Beep … beep … beep.
“Doc, is he going to wake up soon?”
“Please tell me he’s going to wake up.”
“Katie, he’s tough. He’ll wake up.”
Voices fill my head. Where am I? Darkness surrounds me. I try to talk, but nothing comes out. Soft hands touch my arm.
“Aiden, please wake up,” the quiet voice says. Katie?
Why can’t I move?
Beep … beep … beep.
What is that fucking noise?
“Everything looks great,” a male voice says. “He just went through a tough surgery. Give it some time.”
Surgery? Why can’t I remember anything?
“Have you guys got any leads?” That sounds like … Jaxon? Leads on what?
Someone sighs. “They went underground with her. But we’ll find her,” Max says.
Her? Who’s missing?
Think, Aiden. Think.
“I love you, Aiden.” I watch her walk away. A black van. Screams. Blackness.
No, Addison!
Beep … beep … beep … beep.
I will my body to move. To do anything. I need to wake up. I need to tell them who has her. I know who has Addison. FUUUCKK!
“Nurse, what’s happening?” Katie’s voice is rushed.
“Not sure, but his blood pressure is spiking. We’re going to give him some pain meds.”
My body feels heavy and my head feels light. Thoughts spin around in my head like a kaleidoscope. I’m falling back in slow motion. Sleep finds me at the bottom.
“Aiden, can you hear me?”
I feel like I’m walking through a tunnel and someone is at the end, calling out to me. The male voice echoes. Something pulls me to it.
“Aiden, can you open your eyes?” There it is again.
Trying to understand what he’s asking shouldn’t be this hard. I swallow. Holy fuck that hurt. My body tenses up.
“Are you thirsty?” the voice asks. I nod my head. “I have a drink right here.”
Something touches my lips. I slowly open my eyes, squinting as the bright light floods my vision. I see someone holding a drink in front of me and feel a straw touch my lips. I cautiously take a sip, afraid it’s going to feel like glass going down my throat. Out of fear, I blow out the breath I was holding, but it doesn’t feel as bad as I expected.
I clear my throat as I look around the room. My sister, Katie, sits right next to my bed. The soft smile doesn’t match the tears running down her face.
“Don’t cry,” I mumble. My voice is hoarse and it sounds like I swallowed a cup of broken glass. I clear my throat again.
“Aiden,” the doctor says. I turn to look at him at my other side. “I suggest you don’t try to talk for a while. Your throat is going to be sore for a couple days.” He continues to ask me questions while he checks me over, wanting me to nod yes or no. I look down at the tube coming out of my chest and wince when I try to sit up.
A nurse behind him comes around and pulls out a remote from the side of my bed. The bed starts to move to an upright position.
“Why—” I stop talking because it hurts too much. I point to the tube.
“Do you remember what happened?” the doctor asks.
I pinch my eyes closed and nod my head. I was shot. The bastard who took Addison from me shot me.
Addison.
I croak as I try and sit up farther. I need to find Addison.
A hand stops me, pushing me back against the bed. “Aiden, you need to sit back.” I look at the person who has a hand on each of my shoulders. I do a double take because the hands belong to a petite nurse. I shake my head. It must be the drugs making me weak because she’s practically holding me down.
I exhale quickly, whipping my head toward Katie. “Get Damon. Now,” I grate out in a whisper.
Katie stands up, watching me cautiously. “Aiden, I think you need to relax and focus on getting better. You’ve had a rough couple days,” she says softly, laying her hand on top of mine.
I shake my head. “Now or I get up myself.” I try to swallow the pain.
She twists her lips and rolls her eyes. “Such a brat. I’ll be right back.” I smirk as she walks out of the room. She’s never been able to win an argument; I’m not sure why she thinks she’ll start now.
“So I’m assuming you remember getting shot?” the doctor questions. I look at the doctor and nod once. “While we were removing the bullet from your chest, your lung collapsed, which is the reason for the tube. Once we determine that your lung can stay inflated on its own, we’ll remove the tube. This can happen anywhere from a couple days to a week. We need you to focus on getting better.” He gives me a pointed look. I get it, doc. It’s really not beneath me to roll my eyes, but instead I nod. If this tool thinks I’m going to sit back while Addison is in danger, he’s an idiot. I’ll be a good patient for now so I can get out of this place.
As if the doctor can read my mind he says, “Aiden, you’ll be here for at least one week, maybe two, depending on your recovery.”
I fist my hands thinking what could happen to Addison in those two weeks if we don’t find her. The beeping coming from the machine that is attached to me starts to beep faster. The beeping reminds me of something, but I can’t pinpoint what. I shake the thought from my head. My focus right now is Addison.
Only Addison.
The doctor blows out an exasperated breath. “Don’t make this more difficult, Aiden. Try and calm down. We’ll get you out of here as fast as we can.” He writes on my medical record and hands it to the nurse before he turns to leave.
“Alright, my pocket full of sunshine,” the nurse says, “how is the pain right now on a scale of one to ten?”
I take in a deep breath and release it, self-evaluating my pain. It’s not bad enough for pain meds. I need to be fully awake when I talk to Damon, so I hold up three fingers. It’s probably more a seven, but hell, I don’t need her to know that. Her eyes squint as she twists her lips.
“I don’t believe you,” she says, smirking as she adjusts a few things on the machine, “but when it gets to be too much, let me know. Tomorrow you’ll start respiratory therapy to get that lung stronger, so don’t use up all your energy this afternoon.” She finishes writing whatever she needs to and then walks out of my hospital room. Damon’s in the room before the door closes.
He pulls a chair up to the bed. “I guess I should skip all the ‘I’m glad you’re okay’ and ‘you fucking scared us’ bullshit,” he says with an eyebrow raised. “I know you want to get right to business.”
I nod and clear my throat. My fists are still clenched. “I know who took her,” I whisper. Whispering is a hell of a lot less painful than me trying to talk.
Damon’s eyes go wide. “Thank God, because we’ve hit a dead end. Who?” His voice is rushed.
I slowly blow out my cheeks. I need to decide real fast how much to disclose. Addison is in a lot of danger, but having it known that she is Travis’s daughter could be even more dangerous.
“Get Max.” Damon angles his head. Max has been my best friend since elementary school. We joined the FBI together, but he didn’t care for rules, so he opened his own security company, Shaw Security. His team is filled with ex-military and ex-law enforcement. Maybe with Max we can keep it under wraps about Travis. Damon is still staring at me intently. “There is stuff about Addison that I need to keep a lid on right now.” I swallow to wet my throat before I continue. “We need Max and his team on this.”
“You know as soon as the cops know you’re awake, they’ll be in here asking questions,” he says.
“So fucking hurry up and get Max.”
Not even five minutes later, Max and Damon stride into my room. Max smirks. “Good to see you alive, brother.”
“Good to be alive,” I reply.
“So, I hear you have some things to tell us. You know I already have my guys on this,” he says. “We’ll find her.” It doesn’t surprise me to hear that Max is already involved. Max grabs a chair and straddles it, leaning forward against the back with his arms crossed. Damon sits in the chair next to my bed. Both guys stare at me, waiting.
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. Here goes nothing.
“Both of you know that Addison was at Travis’s house last summer.” They both nod in agreement. “What you don’t know is …” I pause and look around the room. I feel like I’m breaking some kind of trust between me and Addison, but I’m not sure how to save her without doing it.
“Aiden, if you know something that can help us find Addison, you need to tell us,” Max says.
I clench my jaw and growl. “You need to talk to Travis.” Both guys look at me with confusion.
“Why?” Damon asks.
I sigh. “Because Addison is his daughter.” Damon’s eyes widen as Max drops his head onto his arms. “The person who took Addison used to work for Travis. He tried to attack Addison while she was staying there. His name is Joe Lopez. Travis—”
“Wait,” Damon says, interrupting me as he puts together who Joe is. “Please tell me this isn’t the same Joe Lopez who you built your whole case against Travis and the reason he’s sitting in jail right now.”
I nod. “The same one. I don’t know what the hell happened, or whose body we found, but it wasn’t Joe.” My voice is still raspy, but talking is getting easier.
“You know what this means, right?” Damon asks.
Fuck yeah, I do. If we find Joe, Travis goes free. I built my entire case against Travis based on one thing: he had Joe killed. We found a body at the bottom of the Hudson River. The bodyguard who was instructed to kill Joe spilled his guts one drunken night. That was it. I took hold of that one mistake Travis made and built my case. Obviously he didn’t have him killed if he’s still alive, but I don’t have time to think about that right now.
“So this guy has a huge score to settle, then. With Travis and Addison,” Max says as he stands up and starts to pace. I nod, fisting the white hospital sheet. “Give me all the info you can on this guy Joe. I’ll have Stone start digging.”
Max is on the phone with Stone, relaying all the information that I gave him, when Damon asks, “How are we going to play this?”
“I’m going to tell the cops who took her, but I’m going to leave out that Travis is her father.” Damon leans forward, his arms on his knees.
“I’m kind of surprised you didn’t tell me.”
I shrug. “Wasn’t my story to tell.”
He slowly nods. “Okay, we’ll go talk to Travis. You know that it’ll be on record that we’re there. People might start asking questions.”
“I’ll deal with that if it becomes a problem. Everyone knowing that she’s Travis’s daughter won’t help her be found. They’ll know who took her and that’s what is important. If you guys can—”
“Oh, my God, Aiden, you’re awake.” Sydney comes flying in the room, landing on my bed. I have to scoot over to make a little room for her. This bed is small enough as is. “Please tell me you have information that will help us find Addison,” she pleads. Her eyes are bloodshot red. She wrings a Kleenex around her fingers, waiting for an answer. I grab her hands. They’re so tiny my one hand engulfs both of hers.
“I will find Addison, Syd. I promise,” I say, squeezing her hands.
I hear Max get off the phone. “We’re all set to see Trav—” Max stops when he sees Sydney on my bed. I can’t believe he didn’t see or hear her when she came in. He looks her up and down, studying her. “You must be Tink?” he says as he sticks his phone into his front pocket.
Her eyebrows crease, and she looks from Max to me and back to him. “I don’t know who you are, but my name is not Tink.” She crosses her arms as she stands up, trying to make herself look taller. I chuckle to myself because she’s not much taller than when she was sitting.
“Well …” Damon starts to say something.
“You be quiet.” She points her finger at him, and he laughs.
Max walks over, holds his hand out, and says, “Max Shaw.”
She shakes his hand. “Sydney Owen.” Max seems to hold Sydney’s hand a moment too long for Damon’s liking. He stands up and walks around to Syd, rubbing her shoulders. Max pulls back his hand but looks from Syd to Damon, smirking.
Syd shakes off Damon’s hands. “Would you stop? This is not the time to try and mark your territory. My best friend has been kidnapped and you all need to find her. Now!”
Sydney looks back to me with tears in her eyes. “Syd knows everything I just told you both, so you can finish what you were saying, Max,” I say, not looking away from her. Her eyebrows shoot up. “I had to tell them. I’m sure Addison told you about Joe from last summer.” She looks down, trying to recall.
I can tell the moment she realizes who he is because her head whips up and tears run down her face. Damon wraps his arms around her as she buries her head in his chest.
Max clears his throat. “So, Jaxon is getting us in to see Travis. Stone is already digging to find anything on Joe.” He glances at Sydney still embraced in Damon’s arms. “We won’t stop looking until we find her.” Sydney pulls her head away, peeking at Max, and nods.
All of us look toward the door when it swings open. The petite nurse from earlier walks in. “Alright, visiting hours are over. My patient needs his rest.”
That’s the last thing I want to do, but I can feel my body agreeing with her. Max nods once and then leaves. Damon squeezes my shoulder. “Focus on getting better and let us focus on finding Addison. I’m glad you’re okay. You fucking scared the shit out of us.” He smiles before turning around and leading Sydney out of the room.