Doctor Hero by Madison Faye

Chapter Two

Jack

My blood burnslike fire in my veins, my jaw clenching tight as the growl rumbles deep in my chest.

Motherfucker.

This ain’t good, for a number of reasons. I guess the first one being that I’ve got two holes in my body that weren’t there when I woke up this morning. A couple more scars on the roadmap of my body—added to the rest of the collection from a lifetime of violence. The second one being the reason I’ve got these bullet holes in me.

Yeah, the mob doesn’t fuck around, especially when you tell Victor Lombardo you’re quitting without notice. You don’t spend your life killing for the mob and doing their dirty work and then just “quit,” or at least, you don’t do it easily, or with your head still attached by the time it’s over. And you definitely don’t do it the way I did, believe me.

I blink, and I grunt as the flashbacks begin to blaze through my head: the shouting, the escalation, the realization that I was not going to just walk out of that room. Victor’s guys are fast, but I’m faster, and by the time I went crashing through that second story plate-glass window onto the awning of the meat shop under it, six of Victor’s guys were lying dead on the floor.

I got out, but barely, and it’s not over by a fucking mile. I know by now, Victor’s guys have gotta be set up outside the airport, and definitely the train stations. They’re probably watching the local car rental spots too, and it’s a matter of time before his dragnet sweep of this city catches me up in it. It’s a matter of when, not if, of him and his men finding me here.

The handcuffs are a problem, but they’re not even third on the list of problems. I can pick these easy and get the fuck out of here right goddamn now. I can follow through with the plan, and get my shit, and get my ass to the airport. The forged passport cost me a small fortune, but it’s the only way I’m getting out of here. But, no, the handcuffs aren’t the problem.

A blood-thirsty mob boss looking for vengeance isn’t even my problem right now, nor are the wounds on my body. I’ve had worse, and wounds will heal. Victor can be outsmarted or shot down.

Nah, none of that shit is my biggest problem right now. Right now, my problem is her.

Aria.

I growl, my blood burning like diesel fuel through me as my pulse quickens. Waking up to her over me was like waking up to an angel. The last damn thing I remember is blood and pain and the sound of smashing metal. I’m bleeding out, and fading out, and as the darkness dims my vision, my last thought is just being so damn angry that I’m going to fade out like this, in a stupid fucking car crash, after a life of violence and gunfire.

But then I woke up to light, and goodness, and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, dressed in white. At first, I thought I was fucking dead, and that beyond all odds, I was in heaven. But even after my head cleared and I realized I was still with the living I might as well have been.

Aria Linetti.

I close my eyes, my hands clenching the rails of my hospital bed with iron grips. I growl deeply, my mind replying the soft and yet sassy sound of her voice, and those perfect, soft, full lips. The long dark hair, the gorgeous baby blue eyes. The full swell of her breasts under that white coat, and the curve of hips that simply begged for my hands that not even hospital scrubs could hide.

And just like it did before, my cock throbs between my legs. I groan, feeling the blood pump into it, making it swell and making my balls tingle as they fill with cum.

…No woman ever, anywhere, in my entire thirty years on this earth, has made me feel like this. Not a single woman has knocked my legs out from under me like this and gotten me so fucking deep and hooked into her in seconds like Aria has.

And so that’s my problem. It’s not the mob, it’s not my wounds, and it’s not that I’m chained to this bed. It’s that there’s no goddamn way I’m leaving here without her. It’s that I’ve laid eyes on the one thing I want more than anything else in this world.

Doctor Aria Linetti is going to be mine.

She just doesn’t know it yet.