Go All In (A Go Novel Book 4) Read online

  Opening her arms, Ophelia was about to thrust Clyde out of the way when Harlow noticed the sparkle on her hand. Reaching for the precious rock, she pulled Ophelia’s hand down before she could think about hugging her or blocking Clyde.

  “We’re going to need that back,” Harlow said, squeezing Ophelia’s hand as she tugged the ring from it.

  “Wh… what?”

  Once Harlow had the ring, she admired it for a moment and then held it toward Rupert. “You’re going to need the money… I don’t need it anymore.” Ophelia squawked. “Yeah,” Harlow said, scratching her earlobe. “That was a hand-me-down.”

  It wasn’t her intention to humiliate Ophelia; that was just a nice side benefit.

  “Harlow, I don’t understand why—”

  “It doesn’t matter, Ophelia. We’re business partners,” Harlow said and picked up her hand to pat it. “We’re stuck with each other and that’s that.”

  Clyde was the only one who seemed to be as amused as her. Rupert was holding the engagement ring, probably still trying to fathom why Ophelia had it. The engagement ring had been lying around. It was a good prop, hence why it was used.

  Ophelia snatched her hand back. “Where’s Ryske?” she asked, her jaw tight.

  Dropping her smile, Harlow feigned solemnity. “He’s dead.”

  Also by Scarlett Finn

  GO NOVELS

  GO WITH IT

  GO IT ALONE

  GO ALL OUT

  GO ALL IN

  EXILE

  HIDE & SEEK

  KISS CHASE

  THE BRANDED SERIES

  BRANDED

  SCARRED

  MARKED

  THE KINDRED SERIES

  RAVEN

  SWALLOW

  CUCKOO

  SWIFT

  FALCON

  FINCH

  THE EXPLICIT SERIES

  EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION

  EXPLICIT DETAIL

  EXPLICIT MEMORY

  RISQUÉ SERIES

  TAKE A RISK

  RISK IT ALL

  GAME OF RISK

  HARROW DUET

  FIGHTING FATE

  FIGHTING BACK

  MISTAKE DUET

  MISTAKE ME NOT

  SLEIGHT MISTAKE

  STANDALONE ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

  RELUCTANT SUSPICION

  RESCUED

  STANDALONE CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

  GETTING TRICKY

  HEIR’S AFFAIR

  MAESTRO’S MUSE

  REMEMBER WHEN…

  RIVALS ON AIR

  SWEET SEAS

  THIRTEEN

  XY FACTOR

  Copyright © 2019 Scarlett Finn

  The right of Scarlett Finn to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  First published in 2019

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  1

  “Where is she?”

  Whoever he was, he was mad. That was the first thought Harlow Sweeting remembered having. Opening her eyes, she was faced with blinding light that made her eyes close again.

  Cutting through the white noise impeding her senses, his voice rose once more. “You don’t get the fuck out my way and I’ll—”

  “We sedated her,” a calmer male voice said. “She was as manic as you. What the hell were you thinking, staying in there? You could’ve got yourself killed. How would I have explained that to her when she woke up? Do you think she would’ve bought it? After what we did when you got shot?”

  No, probably not. Wait… Harlow replayed that thought, then dismissed it as unimportant. “Staying in there…” that felt important.

  Her head was groggy; her body ached. She couldn’t focus. The calm guy had said something about sedation. From the way she was feeling, he must have been talking about her.

  “I need to see her, Bale.”

  “Ryske—”

  “She’ll be better if you let me get to her.”

  The aggravated guy was trying to sound calm so that the calm one would buy his story. She wasn’t buying it. Ryske was—

  Sitting up fast, Harlow gasped in clarity. “Ryske,” she breathed out.

  With frantic haste, she threw back the covers that were over her, desperate to get out of the bed that was holding her prisoner.

  Yanking at the wires on her chest, she pulled the tube from her nose and ripped off the tape that was on her hand, holding the IV in place. Machine alarms began to go crazy. She didn’t care. All she wanted was freedom.

  Opening her mouth in reaction to the sensation of metal sliding beneath her skin, she eased the needle from her arm. Someone took hold of her shoulders and tried to push her down.

  “Take your hands off me,” she snarled at the male who was uniformed like some sort of medical professional. Taken aback by her wild words that came out like a threat, he froze. Raising the needle she’d just pulled from her arm, she held it like a dagger. “Touch me again and I’ll jam this in your fucking eye.”

  “Trink!”

  Whipping around, she saw him fifteen feet from the bed, blocked by Bale who was trying in vain to contain his brother.

  “Crash,” she screamed and leaped out of bed, leaving the medical man stuttering in shock.

  Dashing toward Ryske, overjoyed that he was there, safe… The world began to spin, bringing her to a sudden halt.

  “Shit, she’s going down,” someone said just a fraction of a second before her knees buckled.

  But she didn’t go down. Two strong arms came around her, capturing her, saving her from collapse.

  Although her vision was unfocused and her body weighed a ton, Harlow knew who held her. “Crash,” she whispered.

  “I’ve got you, baby,” he said, sweeping her feet from under her and carrying her back to the bed.

  “You tried to leave me,” she mumbled. “You didn’t come out… asshole.”

  One of his arms slid out from under her legs. Terrified that he was an illusion and she might lose him again, Harlow grabbed for the arm at the back of her neck before he could pull it free.

  “I am an asshole, baby. You’re right.” His mouth touched her forehead. “You’re always right. Dover needed me.”

  That made her think of not only Ryske, but the others too. “What happened?”

  Ryske eased her back down when she tried to sit up. “Everyone is fine, baby. They’re all back at Bale’s.”

  “Where you have to go too,” Bale said. “Ryske, you’ve gotta go. You have to. Her parents are on their way. You’re not supposed to be in here with her.”

  “Shit,” Ryske hiss
ed. “Fuck, baby, I don’t want to leave you again. But if I don’t—”

  “Proxy,” she breathed out, letting her head fall against his shoulder.

  Bone-tired, she couldn’t keep her head up. Harlow didn’t know what had happened. The details were fuzzy. After collapsing on Maze, she had a vague recollection of EMTs and panic, and then… this.

  “Goddamnit, you’re right,” Ryske said.

  “Right about what?” Bale asked.

  Too tired to lift her head and check, Harlow made a guess that the doctor was the one putting the wire back on her chest and the tube in her nose.

  Ryske breathed out a laugh. “I’m her medical proxy. I have power of attorney,” he said. “Every decision about her is mine.”

  Bale made a sound of disgust. “Wow, Ryske, I never thought I’d see the day that you’d con Harlow.” His volume lowered and his voice got closer. “Why does a perfectly healthy woman sign power of attorney and medical proxy—”

  “She did it while she was in jail,” Ryske said. “Yeah, that shut you up… She wanted someone on the outside who could act on her behalf.”

  “And she chose a con man who wasn’t even her boyfriend at the time?”

  “A man who would walk through hellfire for her, yeah,” Ryske said.

  “Still doesn’t change the fact that her family are on the way… Don’t they think you’re engaged to someone else? Wait, don’t they think you’re someone else entirely?”

  “I want him here,” she said, touching Ryske’s chest.

  The bed was angled up to a seated position. Ryske’s arm was around her shoulder, so he had to be sitting next to her. The awkward twist of his upper body suggested an uncomfortable position, half-on, half-off the bed. With one leg straight to the floor keeping him supported, he couldn’t be relaxed.

  But she needed him close, and tried her best to open her eyes wider to see more. Harlow wanted to stay with him for as long as she could.

  “She wants me here.”

  “Yeah, and if you’re medical proxy, you’re allowed to be here. How are you going to explain that to her family? Why would a man who’s engaged to someone else be sitting by Harlow’s bedside? What story—”

  “You think I can’t come up with something?” Ryske snapped. “If Harlow wants me here, I’m staying.”

  “Are you injured, Crash?”

  Though her head was still spinning and her chest tight, she pushed away and did her best to check him for injuries. He was wearing hospital scrubs, which if she was more awake, she might consider quite hot.

  His face was dirty with smeared soot that was thick in his hair too. Everything he’d touched had a mark on it: her hospital gown, the bedsheets… Harlow wasn’t complaining. Getting him into the scrubs was probably as much of a battle as Bale was willing to take on. A shower would’ve kept them apart for longer than Ryske would’ve tolerated.

  “I’m not hurt, baby,” Ryske said and tried to guide her back down against him.

  She pushed on him and sat straighter, sweeping her hair away from her face. “Where are my clothes?” she asked and coughed.

  Bale leaped closer. “Harlow, you’re not going anywhere,” the doctor said, checking the monitors next to her bed.

  “How did you know I wanted to—”

  “Because I’ve been this crew’s doctor for a long time. I know how stubborn all of you are,” Bale said. “You have to stay here. For, at least, the next forty-eight hours.”

  Shaking her head, she started to kick at the bedcovers. Somehow, they’d found their way over her again. “I have plans on Saturday.”

  “Plans? Are you nuts?” Bale asked, looking to Ryske for support when she let her legs slip off the edge of the bed. The doctor caught them and tried to put them back onto the mattress.

  Impulse made her kick out. “Don’t touch me!”

  “Hey,” Ryske said in a tone so smooth that it startled her.

  Leaning over, he scooped a hand around the curve of her thigh and slid it up slowly, taking her limbs from Bale and easing them back onto the bed. His hand went higher, gathering her hospital gown from her thigh to let him caress her ass. It was only when he reached the curve of her hip that he allowed his hand to move over the top of the material to continue up to her ribs.

  He planted a straight arm on the bed by her ribs, beneath her arm. Harlow found herself under him, her upper body trapped beneath his.

  Thinking about why it was necessary for her to get up and move, Harlow opened her mouth to tell him that she wanted to leave. Except she didn’t get a chance to say anything. His mouth closed over hers, stealing her words. Every need she’d ever had in her life became about the twine of his tongue around hers.

  He tasted dirty, or maybe it was her. There was a grittiness to their charcoal kiss. Given what they’d been through that night, she couldn’t expect anything else. Skimming her hands up his arms, Harlow lost her fingers in the hair at the back of his head.

  “Ryske, you’ve got to be careful, man. She’s on oxygen.”

  Easing back, Ryske brushed his nose across hers. “She can have mine.”

  Heaviness overtook her. Using all of her energy, Harlow managed to shake her head in a rocking motion on the pillow. “You’re not allowed to leave me again.”

  “Never,” Ryske said, trailing his lips across hers.

  Turning her nails into his scalp, she wished she could keep him this close forever. “I want to get married,” she whispered.

  His surprise made him recoil a couple of inches.

  As Ryske’s lips curled to a smile, the doctor mumbled, “I better check her oxygen levels. She must have a low tolerance for sedation.”

  “If you want to get married, Trink,” Ryske said, tracing the back of his fingers from her jaw down her neck. “We’ll get married.”

  Nodding, she closed her eyes and tucked her head against his shoulder when he scooped an arm around her and twisted to rest at her side.

  “I thought you guys weren’t even together,” she heard Bale say.

  “Her guard drops when she’s drained,” Ryske said. “She’s always been this way… Easiest time to get in her panties is when she’s tired.”

  Slipping a hand under the end of his shirt, she dragged her nails across his tattoo. “Is this the hospital you died in?”

  “Yeah, baby,” Ryske said and kissed the top of her head. “Don’t worry about that.”

  “None of the EMTs were the same,” Bale said. “And you’ve been admitted, so you’re upstairs from the ER… The idiot wasn’t in the hospital long enough to make an impression. I kept everyone out of his room.”

  “Anyone does recognize me, I’ll tell them I have a twin and get emotional about my loss.”

  She smiled and tipped her chin up to look at him. “I was pretty devastated when you died. Less than a year later I’m supposed to be screwing your brother?”

  Ryske’s attention rose to narrow on Bale who was somewhere behind her. “She’s talking about me, doc. Don’t get ideas.”

  Bale’s quiet laugh helped to relax her. “She was pretty vulnerable… I could’ve slipped in there—”

  “You think about slipping anything in anywhere, even after I’m dead, and I’ll leave instructions for you to be gutted.”

  Bale’s next laugh was louder. “We’ve already drawn straws on who gets to take over after we’ve wiped you out.”

  Sighing, she wouldn’t have expected to feel so content after what had transpired that night. “Sorry, doc,” she murmured, skimming her nails across Ryske’s torso. “If he goes, I go.”

  “You… you… what?”

  Ryske guided her chin up, looking into her face wearing concern that she couldn’t feel. “You playing?”

  “Playing? No,” she said, shaking her head. “If you think tonight scared you, then you have no idea… I wouldn’t live through grieving you again. I wouldn’t…” Her hand went to her wrist. When she didn’t feel what she was expecting, her fingers clamped tight aro
und it. “Ryske…” Panic was an understatement for what began to build. “Ryske!”

  “Relax,” Bale said, reaching over her shoulder to show her bracelet dangling between his fingertips. “I took it off in the ER.” Swiping it from him, she looped it onto her wrist. “You’re welcome… You know, you’re getting as bad as him with these mood swings.”

  “We’re passionate people,” Ryske said, fingering the bracelet on her wrist.

  Harlow touched her neck. “Where’s my—”

  Bale’s hand appeared over her shoulder to show the bullet she’d looped around her neck before they ran. “You can’t put this back on. We’ll need another chest film… maybe a few. I’m waiting for your pregnancy test results to come back.”

  Groaning, she hooked the leather band over Ryske’s head and settled the bullet against his chest. He’d have to keep it safe until Bale freed her.

  “This man is obsessed with my uterus,” she said.

  “I prefer the part of you that’s adjacent to it,” Ryske said.

  Her eyes rolled. “Yeah, we all know that.”

  “You think it’s not my right to protect my niece or nephew from what could be harmful radiation?” Bale asked, pulling over a chair so he could sit down by the bed on the opposite side to Ryske.

  Shifting to get a better look at him, she realized for the first time that he was wearing scrubs under his white doctor coat. She’d only ever seen him in the coat for a brief minute when she came to meet him for lunch. This was her first chance to really absorb the sight.

  “I’m having a weird, brother doctor fantasy thing right now,” she said, looking back and forth between them. She tugged on the end of Ryske’s scrubs. “Can we take these home?”

  “Think I have to unless you want me going home naked,” he said, settling back against her pillows, locking both hands behind his head. “You have a thing for doctors?”

  She shrugged. “Who knew?”

  “I bring it out in a lot of women,” Bale said, making her laugh.