by Jamie Begley
When Jackal would have made the turn that led them to the hospital, Penni reached out to stop him.
“Look,” she said softly. Two swans swam next to each other, their necks arching together, coming together to look like a heart. “It’s a sign.”
“Sure it is, babe. Can I go now?”
“Yes.” Penni felt the last of her fear slide away. “Everything is going to be okay. I can feel it.”
Jackal smiled. “I’ve been saying that for the nine months.”
Yes, he had been telling her, but she hadn’t believed it until now.
The contractions began again, but she didn’t tell him, not wanting to distract him from driving.
It was a relief to pull up to the emergency entrance. She wasn’t able to wiggle out of the car before he was back with a wheelchair. Thankfully Jackal hadn’t listened to her, and her doctor was standing by, waiting for her.
Another contraction hit as she was wheeled away. Jackal was by her side as she was rushed to the birthing room. The sight of the bed would have had her in hysterics if she hadn’t seen the sign the swans had gifted to her.
“Get her hooked up to the monitors, STAT,” her doctor ordered.
Penni was in too much pain to realize the room was filling up with nurses and technicians.
When she caught a glimpse of Jackal’s face, she tried to ease his worry. “I’m fine.”
He only nodded, moving out of the way so the doctor could work.
Penni held out her hand to him, feeling him take it in his.
“We can do this.” Penni gave him a trembling smile.
“No more. One is enough.”
“We’ll see.” Penni tried to arch up as the pain radiated through her body. “My chest is hurting.” She began gasping for air as the shrill scream of the monitors filled the room.
Penni saw the fear on Jackal’s face as she began to lose consciousness.
“No … Don’t you fucking dare take your eyes off of me! Penni … Penni!”
Was he ever going to shut up? She was sleepy; why wouldn’t he stop?
She tried to search for the warm, soothing abyss where she could hide from the pain, but he wouldn’t let her. If he knew how badly it hurt, he would leave her alone.
She tried to tell him to let her sleep, but he wouldn’t listen. Over and over, he called her name, and Penni couldn’t make him stop. Then, when she heard the sound of his voice again, she didn’t want to. She quit struggling to return to the warm abyss, trying to find his voice, instead. She couldn’t stand hearing him in so much agony. She would gladly wake if that was what it took to end his suffering.
When he didn’t respond, she realized he couldn’t hear her. Then she could barely hear him, and the warm abyss was gone. Taking its place was total darkness, and she couldn’t find her way out.
She wanted to give up. Multiple layers kept her from reaching Jackal, forcing her back under. His voice, which had been close, was becoming farther away. She was losing her battle to stay with him, with their child.
She wanted to cry but couldn’t, no longer even able to her own voice. She was about to give in, the pain too relentless. She felt her heart faltering one beat at a time, becoming fainter with each beat.
She stopped struggling to reach Jackal. It was useless …
His voice called her name again. That was when she remembered something Shade had taught her.
She listened to her heart, making herself take one breath at a time, forcing her heart to beat faster with each breath she took, not letting the lifeline float away. Little by little, she felt her faint heartbeat become stronger and stronger.
At first, she couldn’t see anything. Then she saw her husband’s face staring down at her.
“Don’t you dare leave me again.” His voice was so hoarse she could barely understand him.
She tried to talk but couldn’t.
“You can’t talk. There’s a tube in your throat. Stay, babe, stay with me.”
Penni gripped his hand, trying to tell him without words that she wasn’t going anywhere, but then she fell away again.
Each day, she grew more coherent until the third day when she became alert to what was going on in the room.
Shade and Jackal were standing by the window, talking. She tried to tell them she was awake, but her throat was too sore.
“It was the doctor who saved her life. If she hadn’t recognized the symptoms of amniotic fluid embolism, Penni would have died. She said sixty-eighty percent of women who have that happen don’t live.” Jackal pressed his hand against his eyes. “If you hadn’t talked me into making Penni give up on using a midwife, she wouldn’t have made it.”
Jackal rubbed his face with both hands. “God, since the first time I met Penni, it’s like I’ve been chasing a rainbow before it disappears, trying to catch her with a butterfly net, because I was afraid she wouldn’t stay.”
“Do you know why I kept giving you hell when I found you didn’t call me about Hennessy?” Shade said, not waiting for his answer before continuing. “Whenever Penni was in town, she fussed about something you had done to piss her off: that you were doing the strippers, even how you look in your favorite dark navy shirt.
“You didn’t have to catch her with a net. I just wanted to make sure you deserved her. You took my shit and held your own. I couldn’t ask for any better for her, and I know Penni felt the same. The doctor may have saved her life, but you’re why she wanted to stay.”
Jackal gave a half-hearted chuckle. “Penni told me once she wanted to stay and smell the roses. She had already planned to stop touring with the band and stay home with the baby.”
“I know Penni. What can go wrong, usually does.” Shade turned toward the bed. “She’s awake.”
They moved to tower over her bed.
“I heard that.” She winced as the words came out.
Jackal raised her head, giving her a drink of water. “Better?”
Penni nodded, not ready to chance the pain returning by talking again.
Shade moved closer to the head of the bed, leaning down to brush a kiss across her forehead. His expression softened.
“You did good, butterfly.” Raising up, Shade put his mask firmly back into place before striding across the room to the door. “I’ll leave you alone for a minute. Then Mom and your dad want to see you.”
Her hand brushed her abdomen when she tried to sit up straight.
“The baby?” Memories struck her, and she tried to sit up, but Jackal placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Stay still. I’ll raise you up.” Jackal raised her bed slowly.
Penni’s eyes bulged at the pain in her chest and abdomen.
Shade gave her a shuttered look before leaving the room. “I’ll give you a few minutes before I let them come in.”
Was there a reason her brother had left so quickly? Penni wanted to scream at him to go get her baby, but as she opened her mouth, she saw Jackal go around her bed, bending over. Then he turned back to her again with a blanket against his chest.
Jackal held the baby to her, and Penni tenderly stared down at the tiny being who was sound asleep.
“He’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“She’s beautiful,” Jackal corrected.
“A girl … The sonogram said it was a boy.”
“Babe, when have you ever done what you’re supposed to?” Jackal chuckled.
“Are you sure she’s ours?” Penni ignored the pain in her throat and the rest of her body. She couldn’t believe the beautiful child was hers.
When she ran a caressing finger down her soft check, the baby lifted her curious eyes up to her. They were cerulean blue like hers. Then her little rosebud mouth curled into a twisted smile like Jackal’s.
“I’m sure.”
Shadow
Assassins Club, #1
Alexa Dawn
Available Now!
1
“All right, let’s begin, everyone. Collins, I want you to go over w
hat progress is being made on our new tablets as well as the information about our two new locations in Dallas.”
Scarlet immediately lost focus as Collins began to speak. His voice was a boring drone, but he was one of her father’s favorites; therefore, she put up with his infernal tone. Anything to keep her father happy.
Her father, Simon Daniels, was never in a very good mood these days, and she tried to keep any undue stress away from him. Fielding calls, planning itineraries, luncheons, and meetings were just a few of the ways she kept him calm. However, he still preferred to be front and center when it came to the way things were progressing in his company, Jupiter Technologies, even though he had no problems letting his multiple accountants handle the vast wealth he had accumulated over the years.
Though he was one of the wealthiest men in the world, Simon ran his company with an iron fist. He pampered his only daughter, but he had never just bestowed his generosity on her without expecting her to work hard for it in return. Once she had been old enough, Scarlet had interned at the company, watching enviously from the sidelines as the other girls her age had started going out on dates or to school dances. As soon as she had walked through the heavy glass doors at Jupiter Tech, she had no longer been the spoiled princess everyone thought she was at home. Simon had given them strict instructions: She was not the boss’s daughter, but just another employee like anyone else.
This did not stop as she had grown older. The days had turned into nights as she’d labored for the company—sitting in on board meetings, taking notes, and running errands. The few normal party invitations she had received had come from the daughters of other board members. Any other invitations had only been because she was Simon’s daughter. It had been a difficult area to navigate, but over the years, she had learned what to accept, what to politely decline, and of course, what to just outright ignore.
Because of this, she had almost no friends, and the few she had were only trying to further their own fathers’ careers. She had been on the receiving end of too many vicious and backstabbing comments to believe anyone had ever really liked her and genuinely been her friend.
Her father used to tell her it was for the best that those other girls were just jealous of her status and work ethic; that they knew they would never deserve everything that would be given to them like she would. She knew he was lying.
Not even college had offered the escape she had so dreamed it would. After her pictures had been sold to gossip magazines, her credit cards stolen, and her “best friend” had tried to film her having sex with her then boyfriend, she had given up on ever believing anyone would ever like her. Everyone, she had thought, had a motive for wanting to be in her life, and she had grown sick of it. She had become closed off, cold, and she’d refused to socialize with anyone outside of work.
This had suited her father just fine. After all, he had lectured her many times in the past about safety being her primary concern in any relationship. After three attempted kidnappings and her previous traumas, she had agreed with him. The only time she had ever deviated from her solitude was when she had met Bradley, the handsome lawyer her father’s attorneys had hired not long before that.
His pretentious name alone should have warned her. Still, she had fallen for his good looks and, most importantly, his apparent lack of interest in her wealth. He had blown past all the guards she’d had in place, and though she would never have admitted it, it had barely taken one date before he had cajoled her into his bed. Six months later, ignoring her father’s misgivings, Scarlet had happily accepted when Bradley proposed and begun to plan the biggest wedding anyone had seen in years.
Skipping out on work for the first time in years, Scarlet, at Bradley’s urging, had bought them a beautiful penthouse not too far from her father’s own West Village home. She began decorating it during the wedding planning, picturing the children they would have and growing old together with the man of her dreams.
That dream had been shattered the same day her father had given her a gorgeous clear and red heart-shaped glass sculpture. He’d had it commissioned as a sign of his grudging blessing and as an early wedding present. Since it was nothing short of an amazing work of art, he had encouraged her to go ahead and take it to her new home and allowed her a rare but brief hug before she left. She had hardly been able to contain her excitement. Then, walking inside, she had stopped to find Bradley fucking some woman on the couch they had picked out together.
Shocked, she had dropped the sculpture, which shattered into a million pieces, alerting Bradley and the woman to her presence. She had realized then that he had faked any emotion he’d had for her and thought bitterly that the only way he had even been able to be with her was to probably think about the money he would have once they were married.
She dumped him on the spot and, in the ensuing argument, he had said he was surprised she had expected him to be faithful, that she should have been grateful he had even deigned to be with her. As he had glared at her, she couldn’t help thinking it had probably taken more than money to get him excited enough to sleep with her. She knew she wasn’t beautiful like her mother—no one seemed shy about saying it.
The breakup had devastated her, and she had become more withdrawn than before. Her only consolation had been that her father had fired Bradley and made it impossible for him to ever find a job anywhere again. That was his one hard rule: you don’t fuck with a Daniels. She had immediately sold the penthouse and moved back in with her father.
It had only been a month since she’d broken off her engagement and, tired of the manipulative and underhanded tactics people used to get to her birthright, she was afraid it would only get worse after her father’s newest announcement.
“Scarlet,” her father called in a raspy voice from the other end of the large boardroom table, pulling her out of her memories and back to the present.
Blushing as the whole table turned to look at her, she met her father’s eyes.
“Are you listening?” he asked.
“Of course, sir.” It was always “sir” while they were at work. “Collins was just discussing having the new stores opened by the twenty-ninth if the staff can be trained in time, and of course, we are discussing the new offer from Gregory Aspen. But,” she added, “I don’t know why we are.” Her father raised his eyebrows at her, and she continued passionately. “He will never own this company. You built this from the ground up, and it’s not going anywhere.” She pushed a strand of raven hair out of her face.
Her father studied her carefully, and her face flushed again under his piercing gaze. Despite trying his best to hide it, Simon was fading, only a shadow of the imposing man he used to be. He had lost weight, and his hair—his great pride—was greying and thinning. The man Scarlet thought to be invincible was vanishing before her eyes, and the man who sat across from her at the large glass table was almost unrecognizable as the titan who had raised her.
“I am glad you feel that way,” he said. Looking around at the other board members, he continued, “As you all know, I have had some health concerns lately, and I am sad to say that things have taken a turn for the worse.”
Scarlet’s eyes began to water, and the room was unusually quiet as her father spoke.
“The cancer has spread, and the chemo is no longer working. Surgery is no longer an option. According to my doctors, I have approximately three more months left.” He sighed sadly.
“We can get better doctors, sir,” a member named Samuels began, but Simon stopped him, raising a thin hand.
“Medicine can no longer do anything for me. I am dying, and there is no way around it.” A fire ignited behind Simon’s eyes. “But I will be damned if my company goes with me. So, effective two weeks from now, I will be stepping down as CEO of Jupiter Technologies, and Scarlet will take my place as the new head of this company. I have discussed this at length with her, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that she is ready,” Simon declared.
His announcement was met wi
th silence. Scarlet just knew the board would never go for it. There were too many negatives to the situation, age—she was only twenty-eight—and experience being the top two objections. To her surprise, however, one by one, they started nodding, and she heard quiet words of affirmation for her father’s decision as they talked amongst themselves. This had never happened before; people only seemed to tolerate her because of her name. She had grown up with these people mentoring her and had done internships in most of their offices, but now they were showing her their confidence and support. Although, it wasn’t like they had much of a choice; Simon had been just as stingy with his company shares as he was in his affection. Most of the board members had no real power and only served in an advisory capacity. Regardless, Scarlet was secretly thrilled by the support they were showing.
Life finally seemed to be cutting her a break after her breakup and her father’s diagnosis, and she found herself smiling for the first time in weeks. Maybe now, finally, she could carve her own place, and all the rumors and gossip could focus on her new career and not her broken engagement.
“So, how should we announce the change?” asked Marcus Winters, a senior member. His grandfatherly image, Scarlet knew, belied his ruthless business techniques, though he had always been nothing except kind and generous with her. “I propose a gala,” he went on to suggest.
Scarlet chimed in, “I agree, sir. But we could make it a charity gala. We could partner with a well-known charity and donate all the proceeds to cancer research and make the announcement there. Since all of New York’s elite will be invited, the press will, of course, be there, as well. The good publicity certainly wouldn’t hurt our image, and it is a good cause.”
Simon gifted her with a rare smile. “Sounds good to me. I’ll leave all the details to you.”