~ ~ ~
Dawn had yet to break when Rhys walked out of the hospital. Finally free. He was counting down the seconds until he would work day shift again.
His sluggish brain did not register anyone else in the parking lot until a piercing whistle broke the quiet. Grinning, he turned expecting to see his fiancée. Instead, there were three men. All were clad in jeans and plaid shirts; one in red, two in blue, and bright green ball caps on their bushy heads with some logo Rhys couldn’t quite pick out in the dim light.
“Well lookie here, boys, one of them fags finally come out to play.”
Put on alert, adrenaline pushed the exhaustion from his body. His heart pumped hard in his chest as he moved closer to the three lumberjacks. Rhys didn’t care what someone did in the privacy of their home, he cared that these three were intent on hurting the person.
His younger brother had been bullied for years, since a drunk driver hit him while he was riding his bike home from a friend’s house. Rian had been in a coma for months and when he’d finally woke, he’d had irreparable brain damage. On the outside, his brother seemed normal, healthy. It wasn’t until someone talked with him then they noticed he had the mind of a teenager. Unfortunately, it made Rian a target when they were in public.
“Whoever you have over there, let them go, and I won’t report you,” Rhys called out, speeding up when the other two behemoths rounded the back of the truck.
“Oh, we ain’t got no one over here yet. We been waiting on you,” red shirt stated.
Him? Rhys stopped.
“We heard what that doc said about the ménage, and we don’t like having your sort treatin’ our people.”
What the hell? The ménage? It dawned on him the idiots must have listened in when Carmichael had talked to Rhys. He rubbed the bridge of his nose as he subtly looked around for the guard. The man wasn’t at his usual post which meant he was walking some of the nurses to their cars. Figured.
A shuffle jerked his attention back on the men. The aggression and hatred painted on the faces of the three men made Rhys step away from the cars. He needed space to move.
“Now, iffn you run, Burt there is gonna go chasin’ ya, and you might fall off the side of the deck by accident.”
He shook his head, he didn’t need to run. These three stooges needed to be taught a lesson. The first lesson: don’t judge a nerd by his glasses.
The speaker, the one that seemed in charge, lunged at him. Ducking under the punch, Rhys fisted the man’s shirt and flipped him. The giant landed on his back, his head smacking into the concrete, dazing him. A kick to the temple knocked him out.
Unfortunately, the two blue shirts weren’t standing around waiting their turn. One took a swing and as Rhys dodged, the other man’s momentum carried him directly into his friend’s fist.
A quick duck and hop and Rhys gained a bit of room. His adversaries split up. Knowing he would be in trouble if either got behind him, he focused on the one to the right, taking him down with a kick to the knee and two punches to the jaw.
The snick of a blade made ice run in Rhys’s veins. Turning, he expected a switchblade or hunting knife. Instead, he found a pocket knife and almost laughed. It could still cause damage but not as much as the other options. Then the man smirked, and Rhys knew he’d missed something.
From his periphery, he spotted the blue shirt still prone on the ground as well as the red shirt. It was Dr. Carmichael screaming “Rhys, watch out behind you.”
That clued him. He’d missed a guy. He couldn’t turn or the knife would be in his back. But every instinct in him screamed to turn around and fight. Finally, the last blue shirt lunged. Rhys dodged to the side, grabbed the man’s hand, and popped the thumb out of joint. The knife clattered across the concrete.
“This is the police. Drop the tire iron now! And get on your knees,” Jo commanded.
Rhys almost slumped in relief. Jo wouldn’t let anything happen to him. With her here, he was bulletproof. She would kill anyone who threatened him, and he’d do the same for her.
He shivered when the silence stretched until she snarled. “I won’t tell you again, drop the damned tire iron.”
Rhys couldn’t turn around, frozen to the spot as he waited to feel the slam of metal to the back of his head. Instead, he heard the heavy clang as the tire iron dropped to the parking deck’s concrete floor.
“Hands behind your head and you better take a knee. If you even twitch, I swear on my mother’s life I will pull this trigger.”
She was terrified based on the pure ice in her tone. “Rhys, you okay?”
With his hands out to the sides, Rhys slowly spun to face the love of his life. Fire blazed in the husky blue depths. “You son of a bitch, you cut his lip!”
“Don’t do it, Rayburn,” Sullivan’s deep baritone barreled into the volatile tableau. “You hit him, you’ll have to take him in and get him admitted. And you’ll be filling out paperwork for the foreseeable future.”
“But I like Rhys’s taste, and with a busted lip I’m gonna taste blood.”
Rhys snorted and shook his head, his fear dissipating at the statement. “Only you, hon.”
“Fine. You take him Sullivan, before I do something that’ll get me in trouble.” Jo stepped toward Rhys and let her partner take over. “I’m taking Rhys home. We’ll come to the station later for him to
