Metal groaned and screamed in protest as they worked to pull Bax free. I moved forward and kept getting pulled back. It felt like it had taken a lifetime even if only a few moments had gone by, when the car door suddenly popped open and Bax’s big body slumped out. He looked worse not surrounded by the protective shell of the ’Cuda. I could see one of his legs was really messed up. I could also see that his chest was indeed moving, but slowly and laboriously. I rubbed my hands over my face and tried not to lose it. I didn’t even care that I was smearing blood all over myself from my torn hands.

“I need to call his girlfriend.”

Dovie was going to freak out. Rightfully so. With all the dangerous and dirty stuff Bax messed around in, here it was a car accident that was going to have him fighting for his life. It was so unfair I was choking on it and couldn’t see around it. I fumed as the paramedics strapped him down and started rolling him toward the waiting ambulance. I had never seen my brother look so fragile or so helpless. That included when he was just a little kid and I had to explain to him that I was moving out, leaving him to fend for himself because there was no other way. He looked broken and it was making everything inside of me howl with the need to do something, to seek some kind of retribution. I never considered myself the vengeful type. I put too much stock in the law and justice for that, but right now all I wanted was revenge. I wanted to bury Roark in a casket of metal and pain just like he had done to Bax.

“His pulse is thready, and he’s losing a lot of blood. We’re taking him to City General. Time is a factor. They have a trauma unit already waiting for us.”

Time was a factor? No kidding. He wasn’t moving at all and there was no color to him other than the black of his star and the red that was covering his face and soaking into his T-shirt. He looked like a corpse.

“You want to ride with us, Detective?”

No. No I didn’t want to climb in the back of that ambulance and watch them fight to keep my brother alive, because if they failed I was going to go nuclear and that wouldn’t help anyone. My rage and my grief would only hurt the people who were trying to help, and I didn’t want that. I worked hard to keep the beast in the cage; letting him out now wouldn’t do me or anyone else any good. Reeve had woken that monster up and now putting him back to sleep was getting harder and harder to do.

“No. I need to call his girlfriend and I need to see if anyone has any info on where the driver of the garbage truck went. I’ll be right behind you.”

The paramedic looked at Bax as they loaded him into the transport vehicle and then back at me. I had seen that look a hundred times before. I had given family members and victims that look myself. He didn’t think Bax was going to make it and he didn’t want me to miss any of the last moments I might have with him.

“Just go.” I gritted out the words between my teeth and took a step back. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and took a deep breath before I dialed Dovie’s number. She answered in her usually cheery way and I literally heard her heart break when I told her what was going on. In typical Dovie fashion, she didn’t shriek or shout; she just started breathing heavily and asking me a million questions. I could hear her crying, so I told her I would meet her at the hospital and hung up and called Race. I told him to go get her. She needed to be ready for the worst and there was no way I wanted her driving herself. Race handled the news in much the same way his sister did, but after I gave him the limited amount of information I did have, he assured me he would go get her and that he would see me at the hospital.

When I got off the phone one of the patrol guys that I had been talking to before the accident appeared at my side.

“The real driver stopped for gas a few blocks over. He went in for gas and came out and the truck was gone.”

“How in the fuck did he know where Bax was going to be?” I muttered it under my breath as the guys from my precinct started to set up to do their standard accident investigation.

One thing was clear. No one that had been involved in bringing Novak down was safe. Even the baddest of badasses like Shane Baxter could be blindsided, and no one was invincible. A son’s thirst for vengeance over the perceived wrongs that had befallen his father was a powerful motivator. Roark had hit Race and Nassir where it hurt both financially and emotionally, but Bax . . . Bax he wanted taken out. It was one brother trying to eliminate the other. We all bled the same and Roark was letting me know he wanted to paint the streets red with everyone he held responsible for his loss.

Chapter 9

Reeve

I HADN’T SEEN TITUS in days. I wanted to go to the hospital but Booker wouldn’t let me leave the condo, and part of me knew that even though I desperately wanted to be there for him, he didn’t need me there. Bax was in bad shape. He hadn’t woken up yet and he had been rushed in for emergency surgery on two separate occasions since they rolled him into the emergency room. He almost didn’t make it through the second one, and from what I heard no one was sure when he would wake up . . . or if he would. He also had a shattered ankle, a broken wrist, broken ribs on both sides, a dislocated shoulder, and a broken jaw. The ER doctors had scrambled to cut him open and operate on his punctured liver before he bled to death. So even when he did wake up he wasn’t out of the woods, but considering he got run over by a twenty-ton truck and was still breathing, everyone was counting it as a win.

Most of my information was filtered through Brysen’s little sister, who seemed to have taken up permanent residence in my living room since Race and Brysen were spending most of their free time at the hospital these days. It didn’t escape my notice that while the young and stunning blonde appeared to be working on her homework or playing around on the Internet, she was actually watching every move Booker made like a tiny and ferocious hawk. She definitely didn’t like the easy camaraderie that I had developed with the brooding and scarred man. Every time I made him chuckle or he reached out to touch me, she flinched and gave me a look like I had kicked her puppy. I wanted to tell her she was too young and too pretty to waste her heart on the kind of man Booker was, but I figured it wasn’t my place and lessons like those had to be learned the hard way. All the important ones did.

It was Friday night and I had sent yet another unanswered text to Titus asking him if he was okay and if he needed anything. I wasn’t surprised when silence was what greeted me but I was hurt. I still hadn’t figured out how to turn that off yet. I was making grilled cheese to feed Booker and Karsen since we were all apparently going to be stuck together for another night when I decided enough time had passed that I could ask the darkly handsome man for the favor I had been working up to since he had gotten saddled with keeping an eye on me. I glanced over at Karsen, who was watching some silly reality show on the flat screen and facing away from us. The last thing I needed was for her to overhear me and rat me out to Race. Not that the golden Adonis would stop me, but I didn’t need him to have something else over my head. He already had too many cards in this tricky game that was playing out between me and Conner.