King's Wrath (Sydney Storm MC 5)

I listened to what he had to say as parts of my body I didn’t even fucking know existed knotted into balls of tension. When he finished, I roared, “Motherfucker! I’ll be there soon.”

“What’s wrong?” Annika asked, joining me outside.

I shoved my phone in my pocket and tried like fuck to contain my anger. It was a pointless fucking exercise, though, because nothing right now would do that. “Devil and Skylar have been in a crash. Some asshole rammed his car into them. Devil’s okay, but Skylar’s not.”

Her eyes widened with worry. “Oh God, what, King? How bad is she?”

“Devil’s not sure, but she’s conscious and still being a smartass, so my guess is it’s not life-threatening. But she’s in a lot of pain and Devil is pretty sure she’s got broken bones.” I raked my fingers through my hair as I forced some of the breath I’d been holding out. “I’m heading to the hospital now. Do me a favour and stay here. I don’t need anyone else to be worrying about today, okay?”

She nodded. “Let me know how she is as soon as you know.”

16

King

* * *

“Jesus fucking Christ, Devil!” I roared as I took in Skylar’s injuries. I’d arrived at the hospital ten minutes ago and had almost lost my fucking mind in the time it took me to get from the front door to where Skylar was in the emergency room. My heart pumped furiously as anger surged through my veins. Tony Romano would fucking pay for this.

“King! It wasn’t his fault.” Skylar tried to move, but her injuries caused her grief, and all she managed to do was scrunch her face in pain.

I moved closer to the bed, which only brought her wounds into sharper focus, causing another wave of fury to fill me. Swelling and bruises covered her face, neck, and arms, but it was what I couldn’t see that worried me the most.

Meeting Devil’s gaze, I demanded, “What have the doctors said? How bad is this?”

Regret blazed from his eyes. “Fuck, man, I’m fucking sorry this happened.”

Every muscle in my body tensed with the anger I couldn’t control. “I didn’t ask for a fucking apology, Devil. I asked what the doctors have said.” I wanted to fucking punch him. Rationally, I knew it wasn’t his fault, but he was all I had to direct my emotions at. Hell, I wanted to do more than punch him; I wanted to rip his fucking head from his body and beat the living shit out of him. But I didn’t. I held my shit together and waited. For what, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I would tear the world apart in order to inflict hurt on those who did this to her.

Skylar didn’t give Devil a chance to reply. She fixed a filthy glare on me and said, “I’m right here, and I’m capable of answering your questions. They think my hip is fractured. They’re going to do an X-ray to confirm and then I may need surgery. Other than that, they’ve given me some good drugs, and I’m fine.”

I ran my eyes over the black and blue marks on her skin. “You’re not fucking fine, Skye. You look like you’ve been through ten rounds with Rocky.” I had to give it to her, though—my sister was a fighter.

“Don’t exaggerate this, King. I mean, aren’t you the one who taught me to suck shit up and not be a pussy?”

Ignoring her, I concentrated my attention on Devil. “What the hell happened?”

I took in Devil’s only injury—a gash on his forehead— as he shoved his fingers through his hair and blew out a long breath. “I took the backstreets like we planned, but I don’t know, somehow they followed us. We were on Cyprus heading to Main Street when they rammed us.”

“You recognise them or the van?”

“I’ve never seen the van before, and the windows were dark, so I couldn’t see who it was. And they took off fast afterwards.”

“Fucking hell,” I muttered. “As if we don’t have enough shit to deal with.”

“You want me to get a start on trying to figure out who the hell was responsible for this?”

“Make some calls and get it in motion, but I don’t want you leaving this hospital. I want your eyes on Skylar at all times.” When his phone rang, I jerked my chin at the door. “Go take that. I’m staying for a bit.”

After he’d left us, Skylar said, “Don’t blame him, King,” before bursting into tears.

I didn’t need any more reasons to hate the people who did this to her, but I sure as fuck had another one now. My sister didn’t cry easily, so I knew by her tears just how shaken she was. And that concerned me because it meant Skylar’s anxiety could flare over this.

Touching her arm gently, I said, “I don’t.”

She glanced down at my hand on her and then looked back up at me, nodding. Her face crumpled as she tried to stop crying.

My skin felt like it could rip apart at any moment. There were too many fucking emotions thrashing around inside me. Emotions that I didn’t know what the fuck to do with. Add to that the fact I wanted to pull Skylar into my arms to console her but I couldn’t because fuck knew where she was hurt, and it was all fast becoming too much to deal with.