I look down at Killian, surprised to see glassy eyes staring at me. I smirk.
"I’ll get…you…" he murmurs. I can see the rage in his face as he tries to fight his way through the drugs.
“The way you’re bleeding, you won't be getting anyone. Hell, if Orla gets her way and you survive, you'll be getting Bubba-on-C block's dick often and without lube. If I was you, I’d pray to bleed out,” I mumble with a shrug. I drop Killian's hand with the gun still in it. He can't lift it, but I can see him trying to. "We need to get the fuck out of here," I growl, grabbing the paintings. "You two need to make sure you trip the alarm on the way out so this all goes according to plan."
CHAPTER 15
KILLIAN
I try to fight through the haze my head is in. It’s like trying to swim up from the bottom of the ocean. It feels nearly impossible, but I do it enough to open my eyes, squinting at the shock of the light. I immediately close them again. It’s so bright that I can the light even behind my eyelids. My head is spinning, and the room feels like it's moving. I try to roll over but can't as I realize my wrists are chained to something. My eyes snap open, and I realize I'm actually moving. I'm on a stretcher being pushed through a hospital. The smell of antiseptic begins stinging my nose. I try again to lift my arms, straining, sending a pain in my middle that feels like it rips through me, and I fall back as a cold sweat breaks out on my forehead.
"Listen to me, I've been drug…." I look over at an older nurse with a clipboard. I know she heard me because she purposely turned away from me once I spoke. How the fuck did I get here? My head is throbbing, and my body feels like every nerve ending I have is focused on the pain in my gut. I glance down to see my bloody shirt with a gaping hole. Someone fucking shot me. I try to access my memory—to piece together what has happened—but the last thing I remember clearly is being in my office…disliking the taste of my coffee.
"Sir, don't worry." A doctor walks up out of a hallway. He grabs the rail of the stretcher to help pull me along. The man's features are pinched and his mouth set into a grim line.
"I've been drugged," I rasp out. He doesn't even look at me. "Will you listen to me?" I can't keep the frantic tone out of my voice. Handcuffed to a stretcher means police are involved. I look up, and sure enough, two deputies are walking along with us, hands down by their belts—near their weapons.
"I'm getting you into surgery. You'll be fine, unlike the two security guards you murdered in cold blood today," The doctor responds. His voice is full of disdain, as his steel-like stare pins me. I've been hated before, loathed, been someone's long-time enemy, but knowing that hate come from something I didn’t earn—burns.
Murders? Security guards? I'm not getting any answers to the questions I have in my head.
“It’s not true,” I deny, my voice weak as I do my best to remember. Nothing's coming. I remember being in my office, then drinking my coffee and felt sick as I reviewed footage of Belle coming to see me.
I push harder and remember falling and wanting to call E-Z. That’s when I sift through everything I did that evening. I mean, I knew someone was trying to get to me. Who would do this? There’s no way I believe scum like Donovan could do this on his own. He doesn’t have the wallet or the brains. That means he’s being used. When you piss someone off in the family you don’t get set up—you get dead. None of this is making any sense.
I wince again as the stretcher bumps into an elevator.
"I need a phone," I need to call E-Z now. Or my father. My father will handle this.
They all ignore me.
Why won't someone fucking listen to me? They wheel me down a long hallway once the elevator drops us on the surgery wing, ignoring my pleas for a phone call. They might as well laugh at me when I keep insisting that I've been drugged. They won't even fully look me in the eye. They have to save me, but they don't have to like it. I pray they don't purposely botch the surgery because they think I'm guilty. I'm not scared to die, but I'm afraid that whoever did this to me won't pay for it.
They push me into an operating room. It's cold and bright white in here. The deputies are told to wait outside. "I need to talk to my father. Right now." I keep pulling on my cuffs making them bite into my skin.