Jackson had tried to rape me. He had attempted to do something even his family couldn’t believe he’d tried to do. Ironic, considering one of them had then decided to finish Jackson’s job.
Still, was it really their fault that he got it in his head that I was fucking with his wife and decided to come after me?
No, maybe it wasn’t. Was it Soren’s?
He seemed just as surprised as me about it all. But he’d shown up at the last minute to kill Jackson.
How can I be certain it wasn’t something he planned? If this—what happened tonight—was?
I close my eyes and tilt my head back against the white cotton sheet on the hospital bed. I can’t be sure. All I can do is remember the look of rage on Soren’s face. The brutal way he had killed Jackson, quick but violent.
The way he’d taken care of me after.
He took care of me tonight too, but he was guilty.
My hands ball into fists for a moment.
It’s all so confusing.
Nevertheless, a man is dead. A good man. One of my men. A man with a family. Not many of our guards have families; it’s a perk of hiring men with shady and dark pasts to protect you. They usually come alone with the only baggage being what’s on their shoulders.
Tango, though, he’d met a lovely little woman two years before, and they had a five-month-old daughter. His wife and daughter lived miles from here, just to be safe, but what kept them safe, didn’t keep him safe. Not even slightly.
His wife, Isabella, wouldn’t blame Soren, nor would she blame the Calvers. No, she would blame me.
It was my job to protect her husband. My job not to put him in danger.
By choosing to walk into that alleyway, whether I knew it was a set up or not, even if it hadn’t been… I had put my family, blood and otherwise, in danger.
For the first time in weeks, I feel truly and painfully sober.
Perhaps it’s time that I start to take some responsibility.
The next thing I know, I’m waking up in the hospital bed with a few pints of someone else’s blood coursing through my veins and a throbbing ache in my leg. Whatever painkillers they’d given me when I first arrived are clearly wearing off already.
Good. I want to be as clear headed as possible for what I’m about to do next.
Or at least, what I should do. All I can do at the moment is wait for a nurse to return. As much as I want to rip the IV out myself and just walk off, I actually want to be at my best before I leave. Not missing any of my blood.
When a nurse finally walks in, it’s a different one. There must’ve been a shift change.
“You’re free to go whenever you like. Your discharge papers…” she trails off at the end of her sentence for a moment. “They’ll be filed under Claude Valdam. So, there’s nothing you need to work about.” Her smile wavered.
Everyone here is nervous around me. Around us. For good reason. For all they know, one wrong move and they’ll be losing their heads.
I don’t think shooting a nurse is on my list of to-do’s today either way, as much as my father might’ve been hot headed, Tommaso is the one who got the bulk of that trait.
I’d rather ask questions first. Especially after what I walked into earlier.
Such a fucking idiot…but, it isn’t just me. Soren. He knew about it, and he let me walk into it, only to jump in after I’d been surrounded.
“Thank you,” I say simply, but my eyes aren’t on her as she takes the IV out, they’re on the doorway.
Soren is standing there with his hands in his jean pockets.
“I figured you need a ride home,” he says once the nurse walks past him and out of the room.
“My family can get me home,” I tell him.
