“He’s bleeding… a lot.”
“Put pressure on it,” Carter says as I touch Jasper’s chest.
Blood starts to pool through the cloth and over my hand.
“You better fucking hope he doesn’t die. He’s your pass to staying alive.”
“Fuck you.” I lean down to Jasper’s face, touch my lips to his forehead as we come to a stop.
What have I done?
A man and a woman step out from an old house with latticework that’s falling off and simply dangling there. The place is on acres of land all by itself, there’s no other houses or anyone in sight. Quickly opening the back door, the man looks at me then to Jasper. Pulling him free from the car, he carries him inside the house.
“Whose place is this?” I ask.
“The doc’s.” The answer is simple, but I get the meaning.
We follow behind and Ace pushes his hand out, stopping me as we arrive at the open door. “Maybe you should stay outside.”
I shake my head.
He shrugs, so I follow him into the room.
A scream rips through the room and I run in after it. Jasper’s awake, his shirt’s been torn off as the doctor works on his wound. Carter’s holding him in place so he can’t move.
“Why aren’t you numbing him? Give him anesthetic?” I ask.
Jasper looks to me. “I don’t want it.” Then he passes out anyway.
Carter removes his hands from Jasper and the doctor continues his work.
It’s quiet, the only sound in the room is the instruments being picked up and placed in a steel kidney dish, and of course, people breathing.
My hand squeezes hard while I watch and I lose all my breath. What have I done?
There’s blood everywhere and Jasper’s completely out of it.
24
Jasper
She’s standing next to me when I wake, her hand is on my arm holding me in place as her head lays on the bed. I move my fingers and touch her hair which causes her to stir then she sits up fast, almost falling from her chair. I look around and see that I’m back in my room, my shoulder’s fucking aching, and Carter’s sitting near the door with a gun in one hand and his phone in the other.
“You’re awake.” She startles. “You’ve woken up before, but you keep passing out,” she says nervously.
“I see you’re still alive,” I say attempting to sit up, so she moves a pillow behind me so I can, and breathes heavily as she waits.
“I…” she steps back, fear is evident in her eyes, and her hands are shaking.
“If I wanted you dead, Isadora, you’d be dead.”
She nods her head. “I didn’t know… about your mother, I mean.”
“I figured,” I say as she passes me a glass of water. I attempt to drink it before she takes it back.
“How did you know?”
“I remember you.” She looks at me with her eyebrows drawn which forms a small line across her forehead. “When you were fourteen. I remember you from that day in the shop.”
Her eyes go wide. “You were there?”
I nod, it’s not a day I want to remember. That was the day I finally knew my father had to be killed. I had become an adult and was now in his world, it was when I grew up. But that day? Yeah, that day was different. He wasn’t killing for reason anymore he was killing because he enjoyed it. That was not a man who should be running an empire.
“Why?”
“Your uncle’s a liar.”
“I don’t understand.” She shakes her head back and forth while running her hand through her long hair, tears are leaking from her beautiful eyes and it takes everything in me to not touch her. Despite everything, I want her with a force so fierce I can’t even contend with it.
“My mother didn’t love your uncle, she used him. It’s what she did. Used people and discarded them, and she was good at it. It’s part of the reason I can smile at you even when I want to kill you.”
Carter stands, walks over and hands me some pain medication as Isadora gives me the glass of water.
“You can go.”
Carter looks to her then back to me.
“She would have spiked the water if she wanted me dead. Wouldn’t you, Isadora?” She doesn’t look up, instead she looks down at the floor as Carter nods and walks away.
“Your family’s business was profitable. Your uncle was a jealous son of a bitch. They had what he wanted. So for him to get ahold of everything, he asked my mother to have them killed. She persuaded my father to do it. That was easy for her, because at the end he’d do anything for her. He started to live for the highs. This world is dangerous and he had no one to tell him what he was doing was wrong and my mother sure as shit didn’t care.”