It takes me two tries to speak. “She was going to shoot you.”
“And now she shot you.” His face spasms as if he’s holding back too many emotions. “I’m laying you down. Do not pass out. Do you hear me, Eli? If you fucking die on me, I will march down to the doors of hell and fight the devil himself to get you back.” He eases me to the ground on my stomach.
This is nice. The world spins a little less now that I have my cheek against the concrete. I laugh a little, but it hurts, so I stop. “Harlow would kill us both.”
“Yeah, she would. So don’t die and get us in trouble.”
I open my mouth to tell him that I won’t, but darkness takes me before the words can leave my lips.
32
Abel
They say you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. I kneel in a pool of Eli’s blood and feel him slump into unconsciousness. Two things become terrifyingly clear in that moment.
The fool really does love me, or he wouldn’t have jumped in front of a bullet with my name on it.
If I don’t do something, and fast, he will die.
The world around me snaps back into motion. I register my youngest brother, Gabriel, and relief almost makes me weak. If he’s here, we have a chance. I yank my shirt off and shove it against the bleeding wound in Eli’s back. The woman who shot him lies in the street a few feet away, her eyes gazing sightlessly at the sky. Cohen doesn’t miss.
I put pressure on Eli’s wound and look at Cohen. “Find the rest of them and kill them. Gabriel will handle this, and I’ll watch his back. Hurry, before they scatter.”
For once, he doesn’t argue with me. He simply motions at Iris and Maddox, and they take off, following the trio of men who appeared with the woman. They won’t be the only ones, not if Cohen’s estimates are correct, but we’ll flush out the rest later.
Gabriel reaches us and drops to his knees. He peels the bloody shirt away from Eli’s back and then presses it into place and gives me a long look. “What do you want to happen?”
My brothers are loyal to the bitter end. This would be a clean way to get rid of Eli. No one can say that we were behind this, not when his own people shot him in front of witnesses. The thought of him dying leaves me so fucking cold, I have to focus hard on not shaking. “Save him, Gabriel.”
He nods slowly. “I’ll try, but you’re asking the impossible. The bullet is lodged inside him. I don’t think it hit an artery based on the fact he’s still alive, but that just means it will take him a few minutes longer to bleed to death. If we try to put him in a truck and drive him back to the compound, you might do more damage.” He pauses.
“Tell me the rest.” My voice hardly sounds like me. It’s almost as if the words come through a long tunnel that’s closing in around us.
“I’m not a surgeon, Abel. I can do simple bullet wounds, but I’m liable to do more damage than the bullet did if I start digging around in him.” Another pause. “I’m sorry.”
Gabriel, because he’s Gabriel, even sounds it.
“I can help.”
I look to find a petite Vietnamese woman standing before us, two of Chinh’s sons at her back. It takes my brain several long seconds to kick into gear and identify her. Cam, the only daughter of Chinh’s only daughter, Tien. Cam doesn’t work for the family business, so my information on her is less complete than on the others in the family. She’s a… “Surgeon.”
“Yes.” She nods, all business. “I can try to save this man.” She gives me a hard look. “In exchange, you’ll owe my grandfather a boon.”
I almost laugh. Of course Chinh would have me bargaining while the man I love is dying beside me. I clear my throat, trying to think, but it’s no use. All I can focus on is the stickiness of the street beneath my knees and Eli’s increasingly faint breathing. There’s no time for bargaining. Chinh could ask for the sun, and I’d do my damnedest to find a fucking rocket ship and go lasso the fiery bastard. “Done.”
She looks over her shoulder at her uncles. “The stretcher.”
Things happen quickly after that. They produce a stretcher from somewhere and load Eli onto it as carefully as if he were made of spun glass. Cam directs them to take him to the main building where the Phan family resides and then turns to me. “You’ll wait here.”
“The hell I will.”
“You’ll wait here,” she repeats slowly, as if I didn’t hear her the first time. “I will need to focus if he has a chance of surviving, and you pacing and glowering will distract me. Sit with your brother, and wait.” Apparently she doesn’t need a response because she disappears after her uncles.