“For fuck sakes, how many times do I have to apologize.”
“You need me, remember,” I snarled.
He knew I was right. A strangled sigh came across the line. “He got cocky and I’m sorry he rubbed it in your face. But his man was good, played his part well, and led us on a wild chase around town. We didn’t see the cyanide thing coming.”
“Did you find him?”
There was a long pause from the other end. “Not yet.”
“It’s been a while and still nothing. Losing your touch,” I scoffed. “You’re a bunch of fucking idiots. A simple man, a nobody, screwed you over and took me for an even bigger idiot because you let him,” my steel lined words dripped with sarcasm. “And I’m still waiting for the how.” Nothing much caught me off guard, and if by some miracle it did, somebody would die. I’d make sure of it.
“And again, I’m sorry. I still don’t have an idea who leaked your name or why. But I can guarantee it will never happen again.”
“You’re fucking right it won’t,” the threat open-ended. I should tell him to go fuck himself. It wasn’t like I needed the money, I had plenty of that. Only, I craved the adrenalin rush, relished in the chase. I had the looks of a prince but the heart of the fucking devil. No one saw me coming. The win was inevitable. Rule number two was simple. If you planned on fucking with me, you better make damned sure I’m dead. What the client hadn’t understood was that I wasn’t one to let sleeping dogs lie. I’d catch him when he least expected it. Him and his mole. I’d already set the bait. He’d bite. Eventually. Time was my on my side.
“You there?”
I grunted a response. Still trying to calm the fuck down. “Fuck up again and I’ll serve your balls on a silver platter to that ugly as fuck Pitbull you love.” I cut the call and a second later, the phone pinged with an incoming text. Opening it, I watched the picture slowly download.
“Who’s that?” came a husky voice.
I glared at the woman peering over my shoulder. “The last person that snuck up on me, sweetheart, hasn’t been seen in a long time.” Her eyes widened as she backtracked into the bedroom.
Notes to self, don’t fucking bring strange women you meet at a bar back to your room, and if you do, make damn sure they leave right after you fucked their brains out. I grinned. I’d been called everything from sweetheart to asshole since junior high, I didn’t give a shit. My third rule was just as simple as the second. You liked me or you didn’t. Either way, I didn’t give a flying fuck. There were two kinds of women in the world, those you fucked and those that fucked you. Pun intended. Sadly, I had the benefit of meeting both.
Shaking my head, I read the rest of the message, took note of the time and location then dropped the phone and crushed it would my boot like I always did. That way I stayed off the grid, found, only when Iwantedto be.
Three hours later, I strolled past hospital reception and headed for the elevator. As the doors opened to the private ward on the ninth floor, I stopped short. A couple of flustered nurses were either hurrying down the hall or talking in earnest. Something was up. In all the time I’d visited, I’d never seen this much activity.
I walked over to a nurse closest to me. “What’s going—” An ear-splitting shriek pierced the air. Not much scared me but the haunting ferocity spiked the hairs on my arms and had me sprinting to her room—to the woman I’d been visiting every day for the last couple of years. “She’s aw—” I froze at the entrance, my excitement immediately replaced by shock at the scene unfolding in front of me.
Nurses and doctors floundered around the bed, trying to hold the woman down. Arms flailing, she mumbled repeatedly, her words a string of incoherent babble. A second later, her body jackknifed as if her chest had met the current of a defibrillator. Her high-pitched scream filled my ears, “let me go!” She fought their hold, trying to escape. “No!” Her retaliation so strong, another nurse joined the others, pinning the thrashing arm she’d gotten free. “They’re coming for me!” she shouted. “Let me go. Please,” the pleading tone wrenched a guttural curse from my throat. Her head shook violently from side to side. The reaction squeezed my blackened heart, cutting off the air to my lungs. I struggled to breathe. I’d seen a lot of fucked up shit in my life but nothing quite like this. I couldn’t decide if she was in pain or just frantically trying to get away from her memories. Who was coming for her?
Kicking out her legs, her body arched off the bed before crashing back with a loud snap from holding her body stiff. That, I’d seen before. If she continued, it could lead to muscle paralysis that would take weeks to heal. Having just woken from a coma, it would have double the effect. Giving no thought to my action, I took a step toward the bed at the same time her lids flew open and her gaze connected with mine. She froze for barely a second before her entire body started shaking and she screamed at me. “No. No. Noooo,” the repeated word bounced off the walls with the force of a wrecking ball. “Get away from me!” she howled, the fear in those gray eyes palpable. I backtracked, palms up, my expression apologetic. It made no difference. The shuddering intensified.
“Sedative, now!” the attending physician’s stern command sent a nurse scurrying to the trolley.
I watched as they prepped the syringe. Winced when the needle pierced the skin on a hand almost gaunt from being in a coma. Felt the burn in my arm when she jerked against the pressure. My stomach roiled at what thoughts zipped through her confused mind right now. My body stiffened at the thought. Did she see us as monsters in the dark? Waking from a coma was a process on its own without the added scare of being held down. Her eyes met mine just as the sedative took hold, and heavy lids closed.
A couple of seconds passed before quiet settled over the room. Nothing but the beep of a heart monitor and the oxygen tank filled the space. Dragging both hands down my face, I left the room and leaned against the wall waiting for her doctor to exit. He did, five minutes later.
“What the fuck was that?” I pounced as soon as he walked out.
The fifty-something, gray-haired man looked at me, his face riddled with concern and exhaustion. “Honestly, I have no idea.”
I glared at him. “Don’t give me that, doc. That woman’s been in a coma for the last three and a half years, surely you’ve seen this before?”
Slowly, he shook his head. “I understand your frustration, Zayne but I’ve never seen a coma patient react that way. While it’s not conclusive, the only likely reason for her reaction is memory loss.”
“Memory loss?” I stared at the man I’d interacted with over the last few years since I’d brought her to the hospital, and they’d induced a coma to protect her brain. Only, she hadn’t woken as they expected until now.
“When she came to, she couldn’t remember her name. We barely managed to explain the coma before panic set in. Eventually, I calmed her enough to explain that it was probably temporary and once she’s fully recovered, it would return. She drifted off to sleep and woke from what I can only assume was a nightmare relating to the trauma she’d suffered. Coupled with memory loss, it must’ve been a frightening experience.”
A nurse approached with a file for him to check. Waiting while he chatted to the nurse, I shook my head in irritation, again wondering what had this woman so terrified that even my face, one she’d never seen before, had her screaming her lungs out. I was no relation, merely someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time. A month later, when no family came forward to claim her and police reports produced nothing, I’d stuck around. To date, I still wasn’t sure whether my motives were selfish or simple heroism. Three and a half years of visiting her sleeping form, I’d grown attached, something I never did. I couldn’t afford any alliances that could become my weakness, leave me vulnerable. Perhaps a comatose patient proved no threat. Yet here I was, waiting for an explanation to her dramatic-induced awakening with the bated breath of a lover—something I’d never be.
“As I was saying, Zayne.” The doctor turned back to me. “Put yourself in her place. You’ve just woken from a coma with no memory, pure and utter darkness filling the spaces in your mind, there’s no telling how you’d react.” He sighed. “We just have to wait until she’s calm enough for us to question her.”
Raking a hand through my hair, I paced a few steps before coming to a stop in front of the tolerant doctor once more. “Giving her a sedative so soon after coming out of a coma. Would that not have any repercussions? Put her back into a comatose state?”
