I swung my legs from the bed, sheets and all, and was almost to my feet when Cara rushed at me and pushed against my shoulders.
“CAL!” She shouted frantically as she looked up and met my eyes. “Rafe, it’s alright. Please just stay there. You’re in the hospital!” she gasped breathlessly.
“Cara?”
I looked up, grabbing Cara’s arm in an attempt to pull her close, as the male voice had my hackles rising. The room was starting to spin around me and I was fighting to breathe as my chest grew tighter and tighter.
“Rafe! Fuck!”
I looked up again. Where were my men? Dario? Why wasn’t anyone there protecting my sister?
“Rafe, it’s me. It’s Cal. Everything’s alright. Your men are outside and we’re all safe here. You were shot, mate. You’ve been in a coma.”
“Cara?” I gasped. It came out a rough rasp.
“She’s safe. Brax is in the hospital along with two full teams, and two other teams escorted us here and are waiting to take us home. Everyone is safe, Rafe. You need to lie back down now,” Cal told me emphatically.
“Please Rafe. D-don’t hurt yourself anymore,” Cara pleaded.
I dropped my gaze to her, and found tears pouring down her cheeks, her hands, which were still pressing against my shoulders, were shaking violently.
“Dario,” I growled, the word painful to push out through my raw throat.
I sat back on the bed and heard Cara’s sigh of relief. She released me and then Cal was there, lifting my legs back onto the bed and covering me over with a sheet. I was bare chested and wearing only a pair of checked sleep trousers I wouldn’t be seen dead in at home. They weren’t mine.
“I’ll ring him and get him here. Just try to catch your breath,” Cal told me.
“I’ll tell the nurse he’s awake.”
Cara had already fled the room by the time I looked up to protest her being anywhere alone.
I could remember now. The ambush in the car park of the hospital. The gun aimed right at my sister. I’d jumped to push her out of the way, and that had to be how I ended up shot. It wasn’t safe for Cara to be alone.
“Rafe, sit back!” Cal snapped when I moved to go after her. “Dom is right outside the door, and Joey is sat with a clear view of the nurses station. She’s covered.”
“Who sh-shot me?” I bit out, my pain making me even more short tempered.
“We don’t know yet. Dario has everyone working on it, and Kean is helping out, but we don’t have the answer to that yet,” he sighed as he started reapplying the heart monitors I had obviously displaced when I jumped up.
“How bad?”
“Bad enough. The bullet hit your lung. It was touch and go for a while, and you’ve been in a drug induced coma, on a ventilator, for twelve days, to give the lung time to heal. It’s going to take time to get back to your full strength, but you’ll get there.”
“Twelve days,” I ground out with frustration.
Twelve days without retaliation. Twelve days of every player in London eyeing up how they could take power from us while we were looking weak and vulnerable. Twelve days that my sister and my family had been in danger while I was unconscious.
“Give me your phone.”
“No. I’ll call Dario and get him here, but you need to calm down, Rafe. You’ve had major surgery and been in a bloody coma.”
“Callan. Give me your damn phone right now,” I snarled, in too much pain and too impatient to argue with him.
“Fine, but just remember I tried to stop you when this sets your recovery back.”
Cal pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans, unlocked it, then slapped it into my waiting hand.
The phone barely rang once before Dario answered.
