Rome

by Jay Crownover

  “We got him, honey.”

  I shot my gaze to hers. “He has to be okay.”

  “We’ll do everything in our power to make that possible. The blond hottie said you’re pregnant and that you might be hurt. We need you to get checked out.”

  I shook my head vehemently. “No. Just worry about him.”

  The medic opened her mouth to argue, when there was suddenly a gasp and Rome’s bright blue eyes shot open only to flutter immediately closed again.

  “Cora …” My name was just a whisper of sound, but it was enough to have me screaming his name again and to have everyone moving twice as fast as they had before. The paramedics had him on a stretcher and in the back of the ambulance in no time flat.

  They didn’t say a word when I scrambled in after them. I wasn’t going to let him out of my sight until I knew for sure he was going to be okay. There was just so much blood and it wouldn’t stop flowing out of the holes that decorated his entire right side.

  The female paramedic was all business as she went about hooking an IV into him and started to cut his clothes off so that she could work on getting all that blood to stop pouring out of him. She kept talking to him, telling him over and over that he had to fight, that he couldn’t leave me and the baby. She was rattling off info about the shooter and the bikers, but all of it was a dull buzz. I just wanted him to open his eyes and look at me. She told me to hold his hand, to let him know I was there. Once again the thing I was best at, talking, using words, had fled. All I could do was stare at him and cry. He was my entire world, he was everything I ever wanted, and it was going to turn my heart to stone if I didn’t get the opportunity to tell him that.

  Suddenly the paramedic swore and started moving around frantically. Her sharp tone cut through my haze of despair. She told me I had better convince Rome to stay with us because my stubborn soldier wasn’t listening to her. I squeezed his hand, leaned over him and kissed that scar on his forehead. I told him everything, begged him to open his eyes. I told him that he had done his job and fought for me and the baby; now it was time to fight for himself. I would pull him back from the brink of death over and over again if that was what it took to keep him with me. I didn’t think it was doing any good, but when the ambulance rolled to a stop outside the hospital, I saw his eyes flutter open again. He didn’t look good and it didn’t take a medical professional to see that he had lost way too much blood, but those eyes were bright and looking right at me, so I made sure that if it was the last time he saw me, the last thing I ever got to say to him, I would make it matter. There was no way Rome Archer was going to fade away again without me telling him I loved him and needed him.

  CHAPTER 18

  Rome

  “There’s those pretty baby blues. Keep fighting, big man, we’re almost to the hospital.”

  I didn’t recognize the voice or the girl who spoke them. She was hovering over my head and I was having a hard time tracking her. I hurt all over and I couldn’t breathe. I was trying to suck air in and out but it didn’t seem to be working. I vaguely heard the sirens overhead blaring and the radio in the ambulance squawking. I couldn’t feel anything other than the hot blaze of pain from the top of my head to wherever my toes were.

  “You have some pretty powerful friends. The guy that pulled the trigger already got picked up. I guess he was so scared of what the Sons of Sorrow would do when they found out he shot you, he took his happy ass to the station and turned himself in. Idiot. I guess he doesn’t know how many Sons are doing time.”

  She prattled on and on while moving all around me. I didn’t care about the guy that shot me, I cared about Cora. I didn’t know if one of the bullets had gone through me and hit her, didn’t know how hard I had taken her to the ground, didn’t know if the baby was okay … The thoughts ran around and around and I couldn’t hold on to any of it anymore. The pain was too much. I couldn’t get any air and I was tired. So tired, and I felt some of the fire licking across my skin start to dull.

  “Hey now, soldier, none of that.” The girl’s voice rose and slapped across me. I thought I heard another sound, a whimper or something that sounded like a wounded animal, but I couldn’t turn my head or even move my eyes to track the noise. They wouldn’t even open when I commanded them to. Something clamped on my hands and squeezed. I was surprised I could feel it amid the living fire that was scorching me up from the inside out.

  “You didn’t make it all the way home to have some punk take you out. You need to fight. You got too much riding on coming out of this battle a winner. Fight.”

  This chick was good at her job. Had I not been on the brink of death, I would have admired her a lot more. I didn’t know how she knew what I had to lose—my girl, my baby, a future and a family that I was finally, at the worst possible time, starting to understand that I deserved. It was all beyond worth fighting for, but I was so tired and I needed air. It was so much easier to just close my eyes and let the pain and fire take me.

  “Shit, he’s crashing.” The stranger’s voice rose and everything around me started to fade away once again. I could hear Remy screaming at me to stop being an idiot, could hear my heart starting to slow down, and felt the pain start to drag me under and the fire shift from hot to freezing cold. “Honey, you better convince your man to stay with us, because he isn’t listening to me.”

  Something jabbed into my side and into my arm and the stranger’s voice vanished to be replaced with the one I think I had been searching for all along.

  “Rome.” She sounded like she was crying but I couldn’t pry my eyes open to look at her. “Come on, Captain No-Fun, I need you to look at me.” She sounded so sad, so scared, and it pissed me off there was nothing I could do to make her feel any better. I wanted to look at her, but it was hard. My eyes were so heavy. I felt soft hands stroke along my jaw, across my forehead and trace the scar that was there. “I can’t tell you thank you for saving my life while you aren’t looking at me, big guy. You saved us, me and the baby. Now I need you to save yourself. Come on, Rome, you can’t leave us now. You need to wake up so I can tell you how much I love you.”

  I never wanted to leave her, not even when I was mad at her and acting like an idiot. I wanted to apologize for flying off the handle like a hothead, wanted to make sure that if I didn’t make it, my last words to her were words of love, words that expressed how important she had been in bringing me back to myself. I wanted her to know that I thought she was as close to perfect as I was ever going to get. I just couldn’t do it. My eyes wouldn’t open. My limbs wouldn’t work and I still needed air and felt like I was in a vacuum where there was none.

  Something wet and warm slid across my face. I thought it was just more blood, but then it dripped more, slow and steady, and I heard Cora’s soft sob. I didn’t want her to be sad about anything. I wanted her to be happy and safe, to know that I loved her. It took every ounce of strength I had left, every morsel of fight I possessed, to pry my eyes open to look at her, and when I did the pain slammed back into me full force, enough to make me gasp and to have moisture flooding my eyes. I had never felt anything like this. I was turned inside out and losing my grasp on reality fast. I was sinking in pain and suffocating on lack of air.

  Her eyes were liquid blue and brown. She was crying and her blond hair was stained pink with what had to be my blood. She was pale as a ghost and her hands were shaking where she was touching my face. Our gazes locked and her mouth broke into a trembling grin.

  “Please be okay. You have to be okay. I love you so much, Rome.” She was pleading with me but there was nothing I could do to reassure her.

  The movement of the ambulance stopped and the strange voice was back.

  “We’re here. We gotta get him into surgery.”

  I wanted to scream when Cora’s unusual eyes were replaced with the stranger’s. I was moving but I wanted my girl. The sky flashed overhead for a brief second and then all I could see was white ceiling tiles and industrial lights, what I didn’
t see anymore was Cora and she was all I wanted.

  “I thought I told you to stop messing around with angry bikers.” The pretty nurse with the gray eyes was now hovering over my bedside. She was more familiar but she still wasn’t who I wanted. “They’re ready for him in the OR; just take him back. We need to prep and get him under like yesterday.”

  I wanted to scream that I needed my girl, that she had to know I was going to be okay, but I was poked and prodded some more and then there was no more fire, no more ice, there was just darkness, and I was gone.

  “Rome Archer, if you don’t wake up right this second so I can tell you that I love you, I swear I’m going to name this baby something ridiculous like Daffodil or Rover and I’m going to let your brother be in charge of haircuts until he or she is old enough to complain.”

  I could breathe again. It hurt, I mean really, really hurt, but my lungs seemed to be inflating and deflating on their own. I cracked an eye open and immediately wished I hadn’t because the light behind Cora’s head made me nauseous. I tried to say something back to her but there was something shoved in my mouth, so all I could do was look up at her and blink. She was really just a colorful blur against a bunch of stuff shifting in and out of focus.

  She was still crying, or maybe crying again, but I was pretty sure she had told me that she loved me, so it didn’t matter. I felt her hand on mine and then the redheaded nurse was next to her checking out the machine that was beeping somewhere over my head.

  “There he is. You have more lives than a cat, Mr. Archer. You sure are one lucky guy. Not a lot of people could lose that much blood and still be with us. I told your girlfriend to go buy as many lottery tickets as she could.”

  I sure was lucky, but it didn’t have anything to do with getting shot and surviving. It had everything to do with the woman holding on to my hand and looking at me like I was some kind of miracle. The nurse turned to Cora and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Honey, he’s awake. You need to go take care of yourself and that baby. This is a huge hurdle crossed. We can’t take him off the ventilator until we know that lung is stable, so he won’t be able to talk to you for a while still. Go home. Take a nap. He’s in good hands. Plus there is a waiting room full of people out there waiting to see him. He won’t be alone. I promise you.”

  I saw Cora blink. She looked awful … well, she looked wonderful and she had said she loved me. Even if it was just the painkillers I was sure they were pumping into me that made me think she said it, it was good enough. She smiled at the pretty nurse and bent over to kiss my temple.

  “But he’s mine.” Her voice broke and I managed just barely to move my fingers under her death grip.

  The nurse offered up a very kind smile. She really was a stunningly pretty girl and her genuine kindness just seemed to pour out of those soft gray eyes. When Cora mumbled her name in aggravation, I thought that Saint really was a fitting name for her. She seemed blessed with infinite patience.

  “I know, sweetheart, but you aren’t doing him or your baby any favors by not taking care of yourself. It’s been a couple days, hon. This is all good news, trust me. He didn’t save your life just to have you pass out on us and end up in a bed next to his. Trust me. It’s not every woman who can actually say her man took a bullet for her.” There was a strain of envy in the nurse’s tone. “You’re just as lucky as he is. Now go take a breather. I got your fella.”

  I couldn’t agree or disagree, but then Cora was hanging over my face and all I could see was her different-colored eyes. The turquoise one was glowing so bright I could see her heart in it, the brown one was all velvety and warm and I could see my future plain as day. She leaned over and kissed me on the plastic machine helping me breathe in and out. I think that made me jealous of some kind of medical machinery. She brushed a thumb over my eyebrow and smiled at me. Remy was right: actions were important. I needed to pay closer attention.

  “I was so mad that you kept getting the last word in every argument we seem to have, but this—good Lord, Rome, this is an extreme way to win a fight.” I would have laughed if I was capable of it. “I love you. I need you to know that. Please know that. What I said to Jimmy … it was stupid and thoughtless. I was acting as dumb as he was. I’ve loved you from the beginning; I was just too cowardly to admit it. You’re my family, my everything, Rome, you have to know that.”

  Her voice dropped an octave and tears flooded her eyes again. All I could do was blink up at her. I knew it before she said it. I was just being a typical stubborn and blind guy. She kissed me on the forehead again and disappeared after telling me she would be back as soon as she could. She must have been exhausted because my girl didn’t acquiesce that easily.

  The nurse was back. She was taking my vitals and writing things down in my chart. She looked down at me and smiled.

  “That is one fireball of a girlfriend you got there. The OR team was drawing straws to see who would go out and update her and your family. I think she actually had them scared.”

  Sounded like my girl.

  “One bullet in the neck that magically misses your carotid artery, another one that shattered a rib and deflated your lung, and lastly one that lodged in your thigh just millimeters from your femoral artery … you look like Swiss cheese, but you are so incredibly fortunate to be alive.”

  She put the chart down on the end of the bed and crossed her arms over her chest. She lifted a russet-colored brow at me.

  “When you make it through something like this, you can’t squander the second chance away. I hope you know that. If you’re up to it, I’ll send the rest of your fan club in one at a time.”

  I wasn’t up to it and didn’t make it past my mom and dad coming in and alternately crying and swearing at me for five minutes. My eyes were too heavy and there was too much blood loss and pain meds in my system for me to power through, and I was once again dragged into oblivion. The next time I managed to pry my eyelids open, it had to be late into the next night. The lights were off and the only sound I heard was the steady beep, beep of the machines checking my heart rate. The ventilator was gone, but I still had tubes sticking all over the place and moving any part of my body besides my eyes wasn’t something I was excited about.

  “’Bout time you woke up, asshole. I’ve been waiting for a week to tell you how fucking pissed I am at you.”

  Rule did indeed sound seriously pissed, but he also sounded hoarse and all kinds of torn up. I wasn’t sure why he was in the room when it was so late, but my brother had never been one to let other people’s rules dictate his actions.

  “I understand why you did it, Rome. I get that you couldn’t let anything bad happen to Cora or to the baby, but for the love of God, did you stop and think what would happen to me if I had to bury another brother?” His voice cracked and I wanted more than anything to tell him I was sorry, to offer him some kind of comfort, but all I could do was blink rapidly at him. “I swear, when you are back on your feet I’m kicking your ass and you’re going to let me.”

  I would have laughed if I didn’t think it would turn me inside out.

  “It took both Shaw and Ayden to get Cora to go to the house and clean up. You should have seen her. She had more of your blood on her than you had in you. She had everyone worried she was going to run herself into the ground. None of the nurses would come anywhere near her, and if you had died—” He had to clear his throat. “If you hadn’t made it, Rome, I don’t know that she would’ve either; she was a mess. She was forcing her will for you to pull through so hard I think we all knew there was no way you wouldn’t make it. It’s a good thing you’re a fighter, brother. I wouldn’t want a pissed-off, pregnant girlfriend haunting me for all of eternity.”

  That was all nice to hear but none of it touched the fact that she loved me. Rule got up and hovered over the edge of the bed. Those pale eyes were rimmed in red and he had more than a couple days’ growth of stubble covering his jaw. He looked awful. I wanted to tell him I saw Remy, that I
understood it all now, but I still couldn’t make my mouth and tongue work. He nodded a little and rapped the knuckles that had his name inked on them against mine.

  “Thank you for not dying, big brother.”

  It was entirely my pleasure but he was going to have to wait until I had a little bit more get-up-and-go to tell him that.

  He talked to me for another hour even though I couldn’t respond to him. He told me that Brite had showed up as soon as they rushed me into surgery. Apparently Cora had lit into him the second she saw him. My girl was mad that the shooter was in the safe arms of the law. The bloodthirsty little minx was all for brutal biker payback, but Brite had talked her down. He had also pulled Rule aside and assured him that, prison or no prison, the little punk would get his due. Torch and the boys would make sure of it. Rule was pissed enough and just unhinged enough to approve of this eye-for-an-eye method of payback, I was just glad the threat was gone. I didn’t mind taking a bullet for my girl, but if I had nine lives, I was down to the last one after this stunt.

  He told me that Shaw had been working night and day to keep my mom from going off the deep end. Me getting shot had almost undone all the good that had happened with her since she started therapy. All the guys were taking turns keeping an eye on me, or rather keeping an eye on Cora so she didn’t overdo it. She didn’t want to go home, but they were making her now that I was out of the woods for sure. He told me that she had yanked Nash’s nose ring, pulled Rowdy’s hair and socked him in the gut, when they tried to make her leave before she was ready. It was funny, but it also made me happy to hear.

  He talked to me until I fell back asleep, and when I woke back up, a doctor was buzzing around me asking me a million questions that I could only slightly shake my head or tilt my chin down to agree or disagree with. The consensus was that I was the luckiest bastard in the world and it was a miracle of fate that I was still here. The pretty nurse popped back in a couple of times and I was poked and prodded more than I ever wanted to be again in my life when Cora appeared like a punk-rock angel. I wanted to talk to her, but every time I tried, I broke off into a fit of coughing that made my injured lung feel like it was full of razor blades and barbed wire. I couldn’t even tell her that I would take a million bullets for her if it made her look at me the way she was looking at me now. She fed me slivers of ice and kept touching any part of me she could reach over the rails of the bed. It made me feel better than whatever the redhead was putting in my IV bag. I had a lot I wanted to say, but in the interim I just kept writing down that I was okay, that we were okay, on the tablet of paper we had resorted to for short conversations.