Page 60 of Shattered King

He cursed several times. “It’s a graze. Thank fuck. Keep pressure on it, baby. I’ll get someone up to my apartment to stitch you up. I’m not taking you back out in the open.”

Josh pulled his thumb from his mouth. “Fuck,” he parroted.

Wonderful.

“Shit,” Hunter growled.

“Shit,” Josh mimicked, lips curled up at the sides, obviously pleased with himself.

Hunter stared at Josh for a couple beats, then gave up, turned back in his seat, keyed in a text, and we were driving again.

Jude, Zeke, and Van were there when we arrived. They were all carrying guns and not bothering to conceal them as they rushed us inside Hunter’s apartment building. Zeke left again as soon as we were secured—to take position across the street, he said.

Neco arrived with an older man a short time later, a man with salt and pepper hair and an impatient, harried looking expression. The doctor Hunter mentioned. He gave me a shot to numb my wound, which was just a graze and not that bad, stitched me up, gave me some antibiotics, and left again.

I looked up at Van when the door shut. “You have your own doctor on call?”

“We pay him well, and he’s available when we need him,” he said from his position in front of the breakfast bar.

Hunter had a job that required a doctor on the payroll, a doctor who was on call? The guy hadn’t batted an eyelid at what was so obviously a bullet wound. This was something else to lock away and not think about until all this was over.

It was just another reason why Josh and I couldn’t stay. As if reading my mind, Van piped up again. “We don’t use him very often, Lulu, and we’re not the only ones that pay him to do his job and keep his mouth shut.”

People come to us when a situation is too dangerous for anyone else, and we . . . fix it for them.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Right. Good to know.” That was a complete lie. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t need to know. And by tomorrow, after I’d shored up my mental defenses, I would have pushed it way down, all of it, with everything else. When it was time to leave, I’d think about it then and only then.

Josh, my tough little cookie, had fallen asleep not long after we’d gotten back. He’d curled up on the couch beside me and drifted off. Hunter had carried him to bed when the good doctor arrived.

The door was opened again and the cops walked in, obviously here to take my statement. Jude walked over to greet them, filling them in. I realized they were the same cops that I spoke to in the hospital, after Pierce had finished with me. They seemed to know each other.

“Does Jude know those guys?”

Hunter was standing behind me, a steady, unwavering presence. Other than taking Josh to bed, he hadn’t moved. His hand came down on the back of my neck, fingers curling in. He kissed the top of my head. “Jude used to be a cop.”

“Oh.” I turned in my seat to look at him. “He was a cop? But you guys . . . you . . . you know . . .”

Neco chuckled from his spot across the room, leaning against the wall. “We do what we have to do to get a job done, and that sure as hell doesn’t usually include shooting shit up all over the city. You get me?”

Nope. Not really. “Right.”

That’s when the police joined us and the conversation about law breaking ended while they took everyone’s statements.

It was late when they finally left. I was exhausted, close to passing out.

Hunter shut the door behind Van, who was the last to leave, and walked back to me. He didn’t give me any warning, just slid his arms around me, one at my back, the other behind my knees, and lifted me off the couch.

He kissed my temple. “Come on, baby. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, and suddenly remembered about the plans I’d made for tonight. “What about Ruby? She’ll think I blew her off.”

“Neco filled her in.”

“Oh . . . that’s good, I like her.”

“You do?”

“Mmmhmm. Maybe we could be friends?” I said against his T-shirt. I’d never really had friends, besides Bret, who’d turned out to be a traitorous bastard. I liked the idea of having one.