Burned Hearts (Burned 3)

“Christ, Ari,” came his tormented voice, loud and clear. “Are you all right?”

“Amano’s worse off. Forrester is on his way. Damn, Dane, I can’t watch you traversing all this traffic.”

I set aside the mini and heaved onto the stone floor.

“Chica!” Rosa scolded.

r />

I screamed again.

“All right,” she grumbled. “If you must. I have to clean up all this blood, anyway.”

She was a strange bird, but I loved her.

“Ari?” Dane demanded, since I hadn’t turned off the speaker or switched to Kyle’s system or whatever the hell I was supposed to do so that Dane didn’t have to hear me wail.

“I’m still alive.” Just drowning in pain and misery.

Luckily, Forrester and his staff came through the door minutes later. Apparently, he had the gate code. As had Ethan.

Damn it!

“Ari,” Dr. Forrester said as he crossed to where I was propped up against the credenza.

I pointed to the other end of it. “Amano needs you.”

Dr. Forrester saw to him, with one of the assistants, while the other tended to me.

“Don’t you get tired of this?” I asked him, remembering him from the estate, after Tom Talbot had shot Dane and Kyle.

The assistant asked, “Don’t you?”

“You have no idea,” I said on a wisp of air. My breathing had turned shallow.

“I’m Stan, by the way. And this is going to hurt. Sorry.”

My eyes squeezed shut for a moment. “More than it already does?”

“Yeah. For a little while.”

He started in on me, I cried out again, and then …

Nothing.

* * *

I woke with a start. And another bloodcurdling scream.

“I gave you something for the pain,” Stan instantly said. “You shouldn’t be in so much of it now.”

That wasn’t the problem. “I blacked out.”

“It’s been like twenty, thirty minutes. The bullet wasn’t difficult to get to. You’re stitched up.”

He’d also settled me on the sofa in the great room.

“Where’s Amano?” I demanded.