Page 59 of Knuckles & Knives
Marcus is already on his phone, calling his private medical contacts. “Trauma surgeon will meet us at the safe house facility. Fifteen minutes.”
Kieran helps me lift Dom carefully, supporting his weight as we move toward the exit. “How did they get inside?” he asks grimly.
“Someone gave them access codes, security rotations, our exact location at the planned time,” Marcus replies, his analytical mind already working the problem. “We have a traitor.”
I close my eyes. Marcus sniffed around and uncovered the rat from the last attack, but now there’s another one?
The ride to Marcus’s secure medical facility is the longest fifteen minutes of my life. I keep pressure on Dom’s wound while monitoring his breathing, his pulse, the color in his face. He drifts in and out of consciousness, but every time his eyes flutter open, they find mine.
“Still here,” I whisper each time, squeezing his hand. “I’m still here.”
“Good,” he mumbles. “Keep talking. Like your voice.”
So I do. I talk about everything and nothing—our plans for expanding the club, my ideas for new security protocols, even childhood memories of my father. Anything to keep him focused, keep him fighting.
The surgeon Marcus called is waiting when we arrive, a no-nonsense woman who takes one look at Dom and immediately starts barking orders to her small team. They whisk him awayto an improvised operating room, leaving me standing in the hallway with blood on my hands and panic clawing at my chest.
“He’ll be fine,” Axel says, but his usual wild confidence is strained. “Dom’s too stubborn to die from something like this.”
“He took a bullet meant for me,” I say numbly. “He didn’t even hesitate.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Kieran replies quietly. “None of us would have.”
The surgery takes three hours. Three hours of pacing, of Marcus working his contacts to trace the attack, of Axel wearing a path in the floor, of Kieran standing motionless by the window like a statue carved from ice and fury.
When the surgeon finally emerges, we all turn toward her like plants seeking sun.
“He’ll live,” she says without preamble. “The bullet missed major arteries and organs. Some muscle damage, but nothing that won’t heal with proper care. He’s strong, and he was lucky.”
The relief that floods through me is so intense I have to sit down. Axel squeezes my shoulder gently.
“Can we see him?” I ask.
“One at a time for now. He’s still heavily sedated, but he should wake up within the hour.”
I go first, of course. Dom looks smaller somehow in the hospital bed, pale against the white sheets with tubes and monitors surrounding him. But his breathing is steady, and when I take his hand, his fingers tighten around mine.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he murmurs without opening his eyes.
“Hey yourself, hero.” My voice cracks despite my efforts to stay strong. “How do you feel?”
“Like I got shot,” he says with a weak attempt at humor. “We both alive?”
“We’re both alive,” I confirm. “All of us are alive, thanks to you.”
His eyes finally open, focusing on my face with obvious effort. “Worth it,” he says again, just like before. “Always be worth it to keep you safe.”
“Dom…” I start, but he cuts me off.
“No regrets, Raven. Never regret protecting you.”
I stepinto the shower not to get clean—there’s barely any blood on me anymore—but because I need to feel something that isn’t fear.
The water hits my skin like judgment. Hot. Unrelenting. Honest.
For a second, I just stand there, palms braced against the tile, head bowed, letting it scald me. The spray drums against my shoulders and echoes in the hollow places I didn’t know were carved inside me until Dom fell.
He dropped without hesitation. Didn’t flinch. Just moved. One moment I was his responsibility, his priority, his fuckingeverything, and the next he was bleeding in my arms.
