Chapter 35
I dug out my phone and called his private number. He didn’t answer at first until after five trials.
After exchanging pleasantries, I asked him if we could borrow one of his numerous penthouses and he agreed immediately. He texted the address of one of the penthouses that wasn’t as popular as the rest and texted me the address. When I asked about the keys, he said the receptionist would hand the keys to us and that we could stay until whenever we were done with sorting out our shit.
I tried thanking him but he only asked me to stop being an idiot by thanking him before the call ended. I turned to Tristan and nodded my head before informing him, “He said we could stay until whenever we liked.”
“See? I knew he was gonna help!” Tristan replied while a ghost of a smile appeared on his face before it died almost instantly.Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.
“Holy shit, we still haven’t gotten Daven medical care, Auden!” Tristan informed me before quickly sprinting towards the car Lucas drove all the way here and pulled the back open. I was already beside him by then and shook my head on seeing that Esther was already fast asleep with Daven’s head resting on her thighs while a gun lay across his chest with Esther lightly clasping it.
I chuckled a little before plucking the gun out of her grip and shook my head when she didn’t even jolt awake or something.
Tristan felt for Daven’s pulse and physically relaxed on noticing that he was still breathing, we’d have to take him to a hospital or something since our personal doctor isn’t in the states at the moment.
“His blood has soaked through the shirt pieces, Tris.” I said to Tristan as I lighted traces of my index finger against his pale forehead.
“I think we should stop at a hospital on our way to the penthouse.” Tristan said and I couldn’t agree more.
Lucas and the guys came out of the house and I told Lucas about the new arrangements and how we were stopping at the hospital for a little bit. Lucas informed me that he already called the clean up team and that they’d be there tonight so he was going to come back and supervise them. I nodded my head at him before slapping his back approvingly and heading into the car I came with.
I expected Nicolas to be asleep already since the rest of the people that remained in the cars were asleep, but Nicolas wasn’t. Instead, his eyes glistened with unshed tears but he ducked his head immediately I got in beside him. I signaled for the guard to bring the privacy shield up and watched as it slid down until we were cocooned in our own private balloon.
“Nicolas?” I called out softly but got nothing in reply. I placed my hand on his shoulder lightly but he shrugged it off immediately. I knew he was hurting and somehow, I knew that this thing that happened to him today was going to leave a ugly scar behind, emotionally and mentally.
******
Apparently, a small piece of glass got embedded in Nicolas’s wound like I predicted and has all these while sliding deeper and deeper. They had to do a quick operation to get the glass out and inject him with a big bag of drip since he has lost a lot of blood and needs to regain his strength back, for his wound to heal.
I made the money transfer from my phone and told the doctor we were going to come check up on him the following morning. On getting back outside, I told one of the guards to watch over him while the rest of us continued our journey until we got to the penthouse.
The keys got given to us immediately and the aides came towards us immediately, checking around for our bags. I told them not to bother since we didn’t even pack anything and instead headed into the first lift with Nicolas limping slowly beside me but tried to make it less obvious while a guard, Tristan, Nicole, Aria and Esther took the second lift. We got into the penthouse first and on Nicolas’s requests, I led him into one of the rooms and promised to come help him do some private stuff later. He grumbled and said he could help himself just fine but I brushed him off before closing the door shut.
Nicole was perched on one of the lemon colored chairs while Aria stood before the large fish tank located on the left part of the sitting room as she watched the movement of the fishes weave themselves around the plants and seashells. Tristan was on the phone, ordering different kinds of food while Esther was tapping away on a laptop. I dropped into the space beside Nicole and pulled her hands into mine before asking about her wounded shoulder.
“It’s starting to hurt a lot more than normal, I think it’s because of the strain I placed on it when the accident happened on the plane.” She replied truthfully. I unzipped the jacket she wore to shield off the harsh cold and pushed it off her wounded shoulder to examine the wound.
The bandage was thankfully not stained with blood which means the stitches haven’t been torn open. I prodded the sides of the wound and applied pressure on it a little until she couldn’t hold in her cry anymore.
“Hey, hey, I’m almost done, yeah? You’d take your drugs after eating and then you’d apply the pain ointment on it, there’s no need for you to massage it since I’m doing that already. In a few weeks time, you’d feel little to no pain from this spot.” I ended the speech by applying a little harder pressure on the part of the swollen sides that wasn’t covered by the bandage and winced a little when her teeth buried itself into my shoulder to stifle her scream.
“See? All done.” I zipped up her jacket and smiled at her on seeing her face void of any tears. Whether she realizes it or not, she is getting stronger than she was days ago.