Devil Takes His Innocent (9 page)

“
How
long?”

“
That might not be a wise topic of
conversation while we’re eating. I have already failed you once tonight. I
won’t do it again by causing you to choke.”

“
That long, huh?”

“
You have no idea.”

“
Okay, then tell me about your
brothers. I know a bit about Judge, but what about the other two?”

“
They are known as Viper and
Chaos.”

“
Okay, so how did the four of you
meet?”

“
That, unfortunately, is a story I
will have to keep until I reveal my age,” Devil explained. “Why don’t you tell
me about you and Nikki?”

“
Nikki and I go back to middle
school. We’ve been friends ever since. We bonded over the fact that neither of
us had fathers and we lived in the same rundown apartment block. She’s my
sister and best friend.”

“
As your best friend, please tell
me you have saved me some food. I’m starved.”

Devil hadn’t been surprised by
Nikki’s sudden appearance. He had heard her car pull up in front of the house.
Gabby had also been expecting her, if the other place setting was any
indication.

“
There is plenty here,” Devil
replied as he stood. With a slight bow he introduced himself. “I’m Devil. I’m
sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself last night.”

“
That’s okay. Gabby told me who
you were.”

“
Then allow me to apologize for
scaring you and please know
,
I would never hurt
Gabby.”

Nikki seemed to be reading him.
That was fine because he had spoken the truth and had nothing to hide. “You
seem to be genuine, Devil, and Gabby seems to like you. But let me warn you, as
a nurse I know ways of hurting you beyond anything you have known.”

Instantly Devil liked his mate’s
best friend. Her protectiveness of Gabby spoke volumes to him. So much so, he
had no intention of destroying her delusion about hurting him. It would seem
that Gabby had no such qualms.

“
Nikki, he’s a vampire. There’s
not much that could hurt him,” Gabby said before turning to him.
“Right?”

“
Right, angel,” he replied,
reassuring his seemingly worried mate. “Now why don’t we let Nikki come and
eat? She’s probably been run off her feet at work. Am I right?”

“
You have no idea,”
came
the suddenly exhausted reply.

Devil sat back and listened as
Nikki went on to fill Gabby in on the happenings around the hospital. Both
women then went on to regale him with stories of the people they work with.
This then led into their childhood and the trouble they had gotten into. He
would have loved to have been around these two when they were younger. Though
danger hadn’t found them, some of their adventures could have easily ended so
differently. Jewel was a perfect example of that.

She had been living on the
streets when he and his brothers discovered her. She had stolen an apple from a
grocer. The grocer’s son took great exception to being robbed and went after
Jewel. By the time Devil and his brothers had arrived, she was in a mess. While
Viper and Chaos dealt with her injuries, he and Judge took great pleasure in
teaching Jewel’s attacker a lesson.

They took her under their wings,
protecting her, feeding her, and ensuring she went to school each day. She was
now in college, studying to be an accountant. She planned on working in the
hotel when she graduated, which would be in a couple of months. He looked
forward to her being home, where she would now have some other women to guide
her, instead of just him and his brothers.

He knew she would like both of
the women in front of him. Though he had to concede having the three of them in
the same room would prove interesting. He somehow doubted he would be able to
get a word in. Gabby and Nikki were bad enough; adding Jewel to the mix would
almost guarantee there would be no room for him and his brothers to join in,
which would suit them perfectly. They were more men of action, rather than
words. Yes, these two women would fit into their lives perfectly.

Chapter
Nine

Gabby sipped her coffee, enjoying
the short break on her first day back at work. It was a break that she had been
yearning for. Without Devil’s constant presence, it gave her the opportunity to
contemplate the sudden changes in her life that came with his erotic bite. She
had effectively gone from having no boyfriend to having a husband. And from
what she understood from Judge, there were no divorces where a mating was
involved.

She knew she should have been
annoyed at herself for being so weak and allowing it to happen, and at Devil
for using her body’s needs against her to get his way, but she had never been
one to dwell on things she could no longer change. Looking back to their
joining yesterday, she realized that it was inevitable. Her overzealous
hormones wouldn’t have allowed him to leave her without sealing their bond. She
now had to find a way to make it work with her overbearing vampire.

There was no denying the
chemistry between them. But would anything develop outside of that chemistry?
She had always dreamed of having a perfect marriage. One in which she and her
partner were not only lovers but friends as well.
Friends who
shared everything in life.
Was Devil capable of that? Or the love she
desired?

By the end of her break, little
had been resolved, but more questions reared their ugly heads. She hadn’t
expected miracles to occur and all the answers to appear within her ten-minute
break, but coming away with nothing but more things to consider had her going
into the ER in a less than cheery mood. At least she still had a tea break to
herself.

But it would seem the fates had
other ideas. Later, just as she was about to head to her usual café within the
hospital, she heard her name being called from the front desk. She wasn’t happy
to see the person walking toward her.

“
Grant, what are you doing here?”

“
I thought I would come and buy
you dinner at work, since you’re so busy,” Grant replied. She could see
something was worrying him. He kept looking over his shoulder as he spoke. Her
curiosity was piqued.

“
Is everything all right, Grant?”

He pasted a fake smile on his
face, gently held her elbow, and walked away from the hospital foyer. After
looking over his shoulder a couple more times, he said, “Yes, I just wanted to
spend some time with my little sister. That’s all.”

Pointing toward her usual lunch
and dinner hangout, she made a point of veering to the doors. Grant stopped
her. He took in the whole café, sweeping his gaze over it several times before
allowing her to continue. As she made her way to the nearest empty table, she
was redirected toward an empty booth in the back of the café. Gabby began to
feel unsure of her
half brother’s
motives. Her first
thought was that she wished Devil was with her.

Before she had a chance to think
on her sudden reliance on Devil, Grant spoke. “Gabby, I’m sorry we haven’t had
a chance to get to know one another. I take full responsibility for that. I’m
also sorry to do what I’m about to, but you’re the only one I can rely on.”

Gabby took in Grant’s appearance
and conceded something definitely wasn’t right with him. Moisture beaded on his
forehead as his eyes continually scanned the busy room. Every loud noise had
him jumping,
then
pushing his overweight body further
into the shadows.

“
You’re scaring me, Grant. What’s
going on?”

“
Gabby, I need you to do something
for me.” She shook her head. Whenever either Jeffrey or Grant asked something
of her, she ended up out of pocket. “No, it’s nothing like that. I promise. I
just need you to hold something for me.”

“
What? It better not be anything
illegal, Grant.”

“
No, it’s not. It’s just an
envelope,” Grant explained. “I need you to keep it in a safe place.”

“
Where is it?”

“
I posted it to you.”

“
Why would you do that?”

“
I couldn’t be seen handing you
anything. It would put you in danger, and whether you want to believe me or
not, that’s the last thing I would ever want to do.”

“
What’s
going on, Grant?
What danger?”

“
I’m not too proud to admit it,
but your big brother is a crook.
Basically small-time stuff,
break and entry, that kind of thing.
Anyway it would seem I stole from
the wrong person. What I thought was just a computer actually turned out to
contain the accounts of one of the local drug dealers. I robbed his
accountant.”

“
What’s this got to do with the
envelope? And why haven’t you gone to the police with it?”

“
The police actually approached
me. That’s how I found out about what was on the laptop. Before I handed it
over, I took it to a friend to download the information, just in case I might
need it for a rainy day. Anyway a couple of days later, another cop came to see
me. He told me he knew what I had done and that I needed to store it in a safe
place. He would collect it when the coast was clear. He warned me that the cops
who had originally come to see me were dirty. That cop turned up dead last
week.”

“
I heard something about a traffic
policeman being shot when he pulled someone over for speeding. The offender
snuck up on him when he was writing out the ticket in his unmarked car.”

“
Gabby, he wasn’t a traffic cop.
He was Internal Affairs. There is no plausible situation that would have him
working traffic.”

“
You
mean, he was
…
”
She couldn’t seem to get the
words out of her mouth. It was too awful to consider.

“
Now you see how important this
is. Will you do this for me?” Though there were plenty of other questions she
should be asking, she found herself nodding. “I knew I could count on you. It’s
already in the mail. Just keep it somewhere
safe,
and
I’ll pick it up when I can establish who in the
LVPD
I can hand it to.”

Gabby watched as her
half brother
stood. She placed her hand over his and said,
“Be safe, Grant.”

“
I will. Now that you’re getting
married, I’ve got little nieces and nephews to look forward to.” With that
said, Grant walked away.

Gabby’s appetite had gone. In
it’s
place was a growing concern
for Grant’s safety. She had no worry for her own because she knew Devil
wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He had already proven how important her
safety and health were to him. Even this morning, he had ensured that she had a
filling breakfast, followed by an early lunch before she headed off to work. He
seemed to love watching her eat, which suited her because she loved her food.

As her tea break came to an end,
her mind was still playing ping pong with thoughts of two of the men in her
life, Devil and Grant. Devil became a reassuring presence in her mind, offering
her comfort. Grant just had her worrying.

As she returned to work after her
break, she was given something else to think about. Her first patient was
escorted in wearing handcuffs and a blood-soaked prison top. He was accompanied
by two police officers. At the sight of their uniforms, her thoughts returned
to what Grant had said. Those quickly flew out of her head when the prisoner
began fighting the officers’ hold on him.
He head-butted the
one behind him, doing damage to the officer’s nose.
Still he remained
their captive. The other had been kneed in the balls. Gabby admired their
fortitude as they forced him onto the bed.

Without thinking, Gabby threw
herself over the prisoner’s legs as soon as the officers had him lying down.
She was being jolted and jarred as his fight continued against being cuffed to
the bed. It would seem that the stars were beginning to align themselves in his
favor.

As one of the officers went
stumbling backward, he fell into the other nurse present. This coincided with a
trolley of equipment being pushed into the cubicle by a trainee nurse. In the
confusion, the prisoner somehow managed to get his hands on a scalpel from the
trolley. Gabby heard a gasp of pain seconds before something sliced into her
arm. Still she held on. Her decision was helped by the clanging sound of metal
hitting the ground.

The prisoner’s shouted expletives
suggested that the officers had successfully restrained his arms. Her
confirmation came when a hand landed on her shoulder, gently trying to ease her
up. It was the officer whose nose appeared to be broken. His cheek was bleeding
from the thin slice down it—a cut that no doubt would match the one on her arm.
The officers made short work of attaching the leg cuffs to the bed as well, and
Gabby took a deep breath and forced herself to glance down at her own arm.
Blood poured from the deep gash and she gulped as a doctor swept the curtain
aside and breezed into the room.

Of course it had to be the one
doctor in the whole hospital that Gabby didn’t like. His arrogance grated on
most of the nursing staff’s nerves. Even in her injured state, he didn’t fail
to live up to his reputation.

“
I was told the patient was ready
to see me. Why hasn’t his wound been cleaned and a trolley prepared for me,
Gabby?” the man complained. “I have other people to see. Call me back once my
instructions are seen to.”

With that the doctor walked out
of the cubicle, allowing her the opportunity to truly assess the extent of the
damage caused by the prisoner. It would seem that she and the officer with the
broken nose had come out of the scuffle worse off. The other nurse tended to
the officer, leaving Gabby to her own devices. Looking down at her arm, she
attempted to clean the blood from around the cut. But still it kept coming.
After several more bloody swabs landed in the rubbish bin, she finally
acknowledged that she needed someone to look at her injury. Thankfully the
doctor followed his usual habits and went to report Gabby and the other nurse
to the head nurse, who in turn popped her head through the privacy curtains.

“
Everything
okay in here?”
Sharon asked before stepping into the cubicle once she noticed the injured
officers. “What happened?”

Gabby wrapped a bandage around
her injured arm in an attempt to minimize the mess caused by the still flowing
blood while Sharon checked over the officers’ injuries. They filled her in on
what occurred, including the doctor’s reaction to the scene. With her bandage
in place, Gabby went to make sure the other nurse was okay. She had taken quite
a fall with the officer. Gabby was concerned that she may have hurt herself.

She heard Sharon shouting out for
other staff members right before she felt a hand on her shoulder. “I see Doc
Up-Himself has once again displayed how far up his own ass his head goes,”
Sharon said. “You did
good
, Gabby, from what I’m told,
but now it’s time to take a breather and take care of yourself. Why don’t you
go and let one of the other
doctors
check out your arm
while I deal with the situation in here?”

Nodding her head, Gabby allowed
herself to be guided from the cubicle. She didn’t relish the idea of anyone
looking at her arm other than Nikki. Gabby knew that anyone else would insist
she had stitches, and that just wasn’t going to happen. Her fear of needles was
well known around the department and often joked about. Like any other nurse,
Gabby could give an injection, take blood, and insert a cannula ready for an
IV, but when it came to her needing any of these, she ran the other way.

As she made her way toward her
locker, she ran into Nikki. “You sneaking out of here early?” her friend asked,
right before she gasped. “Shit, Gabby, what happened?”

“
Can we talk about it later? Right
now I just need you to clean this up so I can get out of here.”

“
I don’t know, Gabby. With the
amount of blood leaking through that bandage, I would say it’s too deep to just
stick a plaster on,” Nikki said sympathetically. “Let me go and get some stuff.
I’ll take a quick look at it and then I’ll see. Hopefully we can just glue it
or
steri
-strip it. How does that sound?”

Gabby nodded and leaned against
the wall, too numb with fear at the possibility of stitches to say anything.
She knew her friend would only resort to that option if it was a necessity, but
still she knew deep down it was more than likely the only option. She was
losing a lot of blood from the wound.

Gabby closed her eyes. Again, at
her time of need she thought of Devil. She wanted to feel his arms around her,
comforting her. Somehow, she knew he would make it all right. As her thoughts
wandered to the man who had stormed into her life, she felt something on her
arm. She went to swat it away but her hand was held.

“
No, Gabby, don’t. You need to
immobilize this arm until we can take care of your wound.” Nikki’s voice broke
through her daydream. “There you go, all done.”