Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Matters couldn’t get any worse.
“T-This wasn’t me,” I advise the first nurse who races into my savior’s room. It is the young medic from earlier, the one who told me my rescuer’s life wasn’t in danger a second before she was removed from the room by my father’s surly tone.
I guess she forgot to calculate the odds of my father never leaving any witnesses to his crimes.
After taking a couple of seconds to assess the situation, the nurse slings her eyes to the left. “Bring me the crash trolley.” While I do that, she switches off the emergency alarm, then shouts down the corridor that it’s a false alarm. “The patient accidentally bumped the button in the bathroom. She’s a little woozy. I’ll get her back into bed before finalizing my rounds.”
I can’t hear what the person replies, but the nurse doesn’t wait around for it either. She returns to my savior’s bedside even quicker than I arrive with the trolley, then she commences assessing her condition. “Did you see what he gave her?”
While taking in my rescuer’s name scribbled across the whiteboard above her head, I shake mine. “No. He h-had his hand clamped over her m-mouth.”
Her groan is so potent I feel it more than I hear it. “The liquid in the vial you’re holding, does it smell vinegary?”
As she opens Jae’s mouth to take a whiff of her breath, I pull off the cork stuffed into the glass vial, then take a sniff of the liquid inside. “It’s k-kinda vinegary.”
When I dip my pinkie into the vial to see if it tastes as it smells, the nurse shouts, “Don’t sample it. If this is what I think it is, even a droplet will cause significant memory loss.” She pops open Jae’s hospital gown to place heart rate monitor pads onto her torso. “Betradezliroid is rampant in the sex trafficking market at the moment. The less the girls remember, the less zombie-like they are with their customers. It’s all the rage in mafia industries.”
I’m taken aback by her openness, considering she knows my last name. It’s rare to find someone so frank, let alone when they’re informing that knowledge to the son of a criminal underworld figure. “If that’s the c-case, if all he wanted was for her to f-forget, why did he h-have her hand over her mouth?”
The nurse shrugs. “I don’t know. But right now, we don’t have time to work that out.”
I assume she’s referencing the horrifying straight line on the heart monitor she recently attached to Jae’s chest but learn otherwise when she nudges her head to the corridor. A tactical response unit is preparing to storm Jae’s room. The only reason they haven’t charged is because I’m still clutching the gun I snatched off the floor earlier.
After realizing the duo helming the campaign are the mercenaries my father paid off outside my hospital room only minutes ago, I snap my eyes back to the nurse.
“Go,” she encourages when she spots my massively dilated gaze.
I shake my head. “I can’t. I-If I leave, they will kill her.”
“I can protect Jae,” the nurse promises. “But I can’t issue the same guarantee to you. They won’t let you come. They say you’re not redeemable. That none of the men are.”
What is she talking about? What does she mean I can’t go with her? And how can I be unredeemable when I haven’t done anything wrong?
Oh, God. Does she think I hurt Jae?
“T-This wasn’t me!”
The tactical response unit uses my distraction to their advantage. They race into the room with bulletproof shields helming their campaign and knee-capping batons picking up the slack.
“Go!” the nurse encourages again before nudging her head to the window I squeezed through when I noticed Jae’s mouth was being held shut by a man with wide shoulders and an angry scar down the back of his neck.
With the roar of the officers’ boots stomping my way deafening and my mind shut down, I snatch off my necklace, stuff it into Jae’s balled-up hand, spin on my heels, then race for the window.
The procession of mostly rogue police officers almost reaches me before I dive through the minute opening. My landing into the bush the second time around isn’t any less painful than the first. That might have something more to do with the nurse announcing Jae’s time of death than the spiky branches digging into my calves and arms.
She said she’d protect her.
Instead, she pulls the sheet over her head before wheeling her out of the room.
After swallowing down my shock, I sprint across the soggy land just as quickly. I run and run and run until the image of Jae’s flopped head demands a breather long before my battered lungs, and I find a tree trunk capable of holding my weight.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jae
“Will you please talk some sense into him?” I spin to face Isaac, never more relieved to see his stubborn and determined face. “They sedated him even with me advising them he could be suffering from grave internal injuries.” I grip his business jacket like I’m on the verge of collapsing. That’s how upsetting it is knowing a patient is hurting but being denied the opportunity to help them. “He put his body on the line to save me, Isaac. I don’t care who he is or what he may have done, he doesn’t deserve to be treated like this.” I toss my hand at the window of JR’s holding cell. “They’re treating him like an animal.”