Blacklisted (Loveless, Texas #3) - Jay Crownover Page 0,1
even though I told myself over and over again I didn’t owe her anything. She was the one trying to force a relationship even after I made it clear I wanted to be left alone. The argument sounded petty and weak as my mind went to battle with my conflicted heart.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake loose the panic in Kody’s words. She might be the toughest of the three Lawton siblings, so if she sounded scared, something was really, really wrong. It took five minutes for me to change my mind. It took ten minutes for me to get my on-hand medical gear together and another five to convince my feet to take me out of the front door. I almost turned around twenty times on the way to her bar, but the nagging voice in the back of my head wouldn’t let me run away. When push came to shove, I couldn’t ignore that I really did owe the Lawtons a lot, regardless of trying to convince myself otherwise. And I knew that given enough time I could grow to love them like they were my own. For someone who’d never had anyone, being part of such a tight-knit, loyal family was too appealing to turn away from.
Kody’s big, bearded bouncer was waiting for me outside and whisked me safely into the chaotic scene inside the bar. It was well past business hours, but the bar was packed. I tried to appear outwardly calm as I took in the battered and bloody bikers all hovering over a single, downed body on the floor. Kody caught sight of me and rushed over to where I was standing. She went to reach for me, but hurriedly pulled back when she noticed her hands and the front of her clothes were soaked through with blood. Eyes, the exact same green as mine, widened, and I could see the stark panic clear on every line of her pretty, freckled face.
Before she could thank me for coming or launch into an explanation of how she came to have the entirety of the Sons of Sorrow motorcycle club bleeding in her bar after hours, my medical training kicked in and I found myself pushing past her to tend to the injured man on the floor.
I’d seen many a bullet wound in my time working at the medical examiner’s office, but I’d never seen one, well more than one at the moment, that was fresh and still seeping blood. I had a moment of indecision, wondering if I could actually help this man. I had purposely picked a medical field where I didn’t have to deal with living and breathing patients. The risk was too high, and the responsibility for their well-being felt suffocating. All of that pressure I had purposely avoided now pushed down on me. I felt all eyes in the room look toward me as I started to assess the damage to the dark-haired man on the floor.
He was losing too much blood. I immediately knew he was going to need a transfusion. He wasn’t stable enough to stay where he was, but when I told Kody to call an ambulance I was instantly, and loudly, overruled by the rest of the bikers. The wounded man was the club’s president, and they insisted I just needed to keep his vitals strong enough to be moved somewhere else safely. They didn’t go into detail, but apparently they had facilities and someone who could take care of him. For whatever reason, they didn’t want the bullet wounds reported as would be mandatory if he went to the ER, thus getting the police involved in their business. None of it sounded on the up-and-up, but I had my hands full keeping the man from bleeding out, so I decided not to waste precious time arguing with them.
One biker showed up out of nowhere with a medical-grade bag of donated blood for an on-the-spot transfusion, and again I decided not to ask too many questions. The big, bleeding man also had a collapsed lung and his chest cavity was filling with air, making a dangerous situation even more complicated. It had been years since I’d inserted a chest tube, so there was no stopping the shaking of my hands or the nervous sweating. Kody was right next to me, offering silent encouragement, but I could tell how worried she was.
In all honesty, I was shocked by how well the biker was holding up.