fucking blood. I grit my teeth and lift the material to peek at the damage where a deep slash above the waistband of her jeans oozes. From initial inspection, the bullet only perforated her flesh rather than sinking into it. Thank fuck––yet she’s still unresponsive.
My heart rate accelerates.
The injury could still be fatal.
If I can’t stop the blood from pouring out of her, then there’s every chance she could…die. And I’d never take a chance when her life is involved.
Uncle Sean didn’t have a hope of escaping this place alive. He was always going to end up six feet under. That was the plan all along. I’d made her a promise two decades ago and fully intended to keep it. That crazy little Colombian kid made a vow to his Irish best friend. And the night I finally made her my wife, I knew that pledge would be fulfilled one way or another. But handing her the power to exact her own revenge, that was me trying to give the woman I adore everything her broken heart desired.
But I fucked up.
Every muscle in my body braces for the violent assault of my temper. Even though I’m trying so very hard to contain it. She needsme. Not my storm.
“Sin…” My voice is strangled, the sound of it alien behind the surging panic racing through every part of me.
Her lashes flutter a little, but she still doesn’t move. That’s the instant my whole world crumbles. The harshest agony my heart has ever had to withstand. It’s in pieces. She’s in fucking pieces.
I shirk out of my jacket and bark out another order for my men. “Check for a first aid kit. I need bandages. Get me bandages.”
Next to come off is my t-shirt. I hate that I’ve worn it for hours and have nothing sterile to use, but I need to apply pressure to the wound before she bleeds out on me. Losing her is out of the question. Losing my mind––fuck, it’s already gone to shit now that she’s not answering me.
The crack of another bullet has me glancing over my shoulder, my body arching over her as a shield. “What the fuck?” I hiss.
“Sorry sir. Just making sure that one was dead. He still had a pulse.”
“Where are the bandages?” I snap, impatience making me jumpy and impetuous. “Bring vodka too.”
I scrunch my t-shirt into a ball and carefully press it to the leaking wound. She flinches and groans. Not at all like the sexy sounds she makes for my dick. It’s from pain. Sheer fucking suffering. And my uncle, my own blood. was the one to inflict it on her.
If the soldiers hadn’t shot him dead, I would have nailed him to the rafters, sliced him from throat to belly, ripped out his insides, and waited until his legs stopped twitching. Any other fucker trading teens in my territory would meet the same unforgiving fate. However, killing my wife’s mother, knowing she was under Souza protection––that was enough of a reason to butcher him. And the fact he’s my uncle only makes his deceit that bit more toxic. The impulse to slaughter throws my thoughts into the darkest corners of my mind.
I take a deep breath and resist the urge to pump a few more rounds into his dead body. That decision’s helped by the soldier who crouches beside me, refocusing my attention. He sets a bottle of vodka by my knee, unzips the green pouch with a white cross on the front, and rifles through the contents. He tears off the plastic film covering a crepe bandage.
“Here… hold this over it,” I instruct, not wanting anyone else's fingers skimming my wife’s flesh.
When he takes over, I unscrew the bottle cap and pour vodka all over my grimy hands to clean them. My heart is thumping so hard I swear the mangled fucker would crack a few ribs.
“I’ll wrap the bandage around her.” I shake my hands dry. “Put as much pressure on it as possible… without hurting her more.”
“Sir…” The guy compacting the wound looks at me, his eyes wary. “You’ve been hit too.”
I look down, eyeing the spewing gash on my side, and ignore the swarming heat building around it.
“Her first.”
