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Metal groaned and screamed in protest as they worked to pull Bax free Ipulled back It felt like it had taken a lifetione by, when the car door suddenly popped open and Bax’s big body slumped out He looked worse not surrounded by the protective shell of the ’Cuda I could see one of his legs was really , but slowly and laboriously I rubbed my hands over my face and tried not to lose it I didn’t even care that I was s blood all over myself from my torn hands

“I need to call his girlfriend”

Dovie was going to freak out Rightfully so With all the dangerous and dirty stuff Baxto have hi on it and couldn’t see around it I fu hi aile or so helpless That included when he was just a little kid and I had to explain to hi him to fend for himself because there was no other way He looked broken and it wasinside of , to seek soeful type I put too ht now all I wanted was revenge I wanted to bury Roark in a casket of metal and pain just like he had done to Bax

“His pulse is thready, and he’s losing a lot of blood We’re taking him to City General Ti for us”

Ti at all and there was no color to him other than the black of his star and the red that was covering his face and soaking into his T-shirt He looked like a corpse

“You want to ride with us, Detective?”

No No I didn’t want to cliht to keep o nuclear and that wouldn’t help anyone My rage andto help, and I didn’t want that I worked hard to keep the beast in the cage; letting hiood Reeve had woken thatharder and harder to do

“No I need to call his girlfriend and I need to see if anyone has any info on where the driver of the garbage truck went I’ll be right behind you”

The paramedic looked at Bax as they loaded him into the transport vehicle and then back at iven family meoing to make it and he didn’t want ht have with him

“Just go” I gritted out the words between my teeth and took a step back I pulled my phone out of my pocket and took a deep breath before I dialed Dovie’s number She answered in her usually cheery way and I literally heard her heart break when I told her as going on In typical Dovie fashion, she didn’t shriek or shout; she just started breathing heavily and asking , so I told her I wouldup and called Race I told hiet her She needed to be ready for the worst and there was no way I wanted her driving herself Race handled the news in ave him the limited aet her and that he would see me at the hospital

When I got off the phone one of the patrol guys that I had been talking to before the accident appeared at my side

“The real driver stopped for gas a few blocks over He went in for gas and caone”

“How in the fuck did he knohere Bax was going to be?” I uys from my precinct started to set up to do their standard accident investigation

One thing was clear No one that had been involved in bringing Novak doas safe Even the baddest of badasses like Shane Baxter could be blindsided, and no one was invincible A son’s thirst for vengeance over the perceived wrongs that had befallen his father was a powerful motivator Roark had hit Race and Nassir where it hurt both financially and emotionally, but BaxBax he wanted taken out It was one brother trying to eli me knoanted to paint the streets red with everyone he held responsible for his loss

Chapter 9

Reeve

I HADN’T SEEN TITUS in days I wanted to go to the hospital but Booker wouldn’t let h I desperately wanted to be there for him, he didn’t need me there Bax was in bad shape He hadn’t woken up yet and he had been rushed in for eery on two separate occasions since they rolled hih the second one, and from what I heard no one was sure when he would wake upor if he would He also had a shattered ankle, a broken wrist, broken ribs on both sides, a dislocated shoulder, and a broken jaw The ER doctors had scrambled to cut him open and operate on his punctured liver before he bled to death So even when he did wake up he wasn’t out of the woods, but considering he got run over by a twenty-ton truck and was still breathing, everyone was counting it as a win

Most of h Brysen’s little sister, who see roo most of their free time at the hospital these days It didn’t escapeblonde appeared to be working on her ho around on the Internet, she was actually watching every move Booker made like a tiny and ferocious hawk She definitely didn’t like the easy ca and scarred man Every time I made hiave me a look like I had kicked her puppy I wanted to tell her she was too young and too pretty to waste her heart on the kind of ured it wasn’t my place and lessons like those had to be learned the hard way All the important ones did

It was Friday night and I had sent yet another unanswered text to Titus asking hi I wasn’t surprised when silence hat greeted ured out how to turn that off yet I was rilled cheese to feed Booker and Karsen since ere all apparently going to be stuck together for another night when I decided enough time had passed that I could ask the darkly handsootten saddled with keeping an eye onso away fro I needed was for her to overhear olden Adonis would stopelse over a out between me and Conner