Page 36 of Shadow Secrets
“I’m in trouble, Dom,” she whispered, leaning close to his ear. “Not the kind you can fix with overtime and a pep talk. The real kind. There’s this guy who’s helping me—protecting me—and he’s…” She exhaled. Looked at her hands. The ink on her forearms. “He’s the last person I should be feeling anything for. You said he was a good kid. Well, he’s more than that, a lot more. And I’m an absolute idiot for letting him get under my skin.”
She pressed her lips together, mentally telling herself to shut up, yet unable to actually do it. “Last night, he sat on the floor of my room and told me about his family. I drew a tattoo on his arm with my finger, Dom. Like I was sixteen and flirting at a house party. And the thing is—the thing that scares me—is that when I’m with him, the noise in my head gets quieter. The carousel slows down. I don’t know what to do with that.”
Dom’s eyes moved.
Sutton froze. The movement was subtle—a flutter beneath the lids, the kind of rapid eye motion that could mean dreaming or nothing at all.
But then his fingers twitched. The ones closest to her chair, on the hand with the faded anchor tattoo. A small, deliberate contraction, like he was trying to close his fist around something that wasn’t there.
“Dom?” She leaned forward, heart hammering, and gripped his hand. “Dom, can you hear me?”
Another twitch. Stronger. His brow creased.
She nearly screamed with excitement. She hit the call button and was on her feet before the sound registered. “Nurse! Sebastian, I need a nurse!”
Sebastian was through the doorway in a second, scanning the room for threats before his brain caught up to the context. His hand dropped from his hip when he saw Dom’s face—the creased brow, the moving eyes, Sutton standing over the bed with tears streaming down her cheeks. “I think he knows I’m here. He’s waking up.”
A nurse rushed in, followed seconds later by a doctor in blue scrubs. They moved to the bed with urgency—checking vitals, adjusting monitors, shining a penlight into Dom’s eyes.
“I need you to step out,” the doctor said without looking up at her.
“I’m not leaving?—”
Sebastian’s hand found her arm. “They have a job to do, Ink. The best thing for Dom right now is to let them do it.”
She wanted to plant her feet and refuse, but his voice wasn’t commanding—it was steady, understanding that leaving was harder than staying. She looked at Dom one more time—the creased brow, the twitching fingers—and let Sebastian guide her into the corridor.
Dom was waking up! She hated leaving him, but Sebastian was right. The doctors needed to do their work without her interfering.
The rear exit was forty feet of hallway, a fire door, and three concrete steps down to the loading area where Garrett had the SUV idling.
Sebastian kept his hand on Sutton’s lower back again, guiding her. Jasper materialized from a side corridor, falling into step on her left. CB appeared from the stairwell and moved into place behind them. The three men formed a moving perimeter around her, their bodies blocking every direction.
Jasper pushed open the fire door, and cold air hit her face. She was moving instinctively, still thinking about Dom. Damn it, she wanted to stay. “What if he does wake up?” she said, her voice rising. “Won’t he be scared? Shouldn’t I be here for him?”
“Dom would want you to be safe, first and foremost,” Sebastian said. “As soon as we’re back at the compound, I’ll get an update. If he does wake up, we’ll video conference with him, okay?”
The SUV was ten feet away, engine running, Garrett behind the wheel.
“Miss? Wait!”
Sebastian turned. So did Sutton. A male nurse was jogging down the corridor toward them—young, mid-twenties, blue scrubs, a lanyard bouncing against his chest. He held something in one hand.
My sketchbook. She’d left it by Dom’s bedside.
“You forgot this,” he said, slightly out of breath. He held it out to Sutton, even as the three men started to form a wall.
Sebastian reached for it before she could. “Thank you,” Sutton said with a smile.
The nurse’s left hand came up from behind his hip with a compact black pistol, the muzzle rising past the sketchbook, past Sebastian’s outstretched hand. He aimed directly at her.
Before Sutton could scream, Sebastian knocked the gun up and drove his shoulder into the nurse’s chest. The others grabbed her and shoved her toward the backseat.
The gun fired. The sound was deafening in the concrete space. Sutton tripped and fell to the ground. The round struck the roof of the SUV, sending paint and metal fragments spraying across the loading area.
CB lifted her and shoved her into the footwell. Garrett was yelling. “Shot fired at the rear exit! One hostile!”
Sutton peeked out the open door. Sebastian and the nurse were on the ground. The nurse was strong and immediately fought for position. The gun was still in his hand.
