by Evelyn Glass
“Roll him onto his side,” she ordered. “Do it!” she barked when nobody moved to comply. Beast rolled Grizzly to his side with a grunt and she drove the needle into ass and pushed the plunger down. Within minutes his seizures stopped, and a few minutes after that he began to come around.
“Somebody get me a Coke, fruit juice, something sweet,” she ordered, as Grizzly vomited onto the floor. She took the pop from the waitress and knelt in front of him. “Help him sit up,” she commanded, and Beast levered the man upright.
“Drink this,” she instructed, holding the straw to Grizzly’s lips. “You’re going to be okay, but you need to see a doctor right away.” She looked at the three Scarred. “Get him to the hospital. Tell them he was severely hypogl—never mind. Tell them he had an insulin overdose. Can you remember that? Insulin overdose.”
One of the men nodded. “Insulin overdose.”
“That’s right. He’s going to be weak, disoriented and have a splitting headache, but he’ll be okay.”
“You did that to him,” another of the Scarred accused.
“That’s right, I did,” Shayna said as she stood. “Never fuck with a doctor unless you want to end up like him.” She looked around the room. “Conor, get me the hell out of here,” she said as she marched out of the room.
The four members of the Reapers began to laugh. “You better do what she says before you end up like Grizzly,” Talley said.
“Go,” Hightower added. “We’ll deal with these arseholes.”
Beast grabbed the satchel of cash and followed Shayna out, catching her just as she burst through the doors to the outside. He took her arm and spun her around, dropping the cash and pulling her in tight.
She began to cry, her shoulders heaving as she sobbed. “I was so scared!”
“Shhh…” he murmured, stroking her hair as he held her. “It’s over now. You’re safe.”
She continued to cry for a moment longer, then stopped, holding him tight. “You came for me,” she finally said with a sniff.
He smiled but didn’t relax his embrace. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“I didn’t know. I was afraid you wouldn’t. You hardly know me.”
“I know enough to know that I want to know more.”
***
“Conor, this is Trevor Craggo. Remember me?”
“I do. What can I do for you?”
“I understand that there has been some excitement in Vegas since the tournament.”
“You might say that.”
“Is it true Shayna was kidnapped by the Scabs, that Neil Orson has been killed, and the entire Scabs gang has been wiped out?”
“It’s The Scarred, but other than that, yeah, true enough.”
“Is it also true you rescued Shayna?”
He smiled at Shayna across the table. “She didn’t need a lot of rescuing, but yeah, that’s true enough, too.”
“We’re still in post-production on the tournament, but if I send a camera crew out, will you and Shayna sit for another interview? I would like to cut that interview into the show.”
“Trevor, I would like to help you out, but to be honest, I’m really not interested.”
“I know you don’t need the money, but I’m prepared to offer fifty thousand for three hours of your and Shayna’s time. Please, Conor, it will make a great ending to the show. If nothing else, it will give you a chance to hype DR Security. That has to be worth something, right?”
“Hang on, Trevor,” Beast said then pulled the phone from his ear and covered the mic with his thumb. “This is Trevor Craggo. He’s heard about our little…escapade. He wants to interview us. He’s offering fifty thousand for three hours of our time.”
Shayna pushed her food around on her plate. It had been four weeks since The Scarred grabbed her outside Tops, and a day hadn’t past that she hadn’t thought about those eighteen hours. She was better, but anytime a strange man approached her, she still got nervous.
“I’m not sure I want to talk about it,” she finally said softly.
Beast brought the phone back to his ear. “I’m sorry, the answer’s no. Shayna’s been through enough.”
“Wait!” Trevor cried, sensing his opportunity slipping away. “Can you put me on speaker so she can hear me?”
Beast pressed the button. “She can hear you now.”
“I can understand you not wanting to relive that again, Shayna, but I’m doing the piece on what happened as the final show of the season with or without you. Having your interviews cut into the final show will make it that much more meaningful, what you two went through. I really want to get your story out there. I don’t go for that whole ambush journalism thing. I’m not going to do anything to make either of you uncomfortable. I just want you to sit in front of a camera and tell me your story. That’s all.”
“Why is this so important?” Shayna asked. “Your show is about cards. Nobody cares about what happened to us.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Shayna. The show isn’t about cards; it’s about real people risking it all. Nobody risked as much as you and Conor did. I think that’s what will make this such a powerful episode. People will think, ‘a hundred million dollar pot! They’ll never be able to top that!’ But we will. We’ll show them what high-stakes really mean, and suddenly that hundred million dollar pot won’t look so important anymore.”
Shayna thought about it a moment. “Conor and I, together, and we don’t have to talk about anything we don’t want to?”
“However you want to do it,” Trevor agreed.
“We get final say over how our interviews are used? If you cut it up in a way we don’t like, you’ll either change it or not use it?”
“Agreed. Shayna, I don’t want to make you and Conor look bad, okay? When this season comes out, people are going to fall in love with you and Conor both. I would have to be a complete idiot to do something that would make either of you look bad. In fact, I would like to get some more footage of you and Conor at the vet clinic. We had a hell of a time editing that piece because the editor kept having to stop because she was crying.”
She grinned at the thought of that. “Let us talk about it and get back to you.”
“Thank you, Shayna, Conor. If I can have your answer in the next two or three weeks, that will still give us plenty of time.”
“We’ll let you know,” Beast said then ended the call. “What do you think? He doesn’t know even half the shit that went down. You feel like being a superhero?”
She smiled, rather liking the sound of that.
It was the first smile she’d given him related to her kidnapping in the entire four weeks since it happened. It was no laughing matter for sure, but her refusal to talk to anyone about it, other than a little to him, worried him. She’d stopped crying and not wanting to be away from him after a few days, but he could tell she was still suffering from her experience, even though she tried to hide it from him.
He knew what it was like to keep something bottled up inside. Talking to her about his father and his death as he tried to draw her out had unburdened him in a way that talking to Hightower hadn’t. Maybe getting this out in the open and talking about it would help her heal, would allow him to help her heal.
He took her hand and held it, offering her silent support, willing to do whatever it took to help her put this behind her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“You want it?” Conor asked, holding the morsel out to the dog. “If you want it, you’re going to have to come get it.”
The dog whimpered, stretching for the treat, but was unwilling to come close enough to take it. Conor had been working with the dog off and on for the last couple of days, trying to lure it to him. The dog had been captured outside the Venetian by one of the employees and brought to the Lowerence clinic. She was emaciated and starving, and while she’d eat, she was terrified of people.
“Come on, buddy,” Conor urged. “You know you want it. You can have it. You just have to come g
et it.”
The woman operating the sound equipment pinched her lips to avoid making a sound as the dog crept forward, pulled back, then crept forward again. Every time Conor had a breakthrough with another dog, she wanted to start crying.
Conor ignored the camera and focused on the dog. “That’s it,” he urged. “Come and get it.”
She finally took the treat then immediately scampered to the back of her cage, chomping away.
Another treat appeared in Conor’s hand. “Look here. I have another one.”
The dog hesitated, then slowly crept forward to take the treat before once again retreating to the back of the cage. A third treat appeared. He said nothing, holding it at the edge of the cage door. As the dog took the treat, Conor scooped her up.
She squirmed madly, crying out her terror in loud pitiful sounding yelps as Conor held her and muttered to her softly. Slowly she relaxed, her yelps falling silent.
“There, see, I’m not such a bad guy,” he said to her.
He sat down in his rocking chair, holding the dog in his lap as he rocked, talking softly and slowly stroking her to calm her. At nearly forty pounds, she was a lap full, but he’d soothed bigger in this chair.
He rocked slowly, calming the dog, the act filling him with a deep peace. This was what he was called to do, and with over twenty million in the bank, he could afford to indulge in his whims.
The day after The Scarred had been wiped out, its members killed or in hiding, he’d called the entire club together and promoted Hightower to President of the club and DR Security, then announced his resignation from the leadership of both. The brothers and sisters had been shocked at the news, but over time they’d accepted that this is what he wanted. His new, unofficial, title was Special Advisor to the President, but it carried no voting rights and no authority, and that suited him just fine.
Over the next couple of months, he began spending more and more time at the clinic working with the dogs. He and the cats didn’t get on, but he had a special affinity with the dogs. He smiled as she strained up to lick him under his chin before settling back with a sigh. She was going to be okay.
Big Billy pulled the camera from his shoulder. No matter how much video he shot of Conor doing his thing, he still couldn’t believe it. This one had been a tough case and it had taken Conor two full days to break down the dog’s resistance. Now he’d sit with her for an hour or so, and he didn’t need to film that, and he wanted to check in on Shayna and Pete. Those two, when they were working together, were always good for material.
Shayna and Pete looked up as Big Billy and Lauren entered the surgical suite but kept their distance so to not interfere. After four months, the production crew and the staff were working together without getting into each other’s way.
“You may want to see this,” Shayna said.
Big Billy brought the camera to his shoulder and started capturing video as Lauren extended the boom on the mic to get it close enough for sound. The two doctors were behind a surgical veil so the camera couldn’t see any of the grisly stuff, but he knew from experience, if Pete or Shayna said he might want to see this, he’d be well advised to have the camera running.
“You got it?” Pete asked.
“Yeah. I need a little more retraction,” Shayna replied. “Suction,” she ordered one of the techs.
Big Billy grimaced, the sound making his stomach turn over, but ever the professional, the camera never wavered.
“There’s one,” Shayna said, holding a sock over the surgical screen for the camera to see before dropping it on a tray. “Oh, and another,” she said as she repeated the performance. “Let’s see, here’s number three. Oh look, number four.” Shayna continued until she’d pulled eleven socks from the Mastiff’s stomach.
“I don’t see anymore,” she said as she looked for more socks. She smiled behind her surgical mask. She’d been saving this one since it had come to her as she examined the x-ray. “It is socking what dogs will eat,” she said as she began to close, causing the entire surgical staff and camera crew alike to groan.
***
“Did you hear the news?” Shayna asked Big Billy as she stepped out of the surgical suite, pulling off her gown.
“No. What news?”
“Trevor called me a couple of hours ago. He wants another seventy-four episodes.”
“Already?” Big Billy asked in surprise as he followed Shayna to her office. Beauty and the Beasts hadn’t aired even the first of the twenty-six episodes Trevor had ordered. To be picked up so soon, and for so many episodes, must mean the internals on the show were off the charts.
“Yeah. He said Streaming America was buying out the show, whatever that means.”
“It means,” Big Billy said dramatically, pausing to lean against her door, “that we need to ask for a raise.” When Shayna looked at him, he chuckled. “You’ve heard of Streaming America and what they’re doing, right?”
“No.”
“Are you shitting me? They’re going up against the cable companies and networks. They’re producing their own content and streaming it over the internet. You buy a subscription for twenty bucks a month and for that you can watch all their shows whenever you want. If they’re buying out the show, that means Trevor won’t be able to syndicate it and shows will be shown exclusively on Streaming America.”
“Syndicate?” she asked.
“Don’t you ever watch television?” he teased. “Syndication is how all the shows not on during primetime get shown. All those talk and court shows, Gilligan’s Island reruns, that sort of thing. That’s was the original plan for Beauty and the Beasts, syndication.”
“And moving to Streaming America is a good thing?”
“It’s fantastic! I’ll bet you dinner in six months, there will be an order for another hundred episodes.”
Shayna grinned. At a hundred thousand dollars an episode, even after it was shared with everyone in the clinic, that still worked out to a nice chunk of change. “I hope you’re right. Today is your last day, right?”
“Yeah. Lauren and I will head back to LA tomorrow. We would be gone already, but Conor asked me to stick around.”
“Did he say why?”
“Nope. He said he had a surprise for me after you close today.”
Shayna frowned, wondering what that would be. With Conor, there was no telling. “When will you be back?”
“Now? I don’t know. A couple of months, maybe. I need to talk to Trevor and find out how he wants to do this. This is all new to me, too.”
“Billy!” Lauren called from down the hall. “Conor wants you.”
Big Billy grinned at Shayna. “Got to go. I’ll stop in and say bye before we leave.”
Shayna leaned back in her chair with a contented sigh. This was Pete’s weekend to work, she had no more appointments for the rest of the day, so in a half-hour her week was going to be over and she was looking forward to the couple of days off.
She shook her head, unable to believe how much her life had changed. She’d graduated school just over a year ago and in the past year, Pete had taken her under his wing. That was when she learned just how much she didn’t know. He was a kind and giving man, unstingy with his knowledge and wisdom, and she’d learned so much in the last year it was amazing.
She hadn’t mentioned taking over the clinic, but Pete was beginning to ease himself out, working only four days a week, and talking about cutting back to three sometime in the next couple of months. She was going to have to figure out a way to get him to stick around because he was as much a part of the show as she was, plus she was still learning from him and genuinely enjoyed working with him.
It’s funny how her life had taken a completely different path than she’d planned. She was still a vet, but she’d met Conor, and because of that, had become a minor celebrity after the tournament had aired. After the final episode was broadcast, where they’d talked about their experiences after the tournament, she and Conor had fielded all kinds of of
fers but had turned them all down, until Trevor had approached her about making Beauty and the Beasts. She sighed and closed her eyes as she swiveled slowly back and forth.
She’d agreed to do the show on the condition that it was totally unscripted. Trevor could make his show, but he had to film what happened without all the artificial drama. It had taken a little convincing to get Pete on board, but now he seemed to enjoy playing the role of the wise, grandfatherly, vet.
But as good as her professional life was, her personal life was even better. She’d moved into an apartment the weekend before she started working at the clinic, but six months after that, she’d moved again, this time into Conor’s house. They’d talked about it and agreed it was silly for her to pay rent on a place she hardly ever stayed. She’d worried what her parents would think, her smiled widening at the memory. After her ordeal, when they’d discovered what he’d done to save her, again, he could do no wrong in their eyes and they’d welcomed him into their family like a son. Over a Sunday dinner, when she nervously mentioned the possibility of them moving in together, rather than react with disappointment or distress, they’d smiled in amusement, surprised it had taken them that long.
