Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 40362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 202(@200wpm)___ 161(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 202(@200wpm)___ 161(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
“Whiler?” I asked, confusion coating my voice.
“Reina, I’ve got some bad news.” I could hear Ink barking orders in the background. My gut clenched painfully. If someone was calling me, it was because Sam gave the orders. And he would only give an order like that if something had happened to him. “Sam got shot.” I tightened my hand around the phone. This couldn’t be real. “It’s bad. He’s passed out. Too much blood loss. We’re getting him to the hospital now, but he asked us to call you. I’m guessing he didn’t want you finding out from River.”
If he asked for someone to call me, he didn’t think he was going to make it.
“No.” My voice trembled. My hands shook. Adelaide was already rushing across the room to me when the phone fell from my hands. Tears streaked down my cheeks. “No!” I screamed, pulling at my hair.
Not Sam. God, not Sam. We had a fight. We couldn’t end like this.
Suddenly, I didn’t care if he didn’t want to only be with me. None of that mattered anymore. I’d take him however he decided to give himself to me. I just wanted him alive.
“Come on,” Adelaide said, grabbing my wrist in her hand. “We’re getting you to the hospital.”
“Sam—” I choked out.
“He’s going to be fine,” River told me, walking up to us. “Got a gut feeling. He’s going to survive, Reina. Breathe.”
I sobbed. I didn’t feel like I could breathe. I barely felt like I could stand on my own two feet, but somehow, I managed to make it outside. River had an arm tight around my shoulders to hold me up, barking out orders as they led me towards Adelaide’s vehicle. He released me once we made it to the car, and Adelaide shoved me into the passenger seat of her SUV before nodding once at River. He pressed a hard kiss to her lips, and it only made me cry harder.
Sam and I had been fighting the last time I’d talked to him. And now, he might be dead. I might never get another kiss from him again, and that shitty ass reality fucking began to tear at my goddamn soul.
River got in on the driver’s side and spun wheels on the gravel lot as he headed towards the open gates.
“He can’t leave me,” I cried.
“And he’s not going to,” River assured me. “That bastard isn’t leaving you, especially with you two arguing. He doesn’t leave shit unfinished.”
When we got to the hospital, Tank, Ink, and Whiler were waiting on us in the waiting room. Tank wrapped me in his burly arms. He got his name because he was huge as fuck, but he was really just a big, soft teddy bear. I’d never met another man who was so kind to everyone. But if you fucked with his family, you unleashed a beast. And this club—we were his family.
“He’s going to be okay. Docs are optimistic,” Ink told River as I sobbed against Tank’s chest. He rubbed my back with his massive hands. “He’s in surgery at the moment.”
Tank led me over to a chair and sat down beside me, his arm wrapped around my shoulders. I continued to quietly cry, my eyes following every doctor and nurse that I could see moving through the back of the hospital. I felt like I was sitting on pins and needles as I waited for some kind of news. Doctors could be optimistic all they wanted, but anything could go wrong during surgery. And I was terrified of the things that could go wrong.
Hours passed, and none of us heard anything. No one even breathed a word in our direction about how Sam was doing. Every once in a while, one of the guys would try to get me to eat something, but holding down food wasn’t going to happen—not anytime soon. I would just throw it right back up. I was too twisted up inside, and my stomach resembled how my mind and soul felt. And God, don’t even get me started on my heart.
All I wanted was to find out if Sam was okay. I wanted to hold his warm hand in mine. I wanted to listen to his breathing and feel the steady beat of his heart.
I couldn’t bear to let him go.
Please pull through, I begged. Don’t leave me.
If Sam left me, that would be it. I would be done—destroyed. He’d saved me on some of my darkest days, even if he didn’t know it, and I wasn’t sure how I would keep going if I couldn’t at least see him every single day.
I need you, I pleaded. Please don’t make me try to figure out life without you.
3
Reina
Some things in life, you never expect. You just don’t think they would happen, especially in the places they do happen.