things, much of the skin on his arms had been scraped raw. “Weren’t you wearing your leathers?”
The man wheezed out a laugh. “In this heat?”
Ford didn’t bother to argue the point. They’d had this disagreement before. Being motorcycle enthusiasts as well as long-time Doms, they’d often debated safety standards. Ford never took the risk of a spill without wearing protective clothing. That was why he’d driven his SUV to the hospital. Leather in this heat would be stifling, but the risk of having an accident and ending in exactly the condition Gage was in wasn’t one he was willing to take. Gage had always felt different, and now he was paying the price. His recovery was going to be long and painful.
“You’re going to be fine,” he blurted out, because he wanted his friend to have the reassurance. Surely if his injuries had been worse, he’d be in ICU.
Gage rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know. The doctors say there’s nothing broken, but I ruptured my spleen, so I’m here for a few days while they keep an eye on it.” He grimaced. “Stupid fucker in a pick-up truck ran a stop sign. He walked away okay, last I saw.”
“How can I help you? Do you need me to go by your house and get a few things, or—”
“Forget my stuff.” Gage tried to grab Ford’s hand, but he couldn’t lift his arm. “I need you to go to my place and take care of my boy.”
An image popped into Ford’s head—one of a pretty boy with longish, wavy blond hair paired with unusually brown eyes. He was Gage’s new sub, for maybe a few months now—new to the scene, young and vulnerable-looking. Ford looked around the room as if the boy must be there. “You didn’t call him? He doesn’t know yet?”
The machine showing Gage’s heart rate spiked suddenly. “He doesn’t know because I can’t call him. I left him restrained in my home dungeon.”
“What?” Ford didn’t even try to modulate his voice. “You left him unattended? What the fuck were you thinking?”
Gage’s expression turned mulish. “I was only going for a quick trip to buy something for dinner. How was I supposed to know I’d get into an accident a few blocks from my house?”
Ford threw up his hands. “I don’t know, maybe because most accidents happen close to where the victim lives. Christ, Gage, you know how dangerous that is. You’ve been a Dom for years. You learned the rules from the same Dom I did. How long has he been alone?”
His friend flicked his gaze toward the clock on the wall. “About five hours, closer to six.”
“Holy fuck!”
“Do you still have the key I gave you?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Ford was already turning away from the bed, fishing his hand in his pocket to pull out his own keyring, where he kept Gage’s, as well as a couple of other friends’ and family members’ keys, as if that would shave a few seconds off his journey. He took a second at the door, though, to look back at his friend. “When this is over, I’m going to beat the shit out of you.”
“Fair enough,” his friend replied, but Ford barely heard because he was already out of the room.
He let the door close behind him, not even caring if it did or not. He raced past the nursing station, bolted for the stairs to save time and once he was out of the hospital, ran to his SUV. Now he was sweating buckets, although the heat was only partly to blame. All he could think of was that Gage’s boy had been confined for hours without being monitored. No matter how careful Gage had been in whatever restraints he’d used, there was always the possibility for something to go wrong. Not leaving a sub alone was a cardinal rule. His friend’s breaking of it had come as a complete surprise—except no, maybe not. Hadn’t Gage always pushed the envelope in all things, whether it was riding without proper gear or playing without a contract or rule-setting of any kind? Hadn’t they had plenty of arguments over the years about what and what not to do? This had been a problem hiding in plain sight. If Ford had only taken it more seriously… No, he wasn’t responsible for his friend’s actions, but he was the only one in a position to handle this shit-show now.
The real issue was whether to call the police or take of it himself. There was