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He looked toward Rusty. “Keep an eye on her. If she so much as twitches or exhales, or anything, you call me.”
“Got it, Prez,” Rusty said.
“Kid, you keep an eye on the door. Don’t fuck this up.”
With that, he turned on his heel and made his way outside of the hospital. He passed so many doctors and patients, but all he could think about was Maddie. She shouldn’t be in the hospital, and it was only him, a few guys at the club, and Hellen, who seemed to care about her.
In the past two days, Bull had come to realize something. Maddie had absolutely no one. She had no friends. No colleagues. No family. She was completely alone in the world, and he was determined to show her that wasn’t the case. She would never be alone again.
She had him, and by extension, she would also have the club.
His bike wasn’t parked too far from the entrance to the hospital. Straddling the bike, he took the second he usually did to enjoy the purr of his engine, but it wasn’t the same. Nothing was the same with Maddie hurt.
He’d never cared about a woman before in his life. Gripping the handlebars, he took off, heading toward the shelter. Pat kept up with him. Bull didn’t slow down once.
Bull hadn’t lived like a saint. Even when he would notice Maddie, and he’d been noticing her for a long time, close to ten years. When he first saw her, really saw her, he figured she’d stop by at the clubhouse at some point and he’d get the chance to know her then. It never happened. Maddie never came to the clubhouse.
There were a few occasions he saw her around town, but he often kept his distance. She’d been an enigma to him. Now, he couldn’t lose her. Not when he nearly had her.
Arriving at the animal shelter, he saw the gates had been closed.
Pat joined him seconds later. “We’ve changed the locks and the codes.” He stood in front of the gate and typed in the new code that would gain them access.
Bull wasn’t interested in all the small details of the moment. All he wanted to do was find out as much information as possible, so he could rescue the dogs for Maddie and get her to wake up from her fucking coma.
They went straight to the main reception where Hellen was working. She looked so frantic. Pat whispered to him about the dog she had tried to adopt that had also been taken.
Made sense. The woman was attached to that dog.
“How is she?” Hellen asked.
“She’s still in a coma.”
“I … I’m so sorry. Nothing like this has ever happened before. I didn’t know what to do,” Hellen said.
“You did the right thing.” She had called the ambulance and then alerted the club. That was all she could have done. “When you finish here, you can go and see her.” Bull didn’t like the idea of sharing Maddie with anyone.
“I can?” She smiled. “Thank you.”
Bull didn’t linger. He nodded at Pat to move on, tired of this already. All he wanted to do was handle business and get back to his woman.
Pat took him to the back room where there were two computer screens.
“Two screens?” he asked.
“With only eight security cameras throughout the whole of the building. Either it was done on purpose, and only as a light safety measure, or they figured they would never need to have tight security at an animal shelter.”
“What are your thoughts?” Bull asked.
With Pat’s years of service for his country, Bull trusted the man’s gut and his opinion. If he had doubts, he believed him.
“I think this is the case for both. I reckon George is a tight ass and didn’t want to spend the necessary cash on more cameras. I also think he saw a big pie, if you know what I mean. The dogs made good cash. We’re looking into George’s finances, and he was in debt up to his eyeballs.”
“Gambling?”
“Not even close. This place was draining him dry. It didn’t even start out as his either, which was new.”
“Inherited?”
“Yep. An elderly couple in their eighties originally set it up. It was a place for people who had made a bad decision when buying a dog. They would offer a home until they found a forever home for the pets. It was quite an extensive selection process. The couple knew what they were doing, and at the time, George was a young vet. He helped them a lot, and I’m guessing they figured he was a like-minded soul.”
“Only he was all about the money.”
“Every cent,” Pat said.
Bull folded his arms across his chest. He hadn’t looked deep enough into George and he wasn’t willing to make that mistake again. “Play the tapes.”
“You know none of this is your fault.”
