be looked at in the hospital.
As he watched, Elliot broke away from the officers, leaving Clay to talk to them. He didn’t look much different than usual, though his shirt was torn, and there was a black smudge on his forehead. Clay had somehow got through the whole ordeal with little more than his hair being messed up. Tyler wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but he knew there was a dead man in their hallway and that it had been Clay’s handiwork.
Somehow, he wasn’t all that surprised.
“How’s he doing?” Elliot asked, glancing at the ambulance.
“Stubborn, but alive,” Tyler grunted.
Nate’s clearly annoyed voice shot out from the ambulance. “You have no room to talk, Tyler! You could have them looking at you right now, and I could be on my way to a nice comfortable hospital bed, but no, you have to be stubborn.”
Tyler winced. “Gunshot wounds do not add anything to his personality.”
“Mm,” Elliot hummed thoughtfully. “Having been shot a few times myself, I can say that it does make someone pretty cranky.”
“How’s everything going over there?” Tyler asked, nodding toward Clay.
Elliot frowned. “I’m more or less covered. Since, you know, I exist. And have licenses for everything I own.”
Tyler raised a brow. “You exist?”
Elliot chuckled. “Things with Clay are...well, they’re weird, and they’re always going to be that way. So, surprise, as far as the government is concerned, he doesn’t exist.”
Tyler blinked. “What the fuck did he do before?”
“None of your business, or anyone else’s for that matter,” Elliot said, voice uncharacteristically hard.
Tyler cleared his throat. “But he’ll be okay?”
“He still has...contacts from before. I’m sure he can keep things smooth, at least that’s what he insists. The world could go up in flames and he would say everything is going to be alright,” Elliot muttered.
“But what do you think?” Tyler asked.
Elliot shot him a smile. “I think we’ll be just fine. This isn’t our first rodeo, you know, we have our ways. I trust him. Have for quite a while.”
“Good. Any word on what this was about?” Tyler asked.
Elliot snorted. “Politics. Which is normal. Seems this little group had been hired to kidnap Nate and try to get his father to step down. If they couldn’t get him to bow out of the race, then they would have blackmailed him into doing a few things for them. They’re uh, pretty pissed that we got in the way.”
“Well, except for Mustache,” Tyler said, remembering the man’s dead stare from the hallway floor.
“That what you called him?” Elliot asked shrugging. “According to Clay, he was getting ready to shoot you in the back. If you ask me, a knife in the side is the best he could have hoped for.”
And not for the first time in his life, Tyler had to face the realization that Elliot and Clay had lived a life far bloodier and meaner than he ever had. For all the struggles of growing up in a poor, crime-ridden area, he’d never had to face life and death like they had. It both added to their decision to live a normal, loving life and scared the living crap out of Tyler when he thought about it.
Elliot’s face furrowed. “You might want to suck up your pride and get out of here.”
Tyler looked around. “What’s up?”
Elliot nodded toward a crowd forming. “That.”
As Tyler watched, he saw the crowd grow interested. At the center of it, a fancy black limousine pushed through the throng. Tyler frowned, knowing there was only one person who would show up at what was an active crime scene in a limo.
“Right, time to go get checked out,” Tyler said, swinging himself up into the ambulance.
Nate’s face was twisted in a frown, right up until Tyler appeared. Almost immediately, his expression softened and he reached out from where he lay. A bandage had been strapped over his shoulder, and some of the color had returned to his features.
“Let’s get you into a nice, comfortable hospital bed,” Tyler told him, nodding toward the paramedics.
“The only thing comfortable about them is...well, nothing. But at least they’re better than being strapped to a stretcher for the past hour,” Nate told him.
Tyler took his hand, sitting beside him. “But at least you’ll probably get some gnarly drugs and some of that fancy hospital food I’ve heard so much about.”
“Oh, you sure do know how to talk a man into something,” Nate groaned as the doors shut behind them and the engine revved to life.
Tyler bent forward, whispering in his