The Marked Men Series Books 1–6: Rule, Jet, Rome, Nash, Rowdy, Asa. Jay Crownover
Читать онлайн книгу.
her things got out of hand while we were making up.”
He’d put so much of his weight on my back that the way he had my hand wrenched up behind me couldn’t take the torque and with a sickening pop that made both of us jerk my shoulder found its way out of its socket. I screeched in pain and went limp on that side. Fear and panic rose up hard and fast in my throat as I struggled. I knew that I had to get to my purse for the mace or to the kitchen for some kind of weapon to use against him. He let go of my hands now that one was totally useless and put one of his on the back of my neck to keep me bent over the couch while he used the other to start tugging and pulling at the bottom half of my uniform. He was muttering all kinds of broken sentences and talking about how he was going to make sure that I understood we were a couple. He was rambling about getting married and making our families one. I started to cry in earnest because I didn’t know how to stop him from violating me this way. Fortunately, part of the lamp I had kicked over landed close to the couch and a piece was imbedded in one of the cushions. While Gabe was busy tugging and pulling at my clothes I wrapped the fingers of my good hand around it. I could feel the little ruffly shorts I wore under the uniform start to rip, and that was enough to spur me into action. The only thing I could reach from my prone position was the meaty part of his thigh and I wasn’t sure that I had enough strength to do any real damage, but I swung the glass shard as hard as I could and heard him swear as he suddenly jerked back. I slumped to my hands and knees and screamed bloody murder as my weight landed on my injured arm. I crawled across the floor while he struggled to get the glass out and managed to get to my purse. I was just struggling back to my feet as he was thundering toward me, but I got the mace out and the nozzle turned toward him and gave him a full dose right in the face while he bellowed like an injured bear. I squeezed the canister in my good hand and bolted out the door. I was sure I looked like an escapee from an insane asylum. I was crying hysterically, had blood all over my face, and could barely talk because of the damage to my throat. I raced to the security door and I ran smack into Ayden as she was coming in. I collapsed into a blubbering mess as she caught me.
She was screaming my name, demanding to know what happened and I heard her dialing 911 on the phone, but between the shock and pain I just shut down. I blinked up at her through the blood trailing down over my face and was aware dimly of a crowd coming out of some of the other apartments. It was just too much and everything faded to black. I was pretty sure she caught me before I hit the ground but the next time I was cognizant of anything I was strapped to a stretcher and being loaded into the back of an ambulance. The lights and the sirens were making my head throb and a young paramedic was firing a million and one questions at Ayden as she scrambled up into the back with me. She immediately grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I noticed she was crying almost as hard as I had been.
“Gabe?” My throat was on fire and talking made it feel like I was speaking through a forest of razor blades.
Ayden brushed away her tears with shaking hands and I winced as the paramedic turned his attention to me.
“The cops have him. His dad showed up as they were putting him in the back of the police car. The mace you used on him was hard to miss so he couldn’t really deny he was in our apartment. How did he get in through the security gate?”
I flinched as the paramedic prodded at my shoulder. He turned sympathetic eyes to me. “You’re going to have to get it reset. It’s dislocated and I think the cut on your forehead is going to be deep enough that it’s going to need to be glued or sewed shut. Sorry.”
I wanted to tell him it was okay because I was alive and at least Gabe hadn’t gotten away with the ultimate violation, but talking hurt too much. When he asked about needing a sexual assault exam I shook my head no and squeezed Ayden’s hand as she started crying again.
“My mom.” The words were broken and not just because of my throat. “She gave him the code because he told her we were getting back together.”
Ayden let loose with a string of swear words that would have made Rule proud and we spent the rest of the short ride just clinging to one another. The next two hours were a blur of doctors and police officers. After the first fifteen minutes, it was clear I wasn’t going to keep up my end of the conversation with my vocal cords being as abused as they were. I had to resort to writing everything down. Gabe was in lock-up, at least for the night, and there wasn’t anything his dad could do to get him out. The detective who took my statement let me know there was a good chance his family would post his bail in the morning and he would be out, but there was now a mandatory restraining order in place and there wasn’t a thing his dad could do about it. Not that it mattered; they were keeping me at least a night in the hospital to see how bad the damage to my throat really was, and I needed superstrong painkillers to dull the migraine I was battling on top of the pain of having my shoulder shoved back into the socket.
My mom and Jack showed up sometime near dawn and my dad came as well. I told Ayden I didn’t want to see any of them, which caused a huge scene. When my mom started screaming that it was probably one of the thugs I had met while I was dating Rule, Ayden totally lost her cool and informed all of them that if it hadn’t been for my mother giving Gabe the code to the security door of the apartment this would have never happened. That shut everyone right up. My dad forced his way in using his medical connections and I spent a solid hour ignoring him and glaring while he apologized profusely. When he tried to kiss my cheek I turned my head away and made sure he could see the absolute disgust in my eyes. Part of Gabe’s obsession had to do with all the things these people represented and I just couldn’t abide having it around me right now. They all left after a nurse threatened to call security if they didn’t stop disturbing me.
Ayden pulled up a chair and propped her feet on the edge of the bed, and we both fell into a fitful sleep as morning rolled around. I would only doze on and off, needing more pain meds as my shoulder started to ache and various other parts of me that had been abused made themselves known. Ayden vanished somewhere around noon, which was fine because another round of doctors and detectives came by.
Gabe’s dad had managed to get him out on bail, but there was no dispute about how bad he had hurt me and the police were looking at charging him with attempted murder. They made me tell my story over and over again, and I never wavered from the brutal facts. Gabe was sick and needed help, but more than that he needed to be somewhere where he wasn’t able to do this to someone else. Feeling entitled enough to own another person despite their feelings in the matter was beyond mentally unstable.
Ayden came back in with yogurt and some granola, looking sheepish. “I called Cora to let her know what was going on. I didn’t even think about the fact that she would freak out while she was at work.”
I went completely still and turned wide eyes to my friend.
“Apparently Rule threw a major fit when he heard what happened and, needless to say, he’ll be here in, like, five minutes. Sorry, but I figured you should know. I guess I could ask the hospital staff to keep him out if you want, though I have a feeling stopping him when he’s all worked up might be a chore. There’d be another ex you’d have to send to the slammer for the night.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about him coming here. On the one hand, all I had wanted for the last month was to see him, to have him acknowledge me, but on the other, it shouldn’t have taken a vicious and violent wake-up call to make that happen. I sighed and rocked my head back and forth. She was right, anyway: keeping him out if he had made his mind up to storm the castle was going to be more of a hassle than I needed right now.
“It’s fine. I can handle him.” My voice was still raw and scratchy but at least it hurt marginally less to use it now.
“You don’t look like you’re in any kind of shape to handle anything.” She wasn’t wrong. My arm was in a sling, I had a three-inch gash glued shut and wrapped in a white bandage on my forehead, matching the setup on my hand, my lip was split open and crusted with blood, and I had a wicked ring of black-and-blue bruises circling the pale skin of my throat. To top it all off, I was sporting a dandy set of black eyes from being shoved face-first into both the door and the floor.
“It’ll be fine. He can come see that I’m all right, then go about his day,