Page 6 of Damaged Kingdom


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Dominic snorted. “Mari used to love that show.”

“She still does,” Greyson corrected, but he was distracted. We all were. “I catch her watching it some nights when she can’t sleep and working out doesn’t help.”

He zoomed out, found the dot, and zoomed back in on the map so we could see where it was. “What the hell?” Frowning, he did it again like that would change the dot’s location.

Dominic tipped his head and squinted. “Is that?—”

“Yeah,” I answered. The question was, how the hell did she get there?

All three of us stared at the screen for a heartbeat before breaking into a run down the hall. It didn’t matter if she’d hotwired a car to drive herself to Seattle General; it mattered that we’d found her. It mattered that she could be alive.

Don’t hope, I told myself. The fall is too painful to risk it.

But I was pretty sure it didn’t matter anymore. Looking back, I’d been falling since the day we met.

Chapter Three

Dominic

Everyone noticed when we burst into Seattle General. It could’ve been the blood coating Grey and me or Nate’s scowl, but I had a feeling it was the dark aura of retribution trailing in our wake.

Our girl was in the hospital, and someone was going to die because of it.

“What name would she go under?” Nate asked, and I was impressed he’d even thought about it. Mari obviously wouldn’t be under Marcosa; that would be too easy for her enemies to sniff out.

“Mine,” Greyson answered. For once, I was bummed I’d kept the family name.

As we neared the information desk, I tried to don the friendly mask I wore in public. Normally, I could slip into it like a second skin, but now, the seams felt too tight, like it didn’t quite fit anymore. I didn’t know if it was because I was worried about Mari or because of what I’d done to Sabine.

I’d nearly killed the girl, and I wouldn’t have flinched. Oh, I would’ve hated myself for it later, but in the moment, that didn’t matter. She crossed Mari. End of story.

Leaning my arms against the counter, I tried my hardest to fall into the role I’d perfected over the years. “We’re looking for someone.”

“Name,” the woman behind the computer drolled.

“Marianna Andrews.”

She didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink faster, but there was a twitch at the edge of her eye that told me she was about to lie. She typed something and dropped her lips into a fake frown. “I’m not seeing anyone by that name. Are you sure she’s here and not at another hospital?”

Considering we have the GPS location to prove it…

Greyson stepped forward. “We’re sure. Try again, please. She could be under Mari.”

The woman’s fingers didn’t flinch on the keys. “As I said, she isn’t in the system, and even if she were, I couldn’t tell you anything. So, unless you’re family?—”

“Husband, husband, boy toy,” I interrupted, pointing to myself, Greyson, and Nate in order. If Mari came to the hospital instead of going home, she was hurt. We didn’t have time to play around. “Can you please just tell us where the fuck she is?”

To her credit, the woman didn’t bat an eye, and after Grey fished out his ID that clearly showed he was an Andrews, she relented on getting a doctor to speak to us. With a wary eye and a scowl aimed directly at me, she waved us over to an empty seating area and went back to her computer.

Nate sat, leg bouncing, but it wasn’t a nervous tic. His lips moved silently as he…counted? I didn’t ask, though. It was none of my business how he coped with stress. Grey sat still and sharp in the chair, eyes on everyone, even as he made calls and sent texts. Meanwhile, I sat and stared at the wall and let the regrets eat me alive.

All I could think about was the worst outcome: that she’d died alone. Without us. That I’d never get the chance to fix things between us. That our breakup at the docks was the last time we’d actually spoken. It couldn’t end like that. We couldn’t be over.

I had to fix things, but that meant she had to be alive.

Eventually, a doctor stopped in front of us, and Greyson must’ve made introductions, but it was hard to hear over the heartbeat pounding in my ears. Grey nudged me, and I forced myself to focus on what the doctor was saying. “Your wife lost a lot of blood and sustained some nasty internal injuries to boot. We’ve given her a transfusion and fixed what we could, but she needs time to rest and heal.”

I pointedly ignored the shiver down my spine when she called Mari my wife. It sounded good. Perfect, even. But we had a long way to go to get there. “She’s alive, though?”

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