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Her chest rose and fell while she slept soundly. You wouldn’t be able to tell that Mitzy was minutes away from death earlier in the night.
Hell, I didn’t think Mitzy even believed that she was close to death’s door.
The doctor had been serious as fuck when he had told me Mitzy would have been good as dead if I hadn’t found her when I did.
I sighed and slumped in the uncomfortable chair. The events of the night flooded back to me. I had walked into the back of the club expecting to talk to Mitzy about some club shit and then head to the clubhouse. When I found her slumped over her desk and barely breathing, I had frozen, but in an instant, I had sprung into action calling for Six-Gun and laying her on the floor.
Everything had been a flurry of action and panic.
The ambulance had arrived in five minutes, but it had felt like an eternity as I gave her mouth to mouth. I had never been a praying man, but in those five minutes, I had said more prayers and made countless promises to God that if he would just let Mitzy live.
As the ambulance had pulled away from the strip club, I was thrown back to the day when Leona had been gunned down and was rushed to the hospital even though we all knew that it was too late. Thank God, for Mitzy, it hadn’t been.
She was going to be okay and make a full recovery.
Thank fuck.
A knock sounded on the door, and a nurse stuck in her head. “Everything okay in here?” she whispered.
I nodded and sat up in my chair. “She was just awake for a couple of minutes.”
The nurse nodded and slipped into the room. “Good, good,” she muttered. She moved over to the computer by the counter and logged in. “I just need to take her vitals and check how she’s doing.”
I nodded and turned my eyes back on Mitzy. I didn’t want to take them off of her.
“She’s got quite a few friends in the waiting room,” the nurse called softly. “You might want to give them an update if you’re feeling up to it.”
The club. And probably some of the girls from Skinz. Mitzy was a hardass with them, but they all cared about each other at the end of the day. For the most part.
“I promised her I’d be here when she wakes up.”
The nurse laughed lightly. “She’s gonna be out for a bit, but if she wakes up, I’ll come find you.”
I sighed and stood. “I’ll only be a minute.” I would give everyone a quick rundown and be back.
Playboy, Six-Gun, their ol’ ladies, and Rebel were sprawled out in the waiting room when I walked through the swinging doors. Memphis jumped up from her chair and sprinted over to me. Six-Gun was on her heels with everyone else right behind.
“How is she?” Memphis demanded. “Can I go back and see her?”
Six-Gun put his arm around her shoulders and tucked her into his side. “Calm down, babe,” he whispered to her.
“What happened?” Raelyn asked.
I held up my hand. “She’s stable. The doctor is saying she overdosed.”
“I still can’t believe that,” Six-Gun spat. “Memphis and I talked to her before she went back to her office, and there was no possible way she was high.”
I shrugged. “I’m just telling you what the doc is saying.”
“What did she take?” Raelyn asked.
I ran my fingers through my hair. “She said she grabbed some Tylenol from the dressing room, and then she woke up in the ER. She doesn’t remember anything in between.”
“I still don’t understand how the hell this happened. Who the hell would bring drugs into the dressing room?” Playboy questioned.
That was what I was still trying to figure out myself. “Maybe what she thought was Tylenol wasn’t really Tylenol, and instead, it was one of the girls' stash.” She had said she grabbed something for her headache, but who’s to say one of the girls hadn’t brought drugs with them to work? Putting them in a Tylenol bottle would be a pretty inconspicuous way to do it.
“But how would that happen? I really doubt Mitzy would just grab some random bottle and down a few pills,” Memphis snapped.
I held up my hands. “I don’t know what the hell happened. I’m just telling you what I know. Mitzy was shocked as fuck when I told her she overdosed. I may not know her extremely well, but I don’t think she’s into drugs, either.” I nodded to Playboy. “I want you to go to the club and look around. Six-Gun gave all the pill bottles to the cops, but I want you to see if there is anything different.”
“Different how?” Playboy asked. “I can go, but I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
I sighed and glanced over my shoulder at the swinging doors to the ER. I closed my eyes for a second and then turned back to Playboy. “I don’t know what you’re looking for either, but just look.”
“I’ll go with you,” Memphis volunteered. “I’ve been back in the dressing room more than any of you guys.”
“Tank might actually be the one who’s been back there the most,” Rebel muttered.
Memphis rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure he wasn’t really paying attention to anything other than Rain.”
“And I think you’ve been back there just as much as he has been,” Playboy jested.
I nodded to Rebel. “I want you to talk to all of the girls. If one of them brought the pills, we need to know.” Since we had turned over all of the pills in the dressing room to the cops, we might be dealing with some trouble if they find drugs that shouldn’t be in the bottles. If we were able to find out what happened before the cops did, we might be able to head off the bullshit at the pass.
Rebel nodded. “I’ll get Mace to help.”
“You and Tank used to be connected at the fucking hip. You let Rain come between the two of you?” Six-Gun asked.
Rebel grunted but didn’t say anything.
Right now, I didn’t have the energy to care about what happened between Tank, Rebel, and Rain. “All right by me that Mace helps. The sooner we figure out what the hell happened in the dressing room, the sooner we can get back to finding Barracuda.”
“Can we see Mitzy?” Memphis asked again.
I shook my head. “She’s sleeping right now. I’m going to stay with her through the night. I’m hoping by morning she’ll be able to be discharged, and we’ll get the hell out of here.”
Memphis’s face fell, but she nodded. “I guess if she is out by morning, I can wait to see her.” She laid her head on Six-Gun’s shoulder. “Just make sure she’s okay, Monk.”
“I plan on it.” I nodded to them and slipped back through the swinging door.
When I stepped back into the room, the nurse logged out of her computer and looked up at me. “You’re back.”
“She wake up?” I stepped to the side of the bed and looked down at Mitzy. She normally had an air of badass confidence about her, but now she laid in the bed, asleep and looking fragile as fuck. Even when she had woken for a couple of minutes, she didn’t seem like her normal self.
“She slept the whole time. Even when I put the blood pressure cuff on her.” She stepped to the door and smiled. “I won’t be in a for a bit unless you need me. She really just needs to sleep right now.”
I nodded and sank in the chair I had pulled next to the bed. “I’ll hit the call button if she needs you.”
She opened the door. “You should try to get some sleep, too. You can’t take care of someone else when you aren’t taking care of yourself,” she called softly. She stepped out and closed the door quietly behind her.
I sat back in the chair and kicked out my feet in front of me. I wasn’t going to get much sleep in this hard as fuck chair, that was for sure. I grabbed the remote to the TV and turned it on.
Some late-night infomercial played, and I turned down the volume. Mindless TV would be my company for the next couple of hours while Mitzy slept.
Mitzy needed sleep. And I needed to figure out what the hell had happened to her.
I wasn’t going to rest until I did.
*
