Page 131 of Beneath the Surface

“This isn’t over,” he called out. “I’ll bury you in court—”

“Save it for your lawyer,” Captain Holloway said, pushing Wheeler’s head down as he was loaded into the car.

The ambulance was waiting, back doors open. They loaded Dax inside and Quinn climbed in after him, never letting go of his hand.

The paramedics worked around her, starting IVs, monitoring vitals, radioing ahead to the hospital.

Quinn just held Dax’s hand and watched his face and prayed to whatever gods might be listening.

He’d come for her. Had thrown away his safety, had come alone into hell to save her.

And now she was going to make damn sure he survived to regret it.

The ambulance doors closed and they were moving, sirens wailing, racing through the night toward the hospital.

Toward hope.

Toward a future Quinn refused to let slip away.

“Stay with me,” she whispered, her lips close to Dax’s ear. “Stay with me, you stubborn, overprotective, beautiful idiot. Stay with me.”

His fingers tightened around hers—barely, but enough.

Enough to know he was still fighting.

Still here.

Still hers.

CHAPTER 23

The hospital smelled like antiseptic and fear.

Quinn sat in the surgical waiting room, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles had gone white and bloodless. She’d been sitting here for three hours. Three hours of fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, of bad coffee growing cold in a Styrofoam cup beside her, of nurses coming and going with carefully neutral expressions that told her nothing.

Three hours of not knowing if Dax was going to live or die.

She was still wearing her blood-stained pajamas—Dax’s blood, dried now to a rust-brown that cracked when she moved. Someone had draped a blanket over her shoulders at some point, but she couldn’t remember who or when. The paramedics maybe. Or one of the officers who’d taken her statement in the ambulance bay while the doctors rushed Dax inside.

The statement had been a blur. Quinn had answered questions on autopilot while her mind stayed in that operating room, imagining surgeons cut into Dax’s shoulder, watching them work to save his life.

She could still feel his hand in hers from the ambulance ride. Could still hear his voice, weak but determined.Love you. I’m sorry. For everything.

Quinn’s eyes burned but she had no tears left. She’d cried them all out in the first hour, sitting alone in this sterile room with its terrible magazines and its wall-mounted TV playing the news on mute.

The news. Quinn had looked up once and seen her own face on the screen—footage from outside the warehouse, Wheeler being loaded into a police car, the breaking news banner screaming about the arrest of Blackridge’s most prominent businessman.

She’d looked away. Couldn’t process it. Not yet. Not when Dax was—

“Ms. Barrett?”

Quinn’s head snapped up. A surgeon stood in the doorway, still wearing scrubs, a surgical cap, and the kind of expression that Quinn couldn’t read. Too neutral. Too professional.

Her heart stopped.

“Is he—” She couldn’t finish. Couldn’t say the worddeadbecause saying it might make it real.

“Detective Mercer is out of surgery.” The surgeon moved closer, and Quinn could see the exhaustion in his face, the slight tremor in his hands that spoke of hours of delicate work. “The bullet shattered his clavicle and did significant damage to the surrounding tissue and nerves. We’ve repaired what we could, but there will be a long recovery.”