Rise of the Notorious (35 page)

Beside her, Wyatt slipped on his fedora and wrapped his arm over her shoulders. “I know you like walking to this place, sweetheart, but maybe we should take a car, given the circumstances.”

Madison sniffed. “No. I enjoy the walk. Besides, it’s a beautiful day.”

“Suit yourself. Though I’d feel safer if we drove.” Wyatt let her lead the way down the sidewalk toward her favorite Italian restaurant, which was just one block east. He glanced around them anxiously, his eyes scanning the crowds that swarmed all around them. It was definitely a busy day to be out and about. All he wanted to do was get back inside where he could be sure she was safe.

“Wyatt, when are you going to move out of the hotel?” Madison asked suddenly, lifting her face up to his. “I know you’ve been paying your way even though you don’t have to. As my lover, I figure that entitles you to some perks.”

He grimaced, furious that she would even bring it up. “What, like last time? You can’t buy me, Madison. That’s not why I stick around.”

She bristled, irritated that he was upset over it. “Was it why you left, then?”

“No,” he stated flatly, tightening his grip on her as a tall, burly looking man approached them. The man met eyes with him and scowled, and just before he could pass Madison, Wyatt pulled her away protectively. As the man continued on, Madison stared up at Wyatt in annoyance.

“What was that about?” she demanded, fixing her ruffled dress from where he had grabbed her.

Wyatt stared over his shoulder at the man, who had continued on like nothing was wrong. He shook his head wearily. “I don’t know, I’m probably just losing my mind.”

“Did you think that guy was going to knife me or something?” she asked, amused as she watched him. He looked flustered and bitter, a combination she found delightful. “Tell me, who else is going to kill me, Wyatt? That little old lady over there in the gabardine sweater? The young man with the briefcase? Oh! Do you think it’s a bomb?” She whispered the last part, her smile wicked.

“Shut up.” He glowered, though he still didn’t let go of her. “I’m just being cautious. You don’t know what it’s like to live with danger.”

“Oh, and you do?” she snorted, rolling her eyes. “Please, humor me, Wyatt. Where have you been that was so dangerous?”

He looked down at her then, his expression completely serious. “Bogotá, Columbia. I pissed off the leader of one of the cartels in a game of cards and they put a hit out on me.”

She eyed him incredulously. “Sure you did.”

“I’m not kidding, sweetheart,” he replied, his eyes hardening to steel. “There’s a lot of things about me you don’t know.”

That got her, and she pouted slightly as she looked away.

She lost herself in thought over his words and didn’t see the stranger approach her head on. She saw a flash of red from the hoodie the person wore as they walked quickly toward her, head lowered and face hidden from sight by sunglasses. The crowd around them shifted and moved, distracting her so that she didn’t see the gun when it was drawn.

But Wyatt did.

He yanked Madison out of the way and stepped in front of her the second the shot rang out, the resounding pop horrifyingly loud and unmistakable. The people all around them let out a collective shout and scream of shock, several people dropping to the ground while others ran. Some remained where they were, confused by the noise and unsure what had happened. Disorder reigned as the person in the red hoodie took off at a run, escaping up the street.

Wyatt didn’t see if anyone bothered to follow them. Instead he felt a blinding, hot pain in his side and pressed his hand against his shirt, seeing the blood as he pulled it away. His vision went blurry from the throbbing shock of it as he fell to his knees.

Madison froze, the world around her in chaos as she felt Wyatt crumble beside her. She stared down at him, confused, and saw the blood. Her face went white as a sheet.

“Oh, my God,” she managed as she collapsed down with him, her eyes on the blood that poured out of him and onto her hands, staining them a violent red. Her eyes met his for one sick, horrific moment, and she could have killed him for smiling at her.

“It’s just a flesh wound,” he huffed, his breathing labored and strained from the pain. He let her hold him, too shocked to do more than lay there.

“You goddamn bastard,” she snarled, tears springing into her eyes as she glared at him. “You took a bullet for me.”

“Don’t get all sentimental on me, sweetheart. Just call 911.” His head fell back against her shoulder, his eyes closing.

“Already doing it,” she told him, her cell phone in her hand and a determined resolve forming in her eyes. She pushed back the shock, the panic, the tears, and did what she did best: she handled the situation.

She looked up at the crowd that was gaping at her in alarm and shock and sighed as more than a few photographs were snapped off.

She vowed to punch that bastard with the camera in the face the second Wyatt was safe.

S
he rode with him in the ambulance. All it took was one molten-hot glare for the paramedics to throw up their hands and welcome her onboard.

  Her bloodstained hand stayed in Wyatt’s as the paramedics stemmed the bleeding, the bullet’s entry point a neat hole in his left side. They would need to dig out the slug at the hospital. Until then, all they could do was stabilize him.

Madison avoided her lover’s eyes, and instead stared pointedly at the two paramedics who worked on him. She followed their movements, her jaw clenched and her amber eyes harsh and measuring. One slip up, one accidental faltering of a hand that brought Wyatt more pain, and she’d kill them.

He squeezed her hand, albeit weaker than normal, and brought her eyes down to his. His cocky smile was enough to both piss her off and bring on a rush of relief. He wasn’t dead. In fact, he was just as much of an asshole as ever.

“Are you going to hang out at my bedside day and night? Spoon feed me soup and sneak me beer?” he joked, pleased to see she hadn’t shed a tear, hadn’t broken down. She was too strong for that.

“No,” she replied coolly, one eyebrow arching. “That beer might leak out of the bullet hole you took for me.”

He only continued to smile, though there was an edginess to it now. “Better me than you, sweetheart.”

“Better neither of us,” she reasoned, anger flashing brilliantly over her face, darkening her eyes and curling her lips fiercely. Wyatt only watched her intently, wishing he had more to say. Wishing he could make the demons plaguing her disappear.

Minutes later, the ambulance came to a stop and the paramedics began to unload. Madison was forced to release his hand as they pulled out the stretcher, extending the legs down to the asphalt. They rushed him inside the hospital without a word to her, and she watched them go with murder in her eyes.

Within an hour,
Grant and Linc were at her side in the hospital waiting room. They hovered over her protectively, nervously glancing around as if the boogeyman was going to come out of the walls with a knife and stab her in the heart. She let them be, pleased by their concern more than she was annoyed by it.

As much as she wanted to believe she could take care of herself, she had to acknowledge that she clearly couldn’t. Had Wyatt not been walking with her, had he not seen the gun, would she have noticed it? Or would she have taken that fated bullet in the stomach and bled to death in the street while cameras flashed off all around her and people screamed in shock and fear?

Her breath rushed out of her lungs then as the thought hit her. The cameras. There had been people taking photographs during and after the shooting. It was very possible that someone caught a photo of the stranger in the red hoodie. It was also likely that the press had gotten ahold of one of these photos.

When she jumped to her feet and launched herself at the nearby wall mounted television set, currently showing
I Love Lucy
re-runs, her brothers watched her warily. She reached up and began flipping through the channels, searching for some kind of afternoon news. When she landed on one, she backed away and stared intensely at the screen.

The newscaster, a solidly built man with flawless olive skin and perfectly groomed jet black hair, was busy rattling on about an incident on the subway between two homeless men. She continued to watch impatiently as an image of her face suddenly popped up beside the reporter, and he launched into a discussion of the shooting.

“
A shot was fired just outside The Vasser Hotel earlier today, in what police are presuming to be an assassination attempt on Madison Vasser, the hotel heiress who recently made headlines with her bold press conference where she admitted to knowing of her grandfather, Cyrus Vasser’s, crimes.

“One man was wounded and was taken immediately to the hospital. The suspect fled the scene, but has been described as wearing a red hoodie sweatshirt. No arrests have been made at this time. We are waiting to learn more information from authorities, however, several witnesses managed to get pictures of the event, including this one of the suspect.
”

Madison’s eyes narrowed as she watched a photograph flash over the screen, showing the shooter several yards away, running with their head down. She studied the image while the reporter continued on about how eyewitness accounts seemed to vary over whether the shooter was male or female, white or Hispanic, blonde or brunette.

They then shot to a reporter on the scene, who had managed to snag the old lady in the gabardine sweater that Madison had noticed right before the shot was fired. Madison clenched her teeth as she listened to the jittery and frail gray-haired woman recount the event as she remembered it.

“
I-I saw Madison and that boyfriend of hers, but I didn’t think any-th-thing of it. I’m staying at the Vasser Hotel for a week visiting my daughter…can’t believe this happened…I should check out of the hotel…
”

The reporter’s eyes flashed with both sympathy and glee. “
Did you see the shooter? Can you describe him?
”

“
Her…I saw her, briefly,
” the woman corrected him, shooting a nervous glance at the camera. “
The hood covered her face, but her hands were…delicate. It was a woman, I have no doubt.
”

Madison felt a hand fall over her shoulder, squeezing gently. She turned her head and met Grant’s gaze, rage a smoldering fire hot in her belly. His expression was hard to read, but she caught a trace of pity in his eyes.

“The police will find who did this,” Grant told her, his voice calm and collected. It only infuriated her more.

“Like they found Kennedy?” she snapped coldly. “She’s still out there somewhere, alive or dead, and all this has done is piss me off further. Quinn almost died, Wyatt’s been shot, and it’s all because someone out there has a vendetta against
me
. Not either of them, not you, not Linc, no one. Just me. And if that old woman is correct and isn’t off her medication and the shooter is a woman, not a man, then there’s only one likely suspect here.”

“Who?” Linc came up beside Grant, his movements cagey and restless. “You can’t mean…”

“Jorja,” Madison confirmed, eyeing them both fiercely. “She may not be behind all of this, but I have to believe that she’s at least a player in whatever the hell is going on.”