Chapter Thirty-One
“No!” Olivia barely registered the other shots as she scrambled to her feet and rushed to Alex’s side. His eyes were closed and she couldn’t tell if he was breathing. She felt as if she was the one who had taken the bullet to the chest. She couldn’t breathe…couldn’t think. If anything happened to him, it would destroy her. “Alex. Oh God, Alex. You can’t be dead. I love you. I love you so much,” she sobbed. “Please wake up.”
“Olivia.” Someone stroked her arm but she ignored them.
“I can’t live without you, Alex. You are my everything. Please be okay.”
“Olivia.”
“I love you so much. Don’t leave me. I need you.”
“Olivia.”
Her eyes popped open to see Alex’s blue ones gazing at her. He was alive! With a cry of joy, she threw her arms around him. He grunted in pain. She jerked back as if burned. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Alex. Her hands roamed his chest.” She glanced around. “Someone call an ambulance!”
“You said you love me.”
Her eyes snapped to his. He was grinning like an idiot. Maybe he was in shock? “Why are you smiling? I saw the bullet hit you.”
“I love you, too.” He coaxed her down and kissed her. She sighed against him and he sucked in a sharp breath. She lurched back again. “You are hurt.”
He gingerly pulled up his t-shirt to reveal a black Kevlar vest with a bullet lodged in the O of COBRA Securities. She should’ve remembered the vest…she wore one just like it. He’d made her put one on every time they left the hotel, except for Darla’s funeral and the gala, and the only reason he agreed to let her leave without it was because it didn’t fit under the dresses.
He winced as he touched the bullet. “Definitely going to have a bruise and I might have cracked a rib.”
“That bullet was meant for me but you pushed me out of the way.” Olivia promptly burst into tears and fell onto his chest. Too late she processed his cracked rib comment. When she tried to pull back, he held her tight.
Sawyer jogged over. “You okay, Mylonas?”
“Peachy.” His voice was husky.
Sawyer crouched down beside them and fingered the vest. “I’ll never question the requirement that we wear these at all times on an assignment.”
“Me, either,” Alex agreed. “Olivia, baby, I need to get up. There’s a rock the size of Texas digging into my kidney.”
She scrambled back and held his arm as Sawyer helped him to his feet. He grabbed his side and winced.
“We need to get you to the hospital right now,” she fretted.
“I am not going to the hospital,” he scoffed. “They can’t do anything for it anyway. I’ll just take it—”
“You are going to the hospital.” Her voice was shrill and border-line hysterical, but she didn’t care. “You were shot, I thought you were dead!”
“Olivia, baby.” He pulled her into his arms. “Shh, I’m fine. I’ll go to the hospital. Anything. Whatever you want, baby. Please don’t cry. It breaks my heart.”
Olivia nodded against his chest but she couldn’t make the tears stop. She’d been scared when Trent kidnapped her at gunpoint, but she didn’t know true terror until she watched a bullet slam into him. She’d have nightmares for the rest of her life. She focused on the steady beat of his heart.
“Who got him?” Alex asked Sawyer.
“Toss-up between me, Benson or the other cop.”
Olivia glanced over her shoulder. “Is he…”
“Yep,” Sawyer confirmed. “You don’t have to worry about testifying at his trial.”
She looked up at Alex. “He killed Darla.”
“I’m sorry, babe.” His hands slid up to cup her face. Suddenly his eyes narrowed savagely and his muscles tensed. He tilted her head back. “That sonofabitch hit you.” She fingered her cheek. It hurt at the time but she’d completely forgotten about it. He grabbed her shoulders and eased her aside. “I’m going to resuscitate him so I can kill him again.”
She grabbed his bicep to stop him and wrapped her arms around him. His muscles finally relaxed and he sighed into her hold. The gash under his eye was bleeding again. What a pair they made. Finally, he asked, “Did he say why he came after you?”
“Something about his paranoid roommate and a girl they killed. They thought if they got rid of me”—a shudder racked his body—“the Vigilante would go away.”
“Idiots,” he growled.
“You okay, Mylonas?” Benson walked over to check on him.
“He needs to go to the hospital right now,” she insisted.
Benson cleared his throat and she glanced at him. He jerked his head to the building a few feet away. “He’s already here.”
In all the excitement, she’d completely forgotten where they were. She grabbed Alex’s hand and marched him inside. He grunted so she slowed her pace. Sawyer chuckled and said something that sounded liked “whipped”, which he tried to cover with a cough. Alex flipped him off. Olivia didn’t care what any of them thought. He was getting his injuries checked out.
“I want them to look at your cheek, too. At the least, you need ice,” he insisted, but she wasn’t worried about herself.
Already alerted to the activities outside the hospital, a nurse met them in the hall and ushered them to a treatment room, which was basically a bed between curtains. The nurse cleaned the cut under Alex’s eye and closed it with butterfly bandages. He already had a shiner started. When she cut away his shirt and removed his vest, Olivia gasped in horror. There was a small red hole where the bullet impacted. The mark was ringed in yellow that bloomed into a dark purplish red. It was very close to his other bullet wound. He squeezed her hand to reassure her but she couldn’t take her eyes off the spot. He’d risked his life for her…taken a bullet for her. If he hadn’t pushed her out of the way, the slug would’ve slammed into her head.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I need to clean his arm.”
“Oh, right.” Olivia moved out of the way so the nurse could repair the ripped stitches. Once it was bandaged, he was wheeled away to x-ray. She waited with an ice pack pressed to her cheek. When he returned, he smiled at her and her heart felt like bursting. She loved this man so much.
The doctor entered and introduced himself to Alex. “It’s an honor to meet you. I hear you’re a hero. Caught a murderer right outside our doors.”
Alex rejected the praise. “It was a group effort.”
“Well, I’m thankful just the same.” He shook Olivia’s hand. “I watch you every evening, Ms. Larrson.”
“Olivia, please.”
He removed an envelope from under his arm and tipped it to slide out an x-ray. He inserted the black and white film into a lighted box on the wall behind the bed. “Let’s see what we have here.” He slipped on a pair of glasses and studied the results. “Yep, looks like a hairline crack right here.” He indicated the small white line. He turned to them and removed his glasses. “Nothing serious. I’ll prescribe pain medication which I strongly recommend you take.”
“Shouldn’t we wrap it with a compression bandage?” Olivia asked.
“No,” the doctor said. “That used to be standard procedure, but he needs to be able to breathe deeply so he doesn’t develop pneumonia. We don’t recommend it anymore. If you have excessive pain or problems breathing, come back in immediately.”
The doctor shook their hands again and left. A nurse returned with a prescription and after signing a few forms, they were released. Sawyer was waiting for them, along with Roddy and Phil. They both hugged her and fawned all over her.
“Word of the shooting got out and Mr. Prescott sent us to get the story. He wanted us to bring Jinger to do the report but we refused.”
“This is your story, Olivia,” Phil said, taking both of her hands. “I know you probably don’t feel like going live in front of a camera, but it should be you.”
“I don’t know…” She was literally exhausted and crashing from an adrenalin rush. But this had been her story from the beginning. She turned to Alex. “Do you mind?”
“Babe, if you feel up to it, you should definitely do it.”
“I’ll frighten any children watching looking like this.” She fingered her cheek, which was turning a pretty shade of purple.
Alex grabbed her head between his hands and gazed into her eyes. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world.” Then he kissed her. Tears spilled down her cheeks. Good grief, she was turning into a babbling ninny.
Gathering her composure, they made their way outside to the scene of the crime, now buzzing with emergency personnel. Yellow tape had been strung around the area to keep onlookers back. Olivia touched up her makeup and hair as best she could. She accepted the microphone from Roddy and when he gave her the okay, she looked into the camera and told the story to the world.