Uncaged Love Volume 5 Read online

  “Is he in a coma?”

  “Not exactly. They are keeping him sedated while some of the worst of this heals. Colt isn’t an easy boy to keep still.”

  Someone calling Colt a boy almost makes me smile. If only this wasn’t so serious, so hard.

  “I’ll give you a minute.” She turns and drifts back toward the entrance.

  I watch Colt’s chest rise and fall. The monitor behind him registers each heartbeat. He’s always been so fierce, so invincible. But now he’s here.

  He went so long without oxygen. He lost so much blood. I run my hand lightly across his belly, the sheet rough and rumpled on top of bandages and a drainage tube. He might never fight again after this. He might not know me. He might be permanently damaged.

  Fear takes over my body. I don’t want this. I refuse to let it happen. I don’t care about my fights or my life or anything I’ve ever wanted. The hurricane starts to rise in me, like I could spin around and destroy anything that would interfere with Colt’s future, his dream.

  My chest heaves from the rapid breaths. My skin prickles, gearing up for the confrontation, to win.

  But I don’t want it. I don’t care about it.

  And then I know.

  I can give it up. If I let it go. If I sacrifice it, then maybe I can save Colt.

  “I give it to you,” I whisper across his body. “I let go of my hurricane, any fight in me, for you.”

  A peace settles over me. I let my forehead fall against his hand again. I’m so exhausted. So tired of struggling.

  But I will remain strong in this. For Colt. Until he’s back.

  I will do anything so that he can keep his dream.

  Eve comes back. “We’ve been caught,” she says.

  I turn to see a nurse beside her. “Visiting hours are long past,” the woman says quietly.

  “We know,” Eve says. “Thank you for giving us a moment.”

  Eve helps me stand. “You can come back tomorrow to see him. Geoffrey and I have arranged for a private room here at the hospital, so I will always be here. Just ask at the ICU desk. I’ll put you on the family list.”

  We walk out of the ward. When we get into the hall, I look back at Colt in his bed. He will be well. I will do anything in my power to make sure of it.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning, I wake up in the hospital room to the sound of angry voices outside my door. I sit up. Buster is here. He leans forward in his chair, also listening.

  “What’s happening?” I ask him.

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  My door smashes open. The two goons from last night enter the room. “Who the hell are you?” Buster asks.

  But then Colt’s father comes in behind them.

  I jerk the sheets up to my neck. What is he doing here?

  The Cure doesn’t even acknowledge us. He turns to an orderly in blue scrubs pushing a wheelchair in behind them. “Make it snappy. We’ve got maybe five minutes to move her.”

  The orderly rolls the chair to the side of my bed and drops the rail. “I need you to come with me, Miss,” he says.

  Buster leaps from his chair. “What the hell is this about?”

  The Cure turns to look at him. “Buster Cane, pleasure to see you again.”

  “What is the meaning of this? Barging in here.”

  The Cure snaps his fingers at the orderly. “Load her up or my men will do it not nearly so nicely.” He turns back to Buster. “Jo needs some protection. I’m moving her someplace more secure.”

  The orderly pulls the covers away from my legs. “Can you stand?”

  “I can stand FINE,” I say. I tell The Cure, “I don’t need you protecting me.”

  Colt’s father’s lips twitch. “This is not a matter of those minor fighters. I’m afraid I’m having to protect you from your own sordid history.”

  “Please come,” the orderly says.

  I flush hot with panic. It’s happened. It’s finally happened. My past is out in the open.

  Buster is both angry and confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll explain when Jo is secure.” He waves his men over. “Go ahead and carry her if that’s what it takes.”

  I leap from the bed. “I can walk.”

  “Please sit,” the orderly says. “Hospital policy.”

  Buster gestures for me to sit in the chair. I’m angry and afraid, but I obey. The orderly shifts the footrests and begins pushing.

  “Quickly, quickly,” The Cure says. “I’m sure some overzealous media hound is trying to make his way here even as we dawdle. Two news vans pulled up minutes ago.”

  The Cure leads the way out of the room. A few more suited men are standing in the hallways, blocking paths and generally looking menacing. I’m not sure the President would have this many bodyguards.

  We all load into the elevator, and The Cure presses a button for one of the top floors. Finally, he turns to me. “I assume the names Retta and Rich Mahoney are familiar to you?”

  Everything in my body tenses up. When I don’t answer, The Cure goes on. “I don’t know who these money-grubbers are, but they do seem to have convinced the media that you are a menace to society. They’re trying to sell their story to any two-bit outfit that will have them.”

  The elevator doors open. At first this floor appears to be an ordinary ward of the hospital, but when we turn to the right, one of the hallways is locked tight. The orderly waves his badge at it, and a door much like the one securing ICU begins to open.

  The Cure strides through. Over his shoulder he says, “I could have just turned you over to the police, but I’ve decided to bring you here instead. For Colt.”

  We follow a long hallway until we reach a door halfway down.

  The Cure pauses in front of it. “My wife and I are staying here while Colt recovers. Hefty donations do create cooperation among the staff. Your doctors and a private nurse will see to you.”

  He turns to the security guards. “Nobody in or out except him.” He points to Buster. “Or hospital staff you personally recognize and are cleared by me. I won’t have anyone faking a hospital ID to get to Jo.”

  The two men nod.

  I’m not sure if I should be grateful or pissed off.

  Inside the room is an ordinary bed like you would have at home, a sofa, and a small table with two chairs. It feels more like a hotel than a hospital room. Eve is inside, sitting on a blue wing chair. “Hello, Jo.” Her smile is tighter than last night. Her easy grace seems strained.

  She is about to turn off the television when The Cure says, “Oh, no, let Jo see what she’s done.”

  The orderly rolls me to where I can see the screen. It’s high in the corner, mounted to the ceiling. On it, an announcer is talking about basketball scores.

  Buster comes up behind me and puts his hands on the back of the wheelchair in a protective stance. My heart is hammering enough that I can feel it banging against the wound in my shoulder.

  “Here it comes again,” The Cure says. “Lovely little segment. They rotate it through about every half hour.” The Cure perches on one side of the sofa, his arms crossed over his suit front.

  A woman reporter comes on, holding a microphone. “And in an unexpected twist, the girlfriend of injured MMA fighter Colt McClure, who is still in the hospital in critical condition after being shot, turns out to have a violent history of her own.”

  I grip the arm of the wheelchair with my good hand.

  “After pictures of the girl hit the national media following the brutal attack in an alley behind the gym where the couple trains, her stepmother and stepbrother came forward with a shocking allegation.”

  The footage cuts away to an image of Retta and Rich standing outside the old house where I once lived. Just seeing the front door makes sweat pop along my brow. Rich is leaning on a walking cane, his face screwed up like he’s in perpetual pain. With one glance, I already don’t buy it.

  He’s older now, but looks mostly the sa
me. Retta has dyed her hair black and fusses with it as the reporter points a microphone in her direction.

  “That ungrateful girl beat my poor boy senseless and stole half the things from our house,” Retta says.

  I leap from the wheelchair. “That’s a lie!”

  “Careful, Jo,” Buster says. “Settle down.” He pushes me back into the chair.

  Rich talks next. “When we saw she was a fighter, I finally understood how she got to me.”

  Right. He has to explain how his little sister took him down.

  Retta grabs at the mike. “Rich has been through three years of physical therapy for his injuries by that crazy girl. He can’t even work.”

  I want to snort. Like he ever worked. He managed to blow every interview Retta set up for him. On purpose, no doubt.

  “I hope they find her and make her pay for what she did to him. She’s dangerous. She needs to be locked up.” One of Retta’s false eyelashes comes loose on the end and flaps like a bird wing.

  “That’s enough,” The Cure says. Eve lifts the remote and shuts off the television.

  And everyone in the room turns to look at me.

  Chapter Seven

  Buster speaks first. “Is that the stepmother you mentioned?”

  I nod. I feel cornered. I don’t want to talk about all the things Rich did. And I know the answers to all the basic questions make me look bad. Yes, I beat him. Yes, I ran. No, I didn’t call for help. Yes, I left him to die on the floor.

  It’s like one of those moments in a movie when the hero is in the center of a circle of soldiers all aiming their swords at his throat.

  But I don’t have any heroic way of getting out of this one.

  “Jo?” Eve asks quietly. “What did that boy do to you?”

  My chin quivers. She gets it. She knows I wouldn’t blow without a reason.

  I glance over at the orderly. He whirls around and heads for the door. The hired guards are outside. In this room now, it’s just me and Buster and Colt’s parents. I am so grateful for Buster I could weep. I don’t know how I would be getting through this without him.

  “I think these are questions that can wait for another day,” Buster says. “Let’s get Jo back into bed. She’s not even a full day out on her surgery.”

  Eve stands up. “Come, Geoffrey. Let’s go check on Colt.” She watches Buster pull back the covers to the bed.

  I don’t really want to get in there, but I do. As much as I want to see Colt again, I don’t think I can do it with his father around.

  “Someone will bring your things from your room,” The Cure says. “I’ll work on finding a lawyer to go deal with the police so they won’t try barging in here.”

  I hug the covers to my chest. “Colt already hired one.”

  Eve raises her perfectly arched eyebrows. “So, he knew?”

  I nod.

  “I wonder who he brought on,” The Cure says. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  He’ll be back in Colt’s affairs. Just what Colt was trying to get out of when he broke away from the family corporation. I’m not sure I can do anything about it. I don’t know who he hired either. “Do you have his phone?” I ask.

  The Cure tugs it from his pocket. The screen is cracked, probably from the fight. “He’s got a lock code on it. If I have it wiped to get in, I lose the data.”

  I hold out my hand. “I might be able to figure out what it is.”

  The Cure stares at me like I’m a street kid begging for money. I pull back my arm.

  Eve takes the phone from him and walks it over. “Let us know what you find.” She squeezes my arm. “Take good care of her,” she says to Buster.

  And finally, they head out.

  Buster sits in the chair Eve used earlier. I press Colt’s phone against my chest, over my heart. It helps holding something that is his.

  “So, what is your real name?” Buster asks. He stares at the floor. The hospital lights gleam on his bald head.

  “Joanna Mahoney.” I hold tight to the phone. “I was born Joanna Barnes, but my stepmother made me change it to hers when my dad died.”

  “This boy, you roughed him up pretty bad?”

  “Yes.”

  “He deserve it?”

  “Yes.”

  Buster leans back in the chair. “Good enough for me.” His eyes meet mine. “Looks like The Cure is coming around.”

  “He didn’t offer me any money to head east.”

  Buster chokes on a laugh. “You’re probably costing him more than that Annie girl.”

  “You mean the because of the lawyer?”

  “He’s paying your hospital bill, too.”

  “Can he even do that? I’m not family.”

  “Sure. You’re the one who went down there and announced to everybody that you were Colt’s wife.” His eyes have a little sparkle to them now.

  “You heard about that?”

  “Killjoy is friends with one of the guards. They think you’re a little pistol. Not too many girls who would jump a pair of former heavyweight boxers.”

  “Why is this place crawling with men in black suits? You’d think The Cure was a mob boss.”

  Buster folds his hands behind his head. “You’re not far off. He’s got a lot of enemies, and his hands are in a lot of pockets.”

  “Why did you ever agree to let him take over your gym?” The covers are hot, so I kick them away.

  “The Cure helped me out once when I really needed it. I owed him one. More than one.”

  “He really used to train there?”

  “Sure. The Cure was just an upstart fighter then.”

  “Did he always manipulate people like he does now?”

  Buster laughs. “He was more of a charmer then. He had nothing. Came from nothing. Got by on pure grit.”

  “He told Colt that he didn’t want him to make the same mistakes he did. That’s why he bought off Annie and tried to buy me off.”

  Buster kicks out his legs and tries to get more comfortable in the chair. “His first wife sort of trapped him. I was there for that part.”

  I hold out Colt’s phone. I might have been a little cocky when I told The Cure I could guess the code. I don’t know enough about him to be certain. Heck, I don’t even know his birthday or the year he was born.

  But I do know the things he loves. How he wakes up. His lopsided dimples and all the ways his hazel eyes can change between green and brown.

  I press a button to wake up the phone. It asks me for his password.

  The image on the screen is disrupted by the crack, but I know it. It’s the picture from the first time Colt kissed me, when we got caught by the photographers after his engagement announcement.

  And that’s how I know his secret code.

  Kettle Belle.

  I’m in.

  Colt has a flood of text messages from people asking if he’s okay. I recognize a few as fighter names. There’s none from Brittany, so he really must have found a way to block her.

  I switch to his phone log. In the last few days before the attack, he has a long complex list of people helping him move his team to LA. Further back, almost all the calls are to me.

  I scroll to the day we first returned to Buster’s, when he said he would call the lawyer. I narrow it down to about three numbers. Good enough. I’ll call them later, or let Buster do it. I’m feeling drained and exhausted.

  Buster just watches me as I slip down the bed. I really am tired. And then I’m asleep.

  Chapter Eight

  “Jo?” A gentle hand squeezes my good arm. “Jo, can you wake up, dear?”

  For a crazy moment, I think the voice is my mother. She’s found me too. Somehow she knows it’s me even though she only saw me once, the day I was born.

  I open my eyes. The windows have been partially shuttered, so the room is dim. The woman by my bed is wrapped in scarves covering her hair and shoulders, like a goddess from another land.

  “It’s Eve,” Colt’s mother says. �
��I’ve come to take you to see Colt.”

  This jolts me awake. “Is he okay?”

  “They brought him out of the medical coma,” she says. “He’s all right. He’s asking about you.”

  I can’t push the covers off fast enough. My foot tangles in a blanket, and I fall roughly on my injured shoulder as I try to get out.

  “Careful, Jo,” Buster says. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Is he still in ICU?” I ask, dropping my feet to the floor.

  “Yes,” Eve says. “I don’t think they’ll discharge him to a normal room for a while yet.” She rolls the wheelchair close to my bed.

  “I don’t need that,” I say.

  “All right.”

  Eve picks up a shopping bag. “The hospital is still crawling with reporters,” she says. “Let’s adjust your look a little.” She reaches into an oversized handbag and retrieves a long white scarf. When she wraps it around my head, the lingering trace of an expensive perfume wafts down.

  Next she tugs out a silk robe, pale blue and shimmery, to cover my hospital gown. She slides my good arm inside and drapes the other side over my shoulder and sling.

  “That’s better,” she says. “I’m going to go on ahead of you now so that it’s not clear who you are. Johnny and Frank will take you down.” She squeezes my hand. “I’ll be there when you get there.”

  Eve opens the door to my room. “Give me about three minutes,” she says to the guards. “Then bring her down in the physician elevator.”

  She waves at Buster. “We’ll be back in a minute.”

  I try to force my head to clear as I sit and wait. My eyes are sticky. I swipe at them with the back of my hand. Dull pain pulses in my shoulder. With the IV gone, I’m not getting any pain medications by force, and I don’t want the pills. The pain is a reminder of what I’m up against. That I shouldn’t get too comfortable and let my guard down.

  I miss Zero. I miss regular life. For the millionth time in the last few days, I feel like crying.

  “It’s all going to be all right,” Buster says.

  God, he knows me already. This new me. The emotional me.