The Cardinal Bird - Book 1: Reverse Harem Series (The Cardinal Series) Read online

  Cauterize and go? No big deal.

  Soak me in a puddle and risk another staph infection? Put me out of my misery.

  When I swung my legs over the side of the bed, the same struggles followed, needing to lube up my joints a bit before I could articulate them well enough to stand. I started to walk over to the rolling table but only got so far before the lines pulled tautly. I unhooked the IV needle from the tube so that I could keep it in my hand, and then began yanking off the jumble of wires. The heart monitor made a continuous beep, flat-lining.

  I had just enough time to pick up the clipboard of paperwork and stop at the top document with a picture of my unconscious face on it when the door was thrown open. I literally froze, red-handed with the clipboard still in my hand.

  Brock was there, taking up the entire doorway like a dark angel of doom, eclipsing the light from the hallway with his impressive, black-clad bulk. His winter-gray eyes were a snowstorm of emotions too strong and fast to guess at. As before, when they took in the scene and stopped on mine, I could feel it like his gaze was a physical thing.

  I slowly put the clipboard down and consciously made myself put the IV needle alongside it. Brock and the others had risked their lives to save me. They still were risking themselves just by associating with me. It let me know without a doubt that they were people I could trust.

  Brock’s eyes followed my actions. The first item made him frown, but the second item...the second item got a much stronger, more complex reaction. It was telling though that he didn't ask about it. It meant he understood.

  "You're not dead," he said.

  You're not dead. How did one respond to that? 'No, I'm not...surprise?'

  "You unplugged your heart monitor," Brock continued, seeming to deduce things that seemed somewhat random to me.

  "Yes, how did you know?"

  "I could hear it."

  "Through the door?"

  He kept his gaze on my face. "How do you think I heard you in the tank?"

  His boots made a loud rhythm as he stepped farther into the room. It was so different from the sound of his footsteps crossing that metal lid, but I could still picture the darkness, the bloody halo of golden blonde hair, and just past that, Brock's face wearing the same wary expression that he was now. And why wouldn't I be able to picture it? It pretty much was yesterday to me, since I had been unconscious after that.

  It felt like I had lived a year in two days.

  Brock nodded at the bed. "You shouldn't be up. You'll hurt yourself. More than you already are."

  I went back to sit down when the nurse returned. Her face was frantic until she saw me. Then she deflated the worry out in a deep sigh. "Oh, Callie. You scared me. One of the nurses tracked me down when they said you coded out." She came up and helped me into the bed. She looked apologetic. "Normally they would be in here, but we have the strictest orders that you aren't to be visited by anyone, and no unauthorized nurses are to be in here. Only two nurses in the building, Nicole, my girlfriend as well as the night-shift nurse, and I can come in here."

  That fact actually made me smile. If Karl was making sure that there were only two seemingly well-vetted nurses assigned to me, then I wouldn't have to worry as much about being killed in my sleep by an imposter. Hopefully.

  Realizing that the nurse was still rambling out apologies and outcries at the absurdity of the whole situation even as she helped reattach me to all of the machines, I tried to reassure her. "It's okay. It's for my protection. It will keep me much safer this way."

  I kept up a string of platitudes to match her litany of wrongdoings until mine eventually canceled hers out and there was only a tiny trickle of grumbles. A small smile lit my face as she calmed down. It had been strangely satisfying to be able to do something kind for such a nice person. And she was a nice person. I could see that now once my trust in the guys had allowed for me to assess her without paranoia-colored glasses.

  The whole time she was fussing over me, I tried my best to ignore the silent, watchful eyes from the wall Brock had propped himself against like a shadow. I had the sneaking suspicion that he was letting no small action go unnoticed.

  "Oh," the nurse gasped while she had been helping me to some ice chips. Luckily enough, it was ice and not water otherwise I may have choked when she startled. "I forgot to introduce myself! I've gotten so used to talking to you while you were sleeping, that I feel like I know you. My skills are indeed getting rusty in my years."

  Brock snorted, the first visible...or I guess auditory...reaction he had given since she entered the room.

  She either didn't hear or didn't acknowledge. "My name is Ms. Hannah Emerson. Please, call me Ms. Hannah."

  I’d figured she was the name in the greeting on the whiteboard, but it was nice to confirm.

  "Nice to meet you," I said after a short pause. My social skills were diminutive at best. Nikolai had learned early on that I wasn't any good at subterfuge, though he had tried his best to make it ingrained through sheer force alone. It had never worked. I was too unaccustomed to socializing by the time he had kidnapped me...well…since he had kidnapped me from my first kidnapper three years ago at the tender age of 16. I couldn't lie to save my life.

  Ms. Hannah's smile was nice and proper. She squeezed my hand gently. "It's so nice to meet you as well. Officially. It's been a rough week caring for you, but not because you're a cantankerous, wily patient that likes to try my temper," her smile was soft, and her gaze distant, clearly thinking of someone or more than one someone in particular that fit that description. She was fond of even her "difficult" patients.

  She shook her head with a smile that was slightly sad now. "No, with you, it's been difficult because you...well, you're so...and all of...it's just so wrong! You...Nicole and I have been bathing you, and we've both...the things we saw--" her eyes teared up.

  Though it made me supremely uncomfortable, I reached out and squeezed her hand like she had mine. The ice chips had done wonders, so my voice was strong when I said, "It's fine. Don't worry about it. I'm still here. I'm okay."

  Ms. Hannah let out a watery laugh, dabbing at her eyes. "My grandson says I get too emotionally invested in my work. He says it will drive me insane one day. He may be right. But...I think the day I become emotionally uninvested is the day I need to quit nursing. There are too many nurses that do it out of necessity, but I want to remember that my patients are people with lives and loved ones."

  "That's very noble," I said, feeling lower than low. I had done things from behind my computer screen that had affected countless people's lives. I'd turned off my emotions to it the best I could to try to forget the people on the other side of it. To protect myself. And here was Ms. Hannah, a nurse that helped people for a living, sacrificing her own emotional health to make sure she remembered.

  Ms. Hannah patted my shoulder. "If you could convince my grandson of that, maybe he'd believe me."

  "I'm sure he believes that," I said. "He probably is just concerned about you. You care for all of these people. Who worries about you?"

  "Indeed," she said carefully. "And who worries about you?"

  People flashed through my mind that I had tried to forget. I fiddled with the freshly hooked-up IV line. I definitely avoided meeting any winter-gray eyes. "Me," I said, not sure if I was able to hide all of the disgust from my voice when I said it.

  "What a tiring life," Ms. Hannah said sagely, also avoiding the dark, observant shadow still propped up against the far wall. "Though...I think you may not be the sole person filling that role now."

  I adamantly fought the reactive blush, keeping my eyes on my hands. Brock didn't even fidget, and there was no way I was looking up to see if he was blushing as well. He probably didn't even have the ability to, the lucky person.

  "Once this protection detail gets lifted, I could introduce you to my grandson, Payton. Then maybe he could divide up his time worrying about both of us. You'd get another person watching your back, and I'd get a break!" She winked at me. "It's the least you can do since I've been taking such good care of you. Us girls have to stick together, you know."

  I found myself returning Ms. Hannah's smile. "Sounds like a plan."

  Her smile shifted from sisterly to grandmotherly. "You'd like him. He's a very nice young man. He's smart and sweet and respectful and..."

  "Completely embarrassed that I'm 22, and my grandmother is still trying to set me up on dates," a strong, commanding voice added from the doorway.

  "Sorry?" Ms. Hannah grinned in a completely unrepentant way. She turned to me and whispered, "Busted."

  Chapter 18

  Before I could get a good look at her grandson, Ms. Hannah was ushering him out of the room and scolding him about protocol. He let himself be walked along as he chided back about badgering grandmothers that stuck their noses where they didn't belong.

  It was silent for a moment.

  I looked over to Brock to make sure he was still breathing or something. He was still zeroed in on me, so that stopped my glance in a flat-second. I looked away immediately and went back to fiddling with my IV. However, my eyes were unconsciously drawn right back when Brock uncrossed his arms and stepped towards me.

  I wished that Ms. Hannah had left the ice chips a little closer because my mouth felt dry.

  Brock stopped when he got to the edge of the bed, towering there as he studied my face. After a long moment, he said, "You feel guilty, but I can't figure out why."

  I resisted the urge to gulp but only just. How could he have read that in my face?

  He let it go after a moment of silence. “How are you feeling?"

  I thought my mental analogy earlier had been pretty accurate, so I decided to use it. "Like my muscles have been wrapped in sandpaper."

  "Well, you were shot and infected so badly that it killed you," Brock arched an eyebrow as he paused for emphasis. "Twice."

  "It killed me?" I asked, my eyes big. Ms. Hannah had said I was touch and go, but...to have died?

  Brock nodded at my question. "You flatlined once in surgery, and then once later in the night when you were put in this room."

  Was that why Brock had been on a rampage? Was that why he had stormed in earlier? Had he been listening for that specific noise from the heart monitor because he had heard it before?

  So many questions, but his eyes gave nothing away.

  There was a knock on the door that Brock answered. It was a rolling cart with food. My mouth was watering an embarrassing amount as I locked on the food. Like I'd told Dr. Scott over the phone, it had been a while since I'd had anything other than water and crackers—other than that mouth-watering wrap Karl had given me.

  As soon as the tray was situated over the bed in front of me, I dug in with gusto. It disappeared so fast that I could hardly tell what it was that I'd eaten. I was valiantly trying to get the last drops of juice up through a bendy straw.

  "Stop that," Brock said.

  I took the straw out, immediately cutting off the slurping sound that I hadn't noticed in my efforts to get the last succulent drop of sweet juice up. “Sorry, I was hungry.”

  Brock sighed and ran a hand over his face. “That’s fine. I’ll get you as much food as you want. You just don’t have to suck down the juice like it’s the last drop on Earth.”

  "Who's guarding the door?" I asked.

  "Jace," Brock said, then he frowned. "I think."

  "You think?" I asked. It would be hard to get him confused. Jace was six feet tall and beach-babe handsome.

  "Well," Brock rubbed at the back of his neck and shrugged. "He didn't have a computer."

  I realized then what he meant. "Is that really the only way you can tell them apart?" I asked curiously.

  "How do you tell them apart, dušo?"

  It was my turn to shrug. If I wasn't willing to point out the darkness in Jace’s eyes in front of CJ, I certainly wasn't going to do it now.

  "Jace smells like..."

  "Sweat? B.O.? Stinky socks?" Brock prodded, a slight smirk on his face.

  "Like oranges," I said. "But...synthetic oranges, like a cleaner or something..."

  "Hand cleaner," Brock said, an eyebrow raised. "He uses Gojo goop to clean the spray paints off his hands."

  I got the feeling that I’d surprised or impressed Brock somehow.

  There was a knock on the door before it immediately opened. Karl came in. "CJ told me you were awake," he said by way of greeting.

  "CJ? How the f—heck did CJ know? I thought that was Jace outside," Brock said in his deep, gravelly voice.

  "Well, Jace...maybe CJ...one of the Messrs. Tate found out, and then called the other Mr. Tate, who was unavailable. So, they called Aleks and somehow Aleks tracked the other Mr. Tate down. This other Mr. Tate—being the only smart one apparently out of that whole chain of Delta-trained people—remembered to notify me...you know, the CIA agent in charge of the whole operation?!"

  Delta-trained? CIA?

  "Are you okay?" Brock asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

  "Who me? What? Why? What do you know?" Karl asked distractedly from his pacing.

  "You mentioned the Delta in front of Callie, and judging by the expression on her face when you said it, she definitely noticed."

  I averted my gaze and tried to blank my expression as Karl's head swung in my direction, but I don't think I portrayed a very good clueless person. Brock was watching me, a small, proud smirk on his face.

  "Forget Delta, you can try to figure out our secrets later." Karl pushed his way into the other spot at the side of my bed. He leaned close, his gaze startlingly intense. "Callie, this is important. This is vitally important."

  "You're scaring her," Brock grumbled, and indeed he was right. The heart monitor was picking up its pace.

  I looked around the room, scanning for exits. By the unhindered view of the sky out the window, we were pretty high up. That wasn't a feasible escape option...unless I stripped the bed sheets and tied them together to make a rope...

  "Callie. Listen to me," Karl grabbed up my hand in both of his, his eyes holding mine captive. "It's not Nikolai, but men are about to walk through that door there to take you."

  Brock gave a very alarmed and colorful response to that statement, but Karl carried on.

  "I don't know how, but the CIA found out that you were awake and here. I wanted time with you to ask you questions before they took you, that's why you're here. I was able to convince them that moving you was life-threatening, and it was. Five days ago. I've been waiting for you to wake up so that we could ask you questions. Maybe clear your name... But the deal was they could have you once you regained consciousness. We had to use CIA resources to get the extradition papers through. They put me in charge of the extraction as long as I handed you over. But that was all agreed to before we knew you. You’re not who we thought you were. And…I don't know who, and I don't know how, but they know you're awake and they're coming to get you."

  "Why?" I asked, my eyes following Brock as he dispersed. He first went to the door, peeking out the small window. Then, he moved to look out and down at the street.

  "Because they want to question you. You're the first person, alive, that we could tie to the man named Ivanov. They want to pick your brain," Karl said.

  That wasn't so bad. If the CIA was on Nikolai’s trail, maybe they would be able to get the right people together to take him down. Why was that such a bad thing? The answer was, it wasn't. That wasn't why Karl was so upset, spilling about this Delta organization they seemed to belong to.