Wildcard: Volume Three

“He wanted money, but I knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. Just like last time, I knew he’d be back.” My voice is shaking, because I have no idea how he is going to react to this. “I hired a guy to scare him off.”

His eyes widen. “You hired a hit man?”

“No,” I hiss, glancing around me. “It wasn’t supposed to be like that. I just wanted to scare him into leaving me alone. Only it obviously got out of hand.” I clench my hands into fists on the table. “What am I going to do?”

Tears spring to my eyes. All I ever wanted to do was make the whole thing go away—only I’ve made everything worse. It’s the fucking story of my life.

“It’ll be okay, Scar. I’ll take care of it.”

I smile sadly as Ryder wraps his arms around me, but his words hold little comfort. Not even he can help me this time. If I explain to the police why I did what I did, I’m fucked; and if I don’t, I’m fucked.

Chapter Seventeen

Ryder

I told her I’ll take care of it, but in reality I'm not sure what I can do.

This is some fucking serious shit.

We’re both eyeballs-deep in this mess in different ways. At the moment, I think the best thing she can do is avoid any questions the police might want to ask—at least until I can figure something out.

“I feel better now you know,” she whispers, wrapping her arms around my neck.

I lean down and kiss her. Am I happy about the position she’s put herself in? No, but I get it. You can’t really understand until you’ve been in her situation.

“It’s okay. I’ll take care of it,” I promise again.

I want to yell at myself for getting her hopes up when it’s obvious—to me, at least—that there is nothing I can do to fix this. I can’t pay to make it go away this time. She hired someone to scare this bloke off, and now he’s messed up in hospital.

I have to find out how serious his injuries are.

I kiss her again and smile, forcing the anxiety back down into the pit of my stomach. “I’ll speak to you later, okay?”

***

“Josh,” I say.

“Hey, man. How’s things?” He sounds pleased to hear from me.

“You know,” I laugh, “I’m always in one bind or another.”

“Uh-oh. Is this about Scar?” he asks hesitantly.

“Yes, but not in the way you’re thinking.” I groan, weighing up how much detail to go into. The less he knows, the better. “It’s more to do with her ex.”

“He’s still bothering her?”

“Actually, no. That’s the problem. I can’t go into detail, but I need a favor. Does your cousin still work at Burnshire Memorial hospital?”

“I think so. Why?”

“Tony’s there. I need to know what happened to him, and his condition,”

I explain.

Josh sighs. “I don’t want to know any more than I have to here, do I?”

“Probably for the best,” I agree.