Until Her - Ami Van Page 0,37
and the man just pushes him aside and takes two steps into the room.
She cowers and pushes herself against the wall, trying her best to steer clear of his deep glower. The scowl on his face isn’t the friendliest and it sends warning signs from head to toe. His eyes travel down her body, down and then back up before he sneers. Not lascivious nor menacing but more like there’s some kind of inside joke she isn’t privy to.
“Ye’r in me house, lass. Ye may be under the Kings’ protection but trust me when I tell ye this. Blab about me business to anyone and even the Kings canna help ye. Is that understood?” the man asks.
“Y-yes,” she stutters. She nods her head unable to find any other words.
“McCullen,” he tells her.
She looks at him dumbfounded.
“My name, lass. Ye can call me, McCullen, and right now, I need ye to gather up wherever ye put the first aid kit. I need ye hands until me doc gets here.”
Again, she’s frozen in the corner. Dumbfounded and unsure what exactly is being asked of her. More like being demanded.
McCullen snaps his fingers at her a few times then waves both hands.
“Is she daft?” the man turns around and asks Marcus.
“NO!” Marcus growls at him.
“Ariana,” Marcus says to her now. “Grab the first aid bag from your bathroom and come upstairs. What this man is saying is that they need our help until his doctor arrives.”
“Oh,” she replies softly.
The reply seems to appease the tattooed and bearded brute because he turns and walks out of the room with a shake of the head. She can hear his heavy footsteps echoing through the house too.
“Come on,” Marcus gently prods her.
She does as she’s instructed and waits for Marcus to help pull her up the aggressive narrow flight of stairs. No wonder she’d missed it. She’d thought it was a closet door this whole time.
Marcus has the first aid bag slung over his slim shoulder as he hastily takes each step until he reaches the top.
She scans the room and sees McCullen standing with his arms crossed over his broad chest next to a bed. Another man sits on the bed with hands pressed against yet another man’s torso. She can smell the stench of blood as they step closer to the trio. Thank God she didn’t have a weak stomach and the sight of blood doesn’t make her queasy.
“Here,” Marcus says to the guy sitting next to the bleeding man.
“I can’t move my hands. I need to keep on the pressure,” that man retorts.
She somehow manages to take the initiative and strides past Marcus to get to the first aid bag. She unzips it and immediately digs in for gauzes. She comes up with a handful but judging by the amount of blood that’s soaking through whatever is being held on the wound now, even these large gauzes aren’t going to help.
“We need clean towels,” she tells Marcus who nods and hurriedly climbs back down the stairs.
She looks at McCullen, figuring out that he must be the boss of these men.
“When Marcus comes back with the towels, we’re going to need to clean his wound with as much of this alcohol as possible before we put pressure back on,” she tells the man.
“Aye,” he replies with a nod.
He turns away from her and was on his phone so she focuses her attention on the man who’s sweating through his already blood-soaked shirt.
“Hey,” the man says between his panting. “You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you.”
His voice was deep and immediately familiar. And she knew right away who this man is.
“Brooks,” she says.
He nods at her and her thoughts go from zero to one hundred way too quickly.
Is this the result of him helping her? Did the Romanos do this to him? Oh God! Do they know where she is now?
“Unrelated,” Brooks mutters before his eyes flutter close.
She gasps in surprise. Is she really that easy to read?
“Don’t be surprised,” the man holding his hands to Brooks’s wound says. “He’s creepy like that. I’m Darren, by the way. McCullen is my boss,” he tells her with the jut of his chin towards McCullen, who is now on the phone and pacing.
“Wh-what happened to him?” she asks.
“Not my place to say,” Darren replies. “But the Kings should be here really soon. Feel free to ask them any questions you may have.”
Kings. As in plural. Does he mean all the Kings or