by Magan Vernon
“Yes.” I nodded. “She was the entire ride over.”
The woman picked up the phone on the desk next to her. “I’ll call some techs to bring her back to a room. “Would you be able to help fill out her paperwork, are you related to her?”
Before I could answer, two men in scrubs burst through the door, wheeling a stretcher. “Where is the patient?” The older gentleman with the shaved head and full sleeve of tattoos asked me.
“She’s in the car, right out the front door,” I answered.
They pushed me aside and rushed out the double doors. I watched as they gently secured a brace around her neck. Then they slid a long, slim plastic board underneath Jackie and positioned it so she was lying completely on top of it. Once they had her strapped on, they moved her and the board out of my car and onto the stretcher.
The other guy turned to me. “We’re going to need you to move your car while we wheel her in. You can meet us in the back.
“Okay.” I was barely able to get the words out as I watched them wheel her away. I could have just left her. She was in good hands with the hospital staff, but something pulled me forward, even when I parked my car I stared at myself in the rearview mirror. I’d brought so many people to their knees in front of me, made them beg for their lives and end up in the hospital, but this was different. This was out of my control.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small wallet sitting in my backseat—Jackie’s wallet. I grabbed it and opened it, hoping to find out more about her if I was going to go with the whole Good Samaritan bringing her in thing. All I saw were a few crumpled dollars, some business cards, and her driver’s license with the name Jacqueline Marks printed on it. That was it. No family pictures. No insurance card. Not even a credit card, nothing that would give me any clue about who she was or if she had any family. I swallowed hard. I had everything: a large family, money, all the power in the world and this girl had nothing. And then I had to go and hit her with my car. I had to make it right.
I ran back into the hospital, stopping at the front desk to see the lady again. “Where did they take Jackie? Can I see her?” She handed me a clipboard as she hit a button and nodded toward the double doors. They just took her back, but I’ll need you to fill out her infor—”
“Thanks,” I cut her off, taking the clipboard and running through the double doors. I looked around, searching the bright white room for any sign of her. I strode up to the counter and asked, “Jackie Marks? She was just wheeled in here from an auto accident.”
The nurse barely looked up from the computer. I counted the seconds until I finally gave up and took off running in the other direction. I looked in every room before I finally found her and the two techs leaning over her.
“Okay, Bobby, on the count of three, we’ll lift her onto the bed,” the younger guy said to the older guy.
“She’s here!” I gasped, staring at all the equipment that was attached to her. I thought she would wake up at any second, open her eyes and say the board was poking her back or something. But nothing. By the time they were done with the process, I noticed that my knuckles were white from clenching them so hard as I waited
“You’re back. Wasn’t sure you would be,” the tattooed guy said. “And I see you have her paperwork. Can you tell us what happened?”
I gritted my teeth, wanting to deck the guy for thinking any less of me, but getting myself kicked out of the hospital wouldn’t help Jackie so I reined myself in. “I saw her get hit on her bike and fly off, so I stopped and picked her up and took her here.” It was the truth. I just happened to leave out the part that I was the one that hit her.
“Blood pressure is 90/70,” the other guy said, ripping off the blood pressure cuff.
“Do you know if she has any allergies to latex or anything else we should be aware of?” He looked right at me, as if he could see through me. Like he knew that I didn’t have a clue who the girl really was.
“No, sir.” I answered honestly, but I didn’t let my face show anything. I kept my jaw clenched. “That’s not exactly something we bring up in our every day conversations.”
Truth was, I’d never even had a real conversation with her. But I couldn’t let her down. Someone had to be there for her. I knew what it was like to be alone without real support. Even with a big family, sometimes I felt like I was the loneliest person in the world.
The guy just nodded. He probably didn’t believe me, but I didn’t care. It was the truth, most of it. I was going to make it right and take care of the girl and no one was going to stop me.
“Okay, Bobby, on the count of three, we’ll lift her onto the bed,” the younger guy said to the older guy.
The younger of the guys patted me on the back. “It’s fine, man, relax.”
Easy for him to say.
A black woman in a pair of green scrubs followed by an older Asian man in blue scrubs came into the room as the other two men left. The new pair put on some gloves and then closed the curtain around them.
“I’m Miranda, one of the nurses on duty and this is Scott, one of the techs. We’re going to be getting her set up. We just have some questions for you, if you don’t mind?” the woman asked as she stepped over to a computer that sat on a small stand near Jackie’s bed, eyeing me skeptically. No one believed my story, I knew that much. I was good at reading people, I had to be to fight. I had to know my opponents’ next move before they even made it. If these doctors and nurses wanted to fight me for my story then I was going to give it all I got.
“I’ll answer them the best I can.” I forced a smile. I wasn’t the best actor in the world, but to make things right, I’d do what I had to.
“The front desk said her name was Jackie, that’s correct?”
“Yes, Jacqueline. Jackie Marks.” I looked over at the bed. I was the monster that put her there. The one that hit her with my Bentley and now this beautiful woman was lying in a hospital bed. It wasn’t her boyfriend. It was me. I couldn’t live with myself until I made it right.
“She’s my fiancé.” The words just came out of me before I even knew I was saying them. The only way they would let me put her on my insurance was if we were related. I knew saying that could lead to even more questioning, but I wasn’t thinking. All I wanted to do was keep her safe and I was doing a shitty ass job of it so far.
“And you said she was in a car accident, is that correct?” Miranda asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Yeah. I was following her home from work and the back of her bike was rear ended. She flew off a few feet and was unconscious. I picked her up and put her in my backseat. I made sure she was lying flat and her spine was straight. I couldn’t tell anything about injuries, just that she’s pretty beaten up with road rash.”
“You moved her? Why didn’t you call an ambulance?” Miranda asked, not even bothering to look at her computer.
I swallowed hard, trying to think before I spoke. I thought there would be questions, but I didn’t expect an interrogation. “I wanted to get her to the hospital as fast as I could. We were on the south side, not in the best neighborhood. I just wanted to make sure she was safe. I know it was a dick move for me to move her, but I figured it was better to get her here than to watch her die in the street.”
Miranda nodded, finally taking my word for it as she went on to the next set of questions. If I guess she figured if I was trying to kill Jackie I would have left her there instead of caring so much.
Maybe it was stupid to bring her in. Maybe I should have just called an ambulance. But as I watched the monitors beep over her still body and saw her motionless face, I knew it was the right thing. Someone had to look out for her even if it was a monster like me.
***
Even after the nurses left and the doctors checked on her, and they’d run every test on the planet, I couldn’t leave. We’d been sitting in the hospital for hours and it was past one in the morning. I wasn’t sure why I even noticed the time. It’s not like there was anyone waiting for me b
ack at my condo anyway. The only person who texted me was my cousin Dominic, looking to go out.
The one thing I was waiting for was someone to call Jackie’s phone. I wanted to tell someone that she was here. Someone had to be worried about her. But no one called or texted.
I grabbed her phone from the bag they put her clothes in when they stripped her down and put her in one of the flimsy hospital gowns. I expected her to have some kind of pass code to figure out, but I just had to slide my finger across the screen to unlock it. I guess not everyone had secrets they wanted to keep hidden on their phone.
I scrolled through her contacts looking for a “Mom” or a “Dad” but there was nothing. Not even a “Grandma” or “Grandpa” or a sibling. Nobody with her last name. I couldn’t just start texting or calling random people in her phone, especially not this late.
“Fuck,” I mumbled.
I didn’t want to be the guy that was about to go through a practical stranger’s phone but I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do. I clicked on her Facebook icon.
God she was fucking gorgeous. Most of the girls I usually met were the typical North Shore Princesses who all looked the same after awhile: fake blonde hair, fake tan, and fake tits. Jackie was different. Her profile pic was just her sitting on a motorcycle, her long, black hair falling in waves around her shoulders and her green eyes staring right at the camera like she was waiting for me. Calling to me. Just asking for me to go through the screen and take her.
What the fuck? I never got this worked up over a girl. Especially not a girl that was lying in a hospital bed next to me. I had to pull my shit together and just focus on the task at hand. I scrolled through her Wall and saw that there were a lot of posts from a girl named Haley “Nik-L-Nips” Lewis. Then I scrolled through her pictures and Haley was in a lot of those as well. It seemed like she was a good enough friend that she wouldn’t mind a text at the early morning hours. Especially if she had a nickname like Nik-L-Nips.
I exited out of Facebook and went to Jackie’s contacts and scrolled through until I found Haley and sent a quick message.
Hey, Jackie was in a car accident and is in the ER at Mercy. Found you in her phone and thought you might want to know or come see her.
It wasn’t long before I got a response back.
OMG! How is Jackie? Is she okay? Is she dead? And who the fuck is this?
I didn’t know whether to laugh or how to take the text, so I just responded to each question in order.
She’s all right. She’s resting in the ER but hasn’t gone to a room yet. Not dead. This is Nick. I brought her in.
I’ll be right there once my shift is over.
I set Jackie’s phone down and walked over to her bed. I’d been staring at her for hours, just willing her to wake up and look at me, to give me some sign that she was going to be okay, all the while trying to convince myself that I wasn’t a monster who almost killed her.
“Jackie,” I whispered and kneeled down next to her.
She didn’t move. There was nothing. Not even an eye flutter. I had taken down so many guys when I was fighting and not thought a second about it. But none of them died. None of them were this incapacitated.
Maybe Coach was right, maybe I was like my father. He had so much blood on his hands they weren’t even olive anymore. I didn’t want to be him. I wanted to fight, but not like this. Not if it ended with people dying who didn’t deserve to die.
“What the fuck is going on here?” A high-pitched, snarky voice ripped me from my own reverie.
I stood up and turned around to see a girl with bright brown curls and a pound of makeup surrounding her large honey colored eyes, staring back at me. But it wasn’t all the makeup and hair that was surprising. It was the fact that she was wearing a pink cupcake bra and a matching cupcake panties that barely covered anything. No wonder she had the nickname Nik-L-Nips, she probably worked at a strip club. Probably The Candy Shop.
“Oh my fucking God!” She put her hands to her face, covering her mouth. Her fake nails were so long and glittery I thought they were going to poke her eyes out.
“Yeah, she looks worse than she is. She’s doing all right. The doctor said nothing was broken and she doesn’t even have a concussion. She’s just bruised and scraped up a bit,” I said, looking from Jackie and back to Haley.
She shook her head, dropping her hands. “Not Jackie. You. You’re Nicky Ragusa. El Principe. The Fighter. Vince Ragusa’s son.”
Shit. I didn’t actually think she’d know who I was. “Yeah, and you must be Haley.”
“Yeah, Jackie’s best friend, who didn’t tell me anything about her hanging around Nick Ragusa.” She stomped over to the bed, her sky high heels clicking on the linoleum floor with each step. “I thought she would have told me about you, but I’m glad it’s you here instead of that fucktard Emilio.”
She turned to me sharply, her hair almost hitting me in the face. “Was it him who put her in here? Did he try and push her out of his POS shit wagon? I knew he’d try and kill her one of these days. I told her, ‘Jackie, you need to get rid of that boy, he’s toxic.’ But does she listen to me? No. She never does.”
I shook my head and swallowed hard, trying to regain my composure. How could I tell her that I was the reason Jackie was there? How did my father live with himself knowing he was the one that put so many people in this position? “No. Not that I know of. I just saw her get hit and I brought her in. I wanted to make sure she was safe. And don’t worry, I’m taking care of everything. She won’t have to worry about the bills or anything. It’s taken care of.”
Haley’s eyes widened. “Taken care of? Did you also take care of the guy that hit her? Is he sleeping with the fishes now?”
I couldn’t help but smile at that one and shook my head. All the stupid mafia movies definitely gave my family quite the reputation. “No, nothing like that. Just tell her she doesn’t have to worry about anything and to call me when she gets out. I put my number in her phone.”
“Are you leaving?” she asked, staring at me and blinking slowly.
I took one last glance at Jackie, still lying there in the bed, unmoving, her face as frozen as it had been when I brought her in.
“Yeah. I need to go.” I wanted to say so much more. To Haley. To Jackie. To myself. But instead I just turned around, pulled back the curtain and walked down the hall and to my car, leaving alone to go back home to my reality.
Chapter 3
Fuck. Late as usual.
I should have left the hospital earlier last night. I shouldn’t have stayed so long. But I couldn’t leave Jackie. I wanted her to open her eyes again. I wanted to see those gorgeous green eyes and make sure that she remembered my face.
“Come on, Nicky, we’re late already,” my cousin Dominic said, jumping up and down as he waited for me to finish my coffee and throw the cup away in a nearby trashcan. Dominic was eager for everything. He hated to be late, even if it was by a few seconds, because he was afraid he’d miss something.
It wasn’t like Dad didn’t run the town anyway. The only reason Dad even cared if I was late or not was because he was up my ass about taking over the family business, and not just in the real estate and development market.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts of Jackie.
We walked through the double doors into the high rise of Ragusa Industries. We had already dodged the morning traffic of commuters and businessmen in suits, so the lobby was empty. That was fine by me, since Dominic didn’t exactly have the best mouth on him for the business world. The only reason he got hired was because my dad was his godfather.
“Hey, Dom, can you get my bike guy’s number when you get a chance?” I asked as we hopped into the elevator.
“Don’t you have a secretary?” He raised his eyebrows, running his hand through his shaggy hair. After he basically failed out of college last year, my dad hired him at the company and Dom started training with me a few month
s ago. I told him he needed to cut the mop, but the kid had to keep something that made him happy. He said the girls loved it so he kept it.
When I just looked at him he said, “Fine. I’ll have Benji give you a call.” He bounced on his heels. “Now is this a new bike for you, or for the battona you were out with last night?”
Why the hell did I tell him I was out with a girl last night? It must have been the lack of sleep that was getting to me.
“Call her that one more time, bastardo, and Imma gonna make sure your head sees the other side of my glock, capeesh?” I said it low, even though there was no one else in the elevator, I never knew who was around. What the hell was wrong with me? I never got angry like that in public. This girl fucked with my mind. I had to get my head back in the game.
Dom lifted his arms up. “Okay, man, I understand. I’ll get his number and text it to you.”
“Good.”
“What the fuck is up with you and this chick?”
I shook my head. “Nothing, man. I just want to make things right. I hit her with my car. Do you really want her coming after the family and putting us in a big legal mess?”
Dom raised his eyebrows. Of course he saw right through me. I shouldn’t have tried to fake it with the guy that knew me better than anyone. “Yeah and you don’t think someone like her would have just taken cash under the table like how we usually handle things?”
“Just let it go.” The elevator dinged on our floor and I stepped out, not even looking back at him.
Our office was everything one would expect in the penthouse office space: vaulted ceilings, marble floors, and mahogany desks. For most people in their early twenties with a degree from DePaul it would be a fucking wet dream; to me it was my biggest fucking nightmare.
“Mr. Ragusa,” my secretary, Kate, said as she stood. My dad hired her for her sexy, breathy voice. That and the fact that he was fucking her behind my mother’s back. The thought of it made me sick to my stomach. She brushed her long brown hair behind her shoulder and then pushed up her tits, practically popping them out of her button-down shirt.