by Geneva Lee
“I’ll make a few calls.”
I didn’t get the chance to ask him who he would call before Dr. Roget appeared in the doorway.
“What are your blood types?”
“Um, A, I think.” It sounded right.
“O negative.”
Dr. Roget beckoned for Edward to join him.
“The joy of being a universal donor,” he muttered, rolling up his sleeve as he went inside the room.
I entered behind them, my hand fluttering to my mouth to stifle a gasp at the sight of Smith hooked up to an oxygen mask and IVs.
“He needs a transfusion,” the doctor explained, gesturing for Edward to take a chair next to the bed. “I can’t risk going into the hospital for blood.”
“Lucky that I’m here,” Edward said through gritted teeth.
I shot him a grateful smile. A few minutes later, Edward’s blood flowed through a tube into a collection bag.
“Now let’s take a look at you,” Dr. Roget suggested. “Perhaps somewhere more private.”
My heartbeat sped up as I realized he wanted to take me into another room. Smith would be safe here with Edward, and the clinic was quiet. I’d only need to get off one scream if things went south. “Of course.”
Edward’s earlier warning echoed in my head. I braced myself as I stepped into the exam room across the hall behind Roget. But the doctor merely flipped on the lights.
“Your shoulder is bleeding,” he noted.
I nodded numbly, admittedly surprised that this wasn’t a trap. Had my world really been reduced to turning each stranger I met into an enemy? I tugged my shirt off my head, wincing as the fabric grazed over the wound I’d sustained trying to crawl out of my hotel window.
“Adrenaline,” he explained.
I blinked and shook my head. “I’m sorry?”
“You’ve been functioning on adrenaline. It’s kept you alive,” he informed me. “That’s why you forgot you were hurt.”
“I was worried about Smith,” I whispered.
“Understandable.” He swabbed the cut with a wet cotton ball that transitioned from cold liquid to stinging heat on contact. “You should be worried.”
“Is he going to make it?” I wasn’t entirely sure I’d spoken the words, my voice was so small.
“He will. You acted quickly. Once the transfusion is complete, he’ll be stable. For now.”
“And later?”
“Unfortunately, you can’t stay here.” Roget smiled sadly. “As a doctor, it’s not ideal to treat a patient and kick him out immediately, but there is simply no other way.”
“I understand.”
“Do you, Mrs. Price?” he asked pointedly. “I could make up an excuse and have him admitted within the hour, but he would be dead by tomorrow. Do you truly understand?”
“I do.” The words scratched across my tongue. It was the second time I’d spoken those words this week. Each time they’d held a heavy meaning.
“I won’t ask you anything else.” He finished bandaging the cut and walked to the sink. “It’s better I don’t know.”
“What will you tell them?”
“That Smith came to me for medical assistance, and I complied in accordance with my agreement with Hammond.”
“You’re going to play dumb,” I sussed out.
His head bobbed. “I didn’t attend to you when you came to the hospital, Mrs. Price. But I looked at your chart. You don’t need to give me any more details.”
He had already guessed. He knew Smith had gone from Hammond’s golden child to number one on his list.
“The less your friend knows the better, especially given who he is.”
I bit my lip to keep it from trembling. I’d known this was far from over. I’d hatched a plan. But the reality of enacting it was hurtling toward me with breakneck speed.
“When they come to ask, I’ll mention Smith and his wife came.” Roget wiped his hands on a towel and dropped it into a linen basket. “I should check on the donor’s progress.”
Edward would be left out of it. It was a small mercy, but one all the same. From tonight on I’d only have myself to rely on unless Smith woke up.
When he wakes up, I thought, willing myself to believe it.
Chapter 4
Each breath was a struggle and then it wasn’t. But nothing could stop the barrage of nightmares that accompanied the heavy darkness oppressing my body.
Open your eyes.
I repeated the demand until my eyelids flickered open. Staring at white ceiling tiles, it took me a moment to realize I was breathing through an oxygen mask. I swiped against its sweaty rim, trying to push it away A million questions crowded in my mind and they all centered around one person:
Belle.
Propping myself up on my elbow, pain shot through me and knocked me back onto the table.
“I wouldn’t try to get up,” a cold voice advised me. “She’ll be back in a second.”
This time I ripped the mask off and swiveled toward the voice, ignoring the second hot stab of pain. Edward was a media darling, loved by the masses for his kindness and sweet nature. In a way, the prince was England’s ultimate boy next door, but if the papers could see him now, they might take back the title.
He glared down at me, his face devoid of that infamous friendliness, and the message was clear: he was here for her. Not for me.
As if I gave a fuck. I’d dealt with the entitled attitude of his family long enough to know what they were really like. I’d tolerated them for the sole purpose of destroying Hammond. Now I’d have to tolerate them for new reasons, but I didn’t have to like Edward. I was positive that the feeling was mutual.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked in a scratchy voice before succumbing to a fit of coughing.
“You’re welcome,” he responded in a flat voice, holding up his arm to display the crimson tube taped to his flesh. “You need blood.”
He didn’t tell me more than that, but his presence here was enough to help me piece together some of my missing timeline. Although it didn’t tell me where here was. Or where my wife had gone. I tried to push off the table again, but this time Edward caught me and held me back.
“Are you mental?” he demanded. “Can you stop trying to kill yourself for five bloody minutes?”
“Where is she?” I asked in a low voice.
“Your doctor is checking her out.”
This time he couldn’t keep me down. I swung my feet over the edge of the exam table as stars blossomed in my vision. Shaking my head, I tried to will away the wooziness.
“She’s fine.” Edward grabbed my shoulder. “I can’t say the same about you.”
“He’s stubborn,” Roget’s baritone called from the doorway. “Smith, your lovely wife is here. Safe.”
My gaze flashed over his shoulder, my heart beating against my rib cage like a trapped animal. I’d thought I’d sent her to safety, only to have Hammond dash that hope. It should have calmed me to know she hadn’t gone to Clara and Alexander after my phone call, but the fact that she was here, unknowingly being treated by Hammond’s personal physician, only made me more desperate to take her as far away from London as I could get her.
Belle peeked past Roget and then rushed to my side. Having her so close was enough to relax me, if only for a moment, and I collapsed down, exam paper crinkling under me.
“You need a transfusion.” She fussed over me, brushing my hair from my forehead. Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine, and when I finally reached up and tilted her chin, I found tears brimming on her lashes.
“Hey, beautiful,” I said in a soft voice. There was no point in trying to reassure her. I’d fallen for a smart woman; it would be an insult to downplay what she had been through.
Or what was to come.
“You scared me, Price,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I should hit you or kiss you.”
“As it so happens, I like it rough,” I reminded her, stroking the back of my hand softly over her
unbruised cheek.
Edward groaned, not even a meter away, and an embarrassed grin flitted over Belle’s beautiful face. Even with her injuries, she was the most breathtaking woman in the world. She was classically beautiful with high cheekbones and delicate coloring, and she’d combined those features with the sensibility of an ingénue. Just thinking of her wearing sexpot red lipstick was usually enough to get me hard.
But none of that was what captured my attention and fueled my obsession. It had been her fire that undid me. Before her I’d had no interest in relationships. I had never considered that I could trust a woman again. Quite simply she’d lit a flame in me that I’d believed couldn’t be reignited. She had given me a purpose beyond myself. She was my reason to live—and my reason to fight.
And she was in danger.
“I’d like to speak to Dr. Roget alone.”
Belle’s teeth sank into her lower lip as she studied me before she stood up and crossed her arms over her petite chest. “You sent me away once tonight, and look how that turned out.”
“I’m only sending you to the hallway.” I forced a smile. Belle huffed as she turned to leave.
Dr. Roget had finished removing Edward’s line and was setting up the transfusion line. I shot Belle’s best friend a meaningful look over her shoulder. He caught it and tipped his chin in recognition.
“There’s an icebox down the hall,” Roget instructed them. “He should have something sugary and sit down.”
“Fine. C’mon.” She slung an arm around his waist, and the two shared a smile so genuine that jealousy roared in my chest. Given that Edward was gay, I should have felt stupid. But I wanted that—a relationship that came easily. I wanted to make her feel lightened, not burdened. I wanted to make her smile, not cry. Tonight I’d failed to protect her. I was a failure as a husband.
The doctor tapped my skin for a vein, but I barely felt it. “How bad is it?”
“It could be worse,” he said with a shrug, not bothering with a warning before he stuck me.
“How?” I asked dryly.
“You could be dead,” he pointed out, “and in that scenario, she would be dead, too.”
“Is that a threat?” I snarled, my hand lashing out to catch the cuff of his lab coat.
Roget calmly withdrew my fingers and continued to set up the IV. “We both took oaths in our professions, Smith. Mine has been easier to keep in many ways.”
“Do no harm?” I asked with a laugh. He had done plenty of harm. We all had.
“My professional responsibility is to my patient. I am responsible for his health and his life. It doesn’t matter who they are or the crimes they have committed. If the police bring in an injured criminal, it is my duty as a doctor to treat them.”
“I’ve always wondered how you sleep at night,” I muttered.
“I’ve often wondered the same thing about you,” he said without missing a beat. “Your duty is also to your client.”
“That’s where we’re different, Doctor. I know I’m scum.”
“I know that as well.” Roget settled onto a stool next to the table. “Hammond offered financial resources to the hospital that the state could not. I made a choice.”
We all had made the same choice: to sell our soul. Hammond was the highest bidder in London. He always had been.
“I don’t regret that,” he continued. “I’ve saved countless lives through his donations.”
“What about the lives he’s taken?” I asked him.
“Regrettable.” There was hesitation though.
At the end of the day, it was impossible to negate the red in our ledgers. No matter what we told ourselves, no matter what good we did.
“Georgia’s dead,” I informed him. “He killed her.”
Roget’s throat slid as he swallowed this information. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“He’ll kill me, too—and Belle.”
“Your wife is a smart woman, Smith. I’ve already advised her.”
My eyes narrowed. “What game are we playing here?”
“No game, Smith. I didn’t sit down to discuss ethics with you. I was trying to tell you that I haven’t informed Hammond of your presence here this evening.” Roget spread his hands as if offering me a present.
But we both knew it wasn’t as simple as that. “He’ll find out.”
“When he does, I’ll remind him that I was under orders to care for his family under any circumstances.”
“I’m not his family. Not anymore.”
He raised a bushy eyebrow. “I didn’t know that. You simply showed up with your wife in need of medical attention. I sent you on your way, thinking nothing of it.”
“It won’t matter,” I said with a sigh. “We won’t even make it out of this city.”
“I was surprised to see you’d made friends with people in such lofty situations. Perhaps you’ll have more time than you think.”
“Then you won’t contact him at all?” I didn’t hide my surprise at this possibility. Hammond wasn’t known for jumping to rational conclusions. It was a gamble on Roget’s part to keep this information from him.
“I told you that my responsibility is to my patients. Your well-being is my concern. As far as I know, Hammond will suffer no ill effects if you heal.”
He would if I had anything to say about it. Roget’s mouth pressed into a line, and he stood as if he suspected what I was thinking.
“I appreciate it.” Despite Roget’s professional claims, it was hard to be grateful to a man whose primary function in the world was keeping an evil man alive and healthy.
I listened to him, half-heartedly, as he told me things I already knew. I couldn’t stay here. It would be dangerous for me to go to the hospital. I would have to leave when the transfusion was complete. I nodded at the appropriate times despite its uselessness. Roget would be the first person Hammond sought out when he learned the details of the night. We wouldn’t have long before the next hellish onslaught was upon us.
“Can you ask Edward to come in?” I asked, interrupting him mid-sentence.
“Of course,” he said in a pert voice.
Edward eyed me as he entered the room, the wariness of earlier returning to his features.
“I wanted to thank you,” I told him. This time there was no question of my sincerity. At least, not on my end. “You were there for Belle when I couldn’t be.”
“It seems like you have a hard time being there for her,” Edward pointed out. “Perhaps you aren’t the man for the job.”
Every instinct in my body wanted to tear him apart as he spoke, but I fought the urge. Clenching my fists, I forced myself to remain calm. “From now on, it is my sole responsibility.”
“And what about your duty to others?” Edward cast a meaningful look down at me.
I wasn’t interested in doublespeak anymore. “Tell your brother what I said. He’s had enough information to hang Hammond for months. I’m out.”
“He’ll be sorry to hear that.”
“But I suspect you aren’t,” I guessed. Up until now, I hadn’t been sure if Edward was aware of his brother’s private witch hunt.
“It is a son’s duty to avenge his father. If you’ll pardon the cliché, it’s in our blood to believe that, but my true concern has always been with protecting Clara and Belle.”
“And Alexander’s is not?”
“He would die for Clara,” Edward assured me. “I’m not certain he would make that sacrifice for Belle.”
“He shouldn’t,” I said harshly. “That’s my duty.”
Edward looked away as he spoke quietly, “He told you to walk away from her.”
“I’ve never been very good at taking orders,” I reminded him, “which is why I doubt he’ll mourn my loss.”
“If anything happens to her—”
“Save your threat,” I stopped him. “If anything happens to Belle, you won’t have to seek me out. You won’t have to kill me. I’ll do it myself.”
I extende
d my hand, and Edward took it, gripping it firmly in recognition of this understanding. I didn’t care if he believed me. I trusted that he would seek me out if I didn’t make good on my promise. But he wouldn’t have to—I was a man of my word.
Chapter 5
Belle had fallen silent as soon as we left the clinic, and I was torn between forcing her to talk and being caught in my own thoughts. The farther we got from London, the darker the world grew outside the car windows. There were no street lamps illuminating the M4, and save for pockets of civilization tucked into the outskirts of London, night had painted the world black. Time lost all meaning as we drove speechlessly from the city we called home toward an unknown destination.
I suspected where she was taking me, but I’d understood why she had been hesitant to share her plans until we were safely outside the greater London area. There was no reason to believe we weren’t safe, but I knew the same sense of foreboding I felt had settled into her bones. Somehow it felt better not to talk about what had happened—what was likely to come. At least, for now. In the cold, ink-black night, reality felt absent, as if we’d stumbled into limbo.
Emotionally, we had. It wasn’t many marriages that tested the “'til death do us part” aspect so early on. I reached out and took Belle’s hand, my face still turned to the anonymous world outside. It was enough to know she was here. She believed she was taking me to safety, but that was far from the truth.
I was removing her from danger.
My injuries had been the catalyst needed to motivate her to leave, and once I was certain she was safe, I would return to London and the unfinished business I’d left behind. Business that stood a pretty good chance of landing me behind bars or six feet under.
As we drove, a lilac sliver of dawn appeared on the horizon, brightening into a cheerful rose. I’d never hated the sunrise before, but this morning as it cast light across the unfamiliar landscape, I did. Belle’s fingers tightened around my own as if she too feared what today might bring to our doorstep. Last night, we had survived. Before, a new day might have felt full of possibility, but now it only carried the prospect of new danger. In the night, we’d faded along with the world. The first streaks of sunlight bounced off the Bugatti’s hood, exposing us. The dawn had caught up with us as it did all things.