Rock God (Hearts of Metal Book 3) Read Free

know she didn’t steal it?”
    Dante sighed. “Good point.”
    He rummaged through the rest of the backpack, taking out dirty clothes, a power cord and a makeup bag that contained no makeup but several flash drives. It was a shame the computer was broken. There was likely tons of information on each.
    He looked around. “Any of you have a laptop handy?”
    The others shook their heads.
    In the backpack, Dante’s hand lingered on a small powder blue blanket adorned with teddy bears. Unlike everything else, it was relatively clean. Why this and not something more practical? Shrugging, he shoved the rest of the stuff back in the bag. Then he felt a hard lump inside a shirt.
    “Bingo,” he said, pulling out a wallet.
    The face on the driver’s license matched that of the comatose woman—well, sort of. The Oregon resident, class-D driver Shayna Jones, age twenty-five, looked like an airbrushed model compared to the filthy, banged-up lady on his lap. Only the dark eyes, height of five-two, and cute, upturned nose confirmed that they were one and the same person.
    His gaze lingered on her picture for a while before he went through the rest of the wallet. There were an insurance card, a bank card, a Portland library card, and some grocery store cards. That was it. No cash, receipts, or family photos. In fact, the little photo sleeve was reduced to a dangling scrap of clear plastic like it had been torn out…
    Actually, a picture hid there in a rear slot. Dante slipped it carefully free, frowning as he realized it was ripped in half. Shayna smiled back at him, holding a newborn baby that was all dimples and eyes. A man’s hand gripped her shoulder, but the rest of his image had been torn away.
    Was that who she was running from? Where was the baby?
    Dante frowned as he put the wallet in his pocket. The library card looked fairly new, so she couldn’t have been away from home too long.
    Julian handed him a wet cloth, and Dante gently placed it on Shayna’s forehead. She gave no response, but at least she was breathing.
    Carefully, Dante cleaned the dirt off her face, delicately blotting at the raw wound on her chin. Her brows tightened and her breath hitched, but she still did not awaken.
    The bus lurched to a stop in front of the ER building at the hospital. “We’re here,” the driver called.
    “I’ll take her in and get a cab afterwards,” Dante said as he slung her backpack over his shoulder. He lifted Shayna, frowning again at her lightness. Between the workouts he got onstage and regular swimming, he was fairly fit, but holding her was too easy. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that she’d missed too many meals.
    “You mean, you’re not just gonna drop her off?” Dom asked incredulously.
    Dante shook his head. “I want to make sure she’s okay.”
    The keyboardist looked bemused. “White-knighting again? You’ll still show up at the after-party, though, right?”
    “I don’t know,” Dante said. “Maybe.”
    The inanity of it all made his head hurt. Here they were talking about a party when there was an unconscious and bleeding woman in his arms. Yes, this was Sacramento, and yes, comatose people, violence, and drug overdoses were regular sights in the world of heavy metal, but still, the coldness of his bandmates disturbed him. Had they all become so jaded?
    At first, the ER staff were indifferent to him and his charge. Besides the usual gunshot wounds being a higher priority, Dante looked liked a miscreant with his long hair and stage attire of leather and chains. But then other people with less pressing issues seemed like they were being helped.
    With a frustrated groan, Dante glared at the woman behind the counter who’d handed him a form he’d barely been able to fill out. “How much longer are we going to have to wait?”
    “Sorry, sir,” she replied. “We need to check on her insurance before we can put her in the queue. It won’t be much longer.”
    Dante sighed. He