Page 115 of Ride or Die

“Saint…”

“Right now,” he said, voice low.

She dragged in a breath and let it go, eyes brittle, like shale.

“Again.”

The second breath was easier, and the third was smoother still.

“She’s conscious. Let’s move.” Wheeler helped Kristi stand, eyes tight, constantly scanning.

Saint moved Riley to the back seat as Wheeler did the same on the driver’s side. Riley buckled Kristi in.

Doors slammed as Saint took the passenger seat. Wheeler rolled the truck forward.

“Hospital?” Saint asked, watching Kristi through the rearview. Riley hunched over her, ear to her lips.

“Maybe, but it’d be great if Aaron could come by. I don’t know what she took, and we should avoid reporting it—she’ll be safer. He knows more about drugs than I do.” Wheeler’s jaw bunched as he pulled out onto the main street. People stumbled out of clubs into the middle of it, mindless of the traffic. “So much for not fucking with the Italians.”

“We’ll be fine.”

Saint texted Aaron, again. It was almost morning. “You want to take her in if he doesn’t show, or can you sort it out?”

“It was a white powder.” Riley’s voice was hoarse, and she rubbed her thumb along Kristi’s jaw. “I—in the drink.”

Saint found her eyes in the rearview mirror. She stared at him as tears overflowed.

He held her gaze. It’s done. Handled.

Wheeler focused on keeping the ride smooth at twice the speed limit. “We can set up fluids and monitor her at the loft. Move her if we need to,” Wheeler murmured to Saint.

“Roofies?” Saint asked Riley.

“He said the drink was an apology for what happened. A new leaf. I didn’t want to drink it, but Kristi just wanted him to leave,” Riley said. “Gio told me he wasn’t going to let me go. In the stairwell, that day. That I owed him.” Her voice was small. “I should have realized what he meant.”

She’s blaming herself.

Blackness ripped through Saint and turned everything cold and succinct.

Wheeler’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel as the truck surged forward.

“It’s handled.”

Wheeler jerked a look at Saint, face hard, and nodded.

Gio wasn’t going to make it through the next twenty-four hours.

Chapter 35

Riley

Riley rose from deep in the ocean and slowly drifted towards the surface, pulled by the sunlight streaming through the cracks in the dark curtains.

Warmth cradled her in that blissful in-between, neither awake nor asleep. Cedar and citrus. Fingers trailed up her inner thigh, ticklish and seductive. There was a solid wall of warmth at her back, an arm over her waist.

She blinked awake, and morning light painted the room in soft hues.

Saint’s room. She stretched against him and let her eyes drift closed, until a feminine sigh startled them open.