Page 74 of Business vs. Pleasure

Ricardo snatched NightRaven’s wrist. The pain blinded him for a split second, but NightRaven also froze, and Ricardo recovered first.

“Don’t… touch… my husband.”

And before NightRaven could react, Ricardo summoned all the strength, pain tolerance, and clarity he had left, shoved the hidden pistol into the fucker’s midsection, and fired.

For seconds that stretched into eternity, Ricardo’s world was nothing but pain. The movement to lift the gun, the recoil—not ideal with broken ribs or seven million stitches and staples.

But then, even as pain and morphine conspired to pull him away from the present, he was aware of two things.

One, NightRaven staggering back, grunting with a satisfying amount of pain as he toppled one of the monitor stands.

Two, the door flying open.

He had a heartbeat to think a nurse was about to become collateral damage. Another heartbeat to realize NightRaven was still moving. Rallying. Ready to fight.

Then—

“Are you okay?” August demanded. “Ricardo, are you—fuck!”

Ricardo couldn’t keep track of what was happening. Morphine was closing in fast. The shouts and chaos were fading.

He didn’t know how badly NightRaven was wounded.

He didn’t know if August was injured at all.

He didn’t know anything except that the two men were fighting…

And there was nothing he could do to help August.

CHAPTER 22

There was blood everywhere. On the floor, on the bed, on NightRaven’s middle and hands, hands that grabbed August by the front of his scrubs and threw him back into the door with the strength of a desperate man.

A dying man, maybe. If that blood was all from him… if he hadn’t hurt Ricardo…

There was no way of knowing until this was over, and NightRaven had gotten his gun back. He was shaky with it, his arm wavering as he pulled the weapon from the small of his back, but accuracy hardly mattered when you had a full magazine to work with.

Speed mattered, though. August braced himself against the wall as he grabbed the edge of the stand the monitor had been on and shoved it hard into NightRaven’s midsection. The other man choked, bloody spittle falling from his slack mouth as the pain became too much to bear. The gun fell to the floor, and despite the temptation August jerked the door open and kicked it into the hallway with a grimace. He couldn’t risk it being taken away from him, and as fucked up as he was right now that was a distinct possibility.

NightRaven snarled and shoved the stand aside, scalpel clenched in his hand. August dodged to the side, snagged the top sheet off Ricardo’s bed, and before NightRaven could turn and attack again, threw the broad, twisted cloth over the other man’s head from behind and jerked him down, hard. He made sure to hit NightRaven’s head on the edge of Ricardo’s bed on the way down, jarring him enough that August could roll him onto his front without having to dodge the blade.

The air was shrill with the sound of alarms, but August ignored it all as he followed NightRaven to the floor and got on top of him, grinding the points of his knees into the man’s upper back as he began to twist the sheet around itself in a makeshift garrote. It was a terrible material for it, too big, too soft, but⁠—

He hissed as the hand holding the scalpel contorted enough to wing his hip.

“No!” August snapped—at NightRaven, at the world, at the fucking scalpel.

I will not be stabbed to death while I’m killing this fucker. Not today.

August released the tension just long enough to smash NightRaven’s face into the floor, then hauled him up even higher, until the back of his head practically touched between his shoulder blades. He twisted the cloth again and again, ratcheting it tighter and tighter, and the cloth was bloody from the froth coming out of NightRaven’s mouth and he was making a sound, something hoarse and pleading, the most useless of all sounds. August would have laughed if he’d had the breath for it.

Instead, he saved all his breath for killing, stayed steady through the pathetic flailing and agony and gradual, rattling end of NightRaven, the boy who would be king, until it was all over. Until there was no possible chance the man would ever come back from this, not even in a hospital, not even if a dozen doctors worked on him for an hour. He was gone.

Gone at last.

August looked up in a daze that sharpened the second he realized that Ricardo was trying to get out of the bed.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, getting to his feet—and immediately falling over again once he got there. “Fuck,” he spat, the pain finally breaking through the shield of adrenaline he’d been carrying since NightRaven entered the hospital. “Do not get up!” he shouted, hauling himself along the edge of the bed until he could slide up onto his abandoned chair. “I swear to God, if you actually get out of bed right now I will send you to join that dumb fucker.” He jerked his head at the body on the floor even as he got a grip around Ricardo’s bicep and urged him onto his back again.