Free Against The Wall by Dee J. Adams

and gave him antibiotics. Showed him how to clean the wound, change the bandages and included her as he spoke. “I used catgut, so your body will absorb the sutures.” Maybe he thought she’d be helping. He didn’t know the sight of blood was one of the triggers for her passing out.
    “When was your last tetanus shot?” Victor asked.
    Tanner shook his head. “I don’t know.”
    Victor opened a cabinet and took out a huge needle. With his back to her, he worked at the counter and when he turned around, he took Tanner’s arm and gave him a shot.
    “Fuck!” Tanner clenched his jaw hard.
    “Did I forget to say this might hurt?” Victor asked. He smiled grimly. “Where are you going after this?”
    Tanner’s dark gaze captured hers. Where were they going? It seemed crazy to try for Maurice again now. He’d probably be taking extra precautions after everything that happened tonight. There was always Tanner’s place in Hollywood, if he’d deign to tell her the address. Did he expect her to stay glued to him until this got resolved? Didn’t he understand the time bomb hanging over her family’s heads?
    She wasn’t scared of him anymore. Not the way she had been initially. Clearly there was more to Tanner than he let on and whether she liked it or not, she’d made a deal with him. He said he’d help get her family back and she needed help.
    “Let me ask a different question since that one stumped both of you,” Victor said. “How far away is the bed he’ll be sleeping in tonight?”
    Again she locked eyes with Tanner. His were dark, intense.
    Her parent’s Hancock Park house was twenty minutes away. A little closer than his hotel.
    “Twenty minutes,” she said at the same time he said, “thirty minutes.”
    “Perfect.” The medic w frustrationataytoielded another needle and pumped it into Tanner’s arm.
    “What the hell was that?” Tanner snapped.
    “Sedative. With your size and the amount I gave you, you’ve got about twenty minutes before you’ll be out on your ass. I suggest you hurry home.”
    “Goddammit, Victor, I didn’t want a fucking sedative.” Tanner sat up and swayed. Victor steadied him with a grip on his arm.
    “I know and I don’t usually give ’em.” He smiled again, his eyes gleaming. “It’s just my little way of slowing down your stupidity. You can thank me later and you can consider this my thank you for watching Chino’s back.”
    Victor helped Jess get Tanner into the car, and she drove fast and furious toward the home she grew up in. Tanner looked dazed, out of his element. Now was as good a time as any to ask the question that had been burning in her head for a while.
    “What did Maurice have to do with you going to prison?”
    Tanner rested his head against the back of the seat. “He hired me a real good lawyer. A lawyer so good he made absolutely certain I’d go to prison instead of Alex.”
    “Alex is—was Maurice’s son, right? He died about a year before Maurice hired me.” Jess had only seen pictures of the man. He’d been in his early twenties when he died. From what Jess had discovered, he’d overdosed and it had devastated Maurice.
    “Bingo,” Tanner said. “He was also my best friend. My best friend who robbed a convenience store and let me drive away without saying a word. I had no idea when the cops stopped us that I was going away for the next seven years. Juneau made sure Alex got off and pinned the whole thing on me.”
    “Oh my God,” Jess whispered. The idea appalled her. Having seven years of his life taken from him…hard to comprehend. “I’m sorry.”
    “Yeah…me too.” His chuckle surprised her and Jess looked over to see him shake his head. “Alex was fucking nuts. He lived life on the edge. Was always looking for the next high. I’d never met anyone like him.” Tanner’s words slowed as the drug settled in. The hard edge in his eyes disappeared as a smile curved his lips and softened the hard planes of his face. “I