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Normally that would be a cop’s job, but he knew just as well as I did that I’d have more information as to what had happened to her.
I nodded once. “We done?”
Tatum looked at the scene, his eyes going to Zach.
“Yeah, got a few more questions for everyone here, then I’m going to head to the hospital myself. Got a team looking through the area for the shooter, but I suspect he’s long gone. When you call that family, ask them to stay until I can talk to them,” he ordered.
I gave him a two-finger salute and then walked over to where Zach was standing with Crockett, Zakelina nowhere in sight.
I walked up to them and jerked my chin up. “I’m headed to the hospital,” I said.
Zach pulled away from Crockett, dropping a kiss onto her forehead.
“I’m going too,” he said.
That’s when I realized that the rest of our club’s bikes were here, but the club was nowhere to be found.
“They’re helping look,” Zach said, guessing as to my train of thoughts. “They’ll meet up with us at the hospital.”
I nodded my head, understanding immediately.
“Good,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We arrived at the hospital and found that Catori had already been rushed to surgery. Apparently, Zach had done a damn fine job at stabilizing her in the field.
Fuck yeah.
Which left me with the next thing on my to-do list.
With Zach standing at my side in the luckily-empty waiting room, I called the first number listed in the phone.
Daddy.
“Hey, baby. Did you make it through the patient visit?”
I squeeze my eyes shut at the man’s amusement.
“Sir,” I said, sounding sick to my stomach.
Exactly how I fuckin’ feel.
The vibe changes instantly.
“Who is this?”
The man’s voice was steady, but there was an underlying hint of anger riding there.
I swallowed hard, then said, “Your daughter was shot about thirty minutes ago. We’re at the emergency room in Kilgore.”
There was a hiss of air as the man breathed in sharply, then a calmness to him that had me stiffening.
Most people didn’t react with calmness when faced with their child being hurt.
No, they freaked the fuck out.
But not this man.
“Tell me what happened,” he ordered.
I gave him the bare-bones story, knowing that I would be repeating it in detail later when I saw him.
And I knew I would see him, too.
It was only a matter of time.
That moment in time came six hours later.
Six very long, very exhausting hours later, I was led into a room with wall-to-wall people in it.
The two to catch my eyes, however, were the two men standing shoulder to shoulder at the bedside.
Both very tall, very intimidating men.
Both men like me.
Their eyes came to me and held steady.
That was when I saw the lines of stress on their faces.
One of their own had been hurt, and they were not happy with what had happened without them being there to protect her.
The brother and the father.
The ones that she’d spoken so highly of. The ones that got her last thoughts.
“You’re the one.”
I looked to the woman at the other side of the bed. The bed where Catori was laying, and I was trying really hard not to look at.
I couldn’t.
Not yet.
There was something seriously wrong with me.
The last six hours had been the hardest of my life, and I’d been through a lot of fucking shit.
I didn’t know what the hell it was, but I was terrified each fuckin’ time someone came out to the parking lot today. I thought for fuckin’ sure that they were going to tell me that she didn’t make it.
Then five minutes ago, Zach had come out with a damn grin on his face, and I took the first deep breath in what felt like forever.
Which led me to now, walking into a hospital room that was packed to the gills, looking at three adult people and avoiding looking at the bed.
“I’m the one?” I asked.
“You’re the one,” the woman said. “My name is Winter. I’m Catori’s mother.”
I sighed. “She spoke about you.”
Winter’s eyes went intense. “When?”
I hesitated, not wanting to say another word.
Did I relay her words now that she was going to live?
Would she want them to know?
I finally allowed myself to look at the bed, and my heart damn near leaped out of my chest.
Though she’d made it through surgery, she looked worse for wear.
The closest fuckin’ trauma center was over thirty-five minutes away from where we’d been at the time.
According to the medics I’d spoken with on the way into the hospital earlier, she’d coded eight times.
They’d been able to bring her back all eight of those times.
But she looked deathly still on that bed.
If her heartbeat wasn’t blinking on the screen behind her head, I would’ve thought she was dead based on how she looked.
And I’d seen my fair share of dead people.
Then her eyes opened.
