Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Draven was trying to stay conscious, but hadn’t said anything for a minute. He groaned as the gauze plugged the wound.
“Good fuckin’ idea,” Draven said. “Very good idea. That hurts like a goddamn bitch, by the way. But keep the pressure on.”
Finally, the blood loss seemed to slow.
As the SUV took off quickly toward the hospital, the security guard in the front kept watch, turning his head back anytime the car came to a stop, talking me through my panic.
“I was trained as a combat medic,” he said. “Sometimes when the wound is on the trunk of the body, only a hand can locate the center of the blood loss so that you can get gauze inside. You’re doing the right thing, Max.”
I could barely breathe. I nodded at him, unable to tear my eyes away from Draven’s face.
“He’s still conscious,” the security guard said.
“Damn right I am,” Draven mumbled, trying to laugh again. “Nice bein’ here… here in Max’s arms. Ain’t he cute?”
The security guard didn’t react.
Within minutes, we had raced to the hospital. Medical staff took over, and I watched as Draven was pulled away on a stretcher.
Only then did the tears start to fall down my cheeks.
Watching him whisked away, lying back, so not himself.
Completely not in control.
My heart was yanked toward him like it was magnetized to his body, but I couldn’t follow.
Fuck.
I looked down at my own body—still shirtless, with so much of my chest and arm covered in Draven’s blood.
“Come inside,” a nurse said to me. She took my arm and led me, and I blinked through my tears as I moved through the fluorescent hallways inside.
I ended up in a room with a standing shower where the nurse helped me rinse off.
I couldn’t think.
Couldn’t process anything that just happened.
They gave me a clean cotton shirt and the nurse led me down more hallways until I rejoined Draven’s security crew, standing outside the emergency suite where Draven had been taken.
“Max,” a member of the crew told me, coming to my side. “The police just apprehended a man in a blue sedan, at an intersection not too far from Mr. Lyons’ property. Reggie Sandlefield. The man was shaky, incoherent, and he had the knife in the passenger seat of his car. He has been taken into custody.”
I knew the news was good, but it didn’t land on me in any way I could process.
The man was caught.
I should have been glad.
But all I could do was think about Draven’s blood. About his body there in that operating suite, hopefully holding onto consciousness.
And how Draven had done it all because of me.
Chapter 22
Draven
Ialways thought that if I was ever near death, I would go out fighting, swinging, full of rage until the last gasping moment.
Turns out that when it finally actually happened, all I felt was love.
I was in and out of consciousness for brief flashes of time after I left the operating room and had my battle wound all stitched up.
In that void, all I had were brief, passing thoughts. Dreams, maybe.
I thought about everything.
About my father.
About Brody McGowan.
About Lily, and Dominic, and every acre of my land.
And then I felt all of it, floating away, until the only thing left was Max. The blue of his eyes, the ruddy pink of his lips.
Like he was clearer, brighter, than everything else.
What have I done?
What have I been doing?
How could I have been so lost, when it was right there in front of me?
I finally woke up the next morning, after sleeping through the night after the anesthesia and some painkillers.
And when I opened my eyes, I saw Max.
“You a dream, or here for real?” I asked, seeing him over in the seat, waiting patiently for me.
“I am real,” he said. “And that’s the first full sentence you’ve said in hours.”
He slid his chair up directly to the side of the hospital bed, leaning over and giving me a little side-hug, being gentle with his touch because of my wound.
“Oh no,” I murmured. “What did I say in my drug-induced sleep?”
“Fragments of things,” he told me. “I tried to tell you all about how the cops caught Reggie Sandlefield. You responded with things like damn right. Other times throughout the night, you said things like more rose bushes.”
“Apparently that’s what goes through my mind when I’m recovering from a near-death experience.”
Max peered at me. “You also said it’s over, a few times. And I’m done, another.”
I knew exactly what those must have been.
The dominoes inside me, toppling one by one.
Me, in the wreckage.
Finally feeling like myself for the first time.
Maybe it was more like a forest fire inside me, making way for a fallow field, ready for new growth.
I was done meant that I was done living any portion of my life in regards to my father’s company. Blood be damned, and dynasty be damned. Brody McGowan was just more of the same. Noise that I never wanted to hear again.