Twisted Hate (Twisted 3)

My hand stilled for a fraction of a second before I continued my notes. My heart thumped so loud it almost drowned out my next words. “How many stairs were there?”

“Maybe a dozen? I’m not sure.”

Fuck. Sweat coated my skin at the mental image of Jules crumpled at the bottom of a flight of stairs. I almost reached for her the way I would’ve had we still been dating, but I forced my personal feelings aside and examined her extremities for injuries.

I couldn’t find any physical wounds except for the cut on her forehead and a couple of bruises, but that didn’t mean she was in the clear.

The sweat intensified as the worst-case scenarios for all possible internal injuries flashed through my mind.

Stop. She’s your patient. That’s it.

“Did you hit your head?” It was an obvious question, given the cut, but I had to ask.

Jules nodded.

“Did you pass out?”

“Yes.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and ran through the rest of my questions.

Are you taking any blood thinners?No.

Is there any chance you’re pregnant? No.

“Are you hurting anywhere in particular right now?”

My question hung between us, thick with unspoken meaning.

Despite everything that happened between us, the thought of Jules hurt made it so fucking hard to breathe.

“My head, shoulder, and lower back.”

“What about your neck?” I felt along her C-spine and breathed a silent sigh of relief when she didn’t flinch. “Does it hurt?”

Jules shook her head. “No. It’s just the places I mentioned. Physically, anyway,” she added softly.

The air thinned while the ache in my chest intensified.

She was so close I could hear her breathing.

I’d forgotten how much I loved that sound—the sound of her just existing, reminding me that no matter how fucked up the world got, there was at least one good thing in it.

At least, there used to be.

I set my jaw and finished the physical examination as quickly as possible. “Right. I’ll order a CT scan, just in case.” My crisp words bounced through the fluorescent-lit room, erasing any hint of softness. “How did you fall down the stairs?”

A long silence passed before she answered. “Someone pushed me.”

I stared at her, sure I’d heard wrong. “Someone pushed you.”

Jules nodded, her lips tight. “I was walking down the stairs after my bar exam. I was distracted, so I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings. The person…surprised me, and they pushed me when I tried to get away. I hit my head and passed out. When I woke up, I was in the back of a taxi with a woman, someone I recognized from the testing site. She said she’d just entered the stairwell when she heard me fall, but she didn’t see anyone else. She dropped me off at the hospital and, well, here I am.”

She relayed what happened in a matter-of-fact manner, but the slight shake in her voice told me the incident freaked her out more than she let on.

Slow, poisonous rage oozed into my bloodstream.

I wasn’t a stranger to anger, but I’d never felt like this before.

Like I wanted to hunt down the person responsible and rip them apart with my bare fucking hands.

“Who?” My calm voice belied the violence brewing in my stomach. “Who did this to you?”

She said the person surprised her. Judging from her tone, it was someone she knew.

I guessed the answer before she told me.

“Max.” Apprehension crept into Jules’s eyes, like she was afraid of how I’d react to the name, and for good fucking reason.

Max. The guy who had a sex tape of her. Who blackmailed her into stealing from me. Who put his fucking hands on her and destroyed the only beautiful thing in my life…us.

My rage deepened, tinting my world a bloody crimson.

“I see.” I betrayed none of the emotion roaring through my chest. “I’m going to make some arrangements for your CT scan. I’ll be right back.”

I left the room and pulled out my phone. It took me less than two seconds to shoot Alex a text.

Me: I need you to find someone for me.