Raynar lowered his gun in obedience. Jaggar hesitated until Chase arched a perfectly groomed brow in his direction.
With a swallowed grunt, Jaggar unwrapped his finger from around the trigger—but kept it beside it at the ready—and lowered the gun to his side. With nearly as much menace, he kept his glare trained on Hunt, who kept his weapon trained on Chase.
With a docile, patient expression I wasn’t buying, Chase stared back at Hunt, appearing to simply wait.
When moments drew out and still Hunt didn’t fall into line, Chase said, “There’s no need for violence between us.”
“Your guys literally justshotme,” Brady said, picking at the gaping hole in his shirt to peek beneath it.
“Actions causereactions. You attacked my men, so they protected themselves.”
“By shooting at a bunch of unarmed hospital patients?” Griffin growled with a scowl that was mega-sexy despite the circumstances. “Trappedhospital patients, I’m gonna add. You’re keeping us here against our will.”
Chasetsked. “You’ll be free to go soon enough.” He gazed upward, where two bullet holes pocked the otherwise smooth stretch of cream directly overhead. “Besides, the ceiling seems to have gotten the worst of it.”
I wasn’t buying his act.
Brady scoffed as if somehow shocked that the man who’d hunted us only to have us gunned down wasn’t overly concerned Brady was once again injured. He sputtered, “You’re a piece of work, you know that? You talk about taking responsibility for your actions while you behave fully fucking egregiously, believing you have impunity. Well, you motherfucking don’t.”
Finally, Chase glanced from Hunt to Brady. “It’s lamentable that you’re injured. It was a completely avoidable result, one I attempted to prevent by telling you that it’s in your best interest tolistento me, not try to kill me.”
I gaped at him, fumbling for words. “Are you for real right now?” is what ended up tumbling out. “You fuckingmurderedus.Murr-durred. If you think for one second we’re going to—”
“Look, Joss,” he interrupted, and Griffin growled. Again, Chase didn’t flinch. He was either impervious to the very real threat we posed to him or he knew something we didn’t. I still felt like roadkill warmed over, and yet I was considering dismembering the rich fuck, limb from expertly dressed limb.
“All of you, really,” Chase went on, glancing at each one of us. “Despite our past or how we met”—Brady barked out an increduloushah—“there’s absolutely no reason we should be enemies. If you’ll calm down enough to reason the situation through, I think you’ll soon see we can all be on the same side.”
“Un-bloody-fucking-likely,” I snarled.
Chase looked from me to Hunt’s gun, then back to me. “From all accounts, the lot of you are brilliant. Appearances apparently aren’t everything.”
“Since you look like a shitstain,” Layla said, “for your sake let’s hope not.” She offered him her best mean-bitch fake smile, and the asshole actually chuckled.
Chase brought up a hand in what I thought might be surrender before he slid up the sleeve of his shirt to check a watch that sparkled with gold and diamonds. Apparently the man didn’t believe in hiding his obscene wealth.
He dropped his arm to his side. “You don’t get to where I am in life by wasting time. I have what I believe will be life-altering information to offer you, along with a proposal. Would you like to hear what I have to say, or would you like to keep playing games that waste time for all of us?”
“You call shooting me a game?” Brady snarled.
“No,” Chase answered sharply. “I call it avoidable idiocy. The best surgeon in several states is ready to fix you up if you’re finally ready to listen.”
When still none of us agreed and Hunt showed no sign of moving the gun from where it pointed at the billionaire’s forehead, Chase eventually sighed.
“I truly thought you’d all be smarter than this. You perform off-the-charts in every aptitude test known to man. You’re playing with an incomplete deck of cards. Don’t you want to check out the aces up my sleeves?” He flicked his fingers at his sides, but that was the end of his theatrics.
Unimpressive.
His brows rose a fraction of an inch, and his eyes danced. “Don’t you want to know how far your parents’ lies go?”
My muscles tensed.Yes, I very much wanted that.
“Though calling them yourparentsis quite the stretch.”
Hunt tilted up his chin to study Chase over the gun’s sight. “What do you mean?”
“Put the gun down and I’ll tell you.”
Hunt looked at the rest of us before scanning Jaggar and Raynar. Turning back toward Chase, he told him, “Tell them to pile up all their weapons on that table there”—the one that had once held the water and now lay overturned—“and sit in the armchairs. Then I’ll put down my gun.”
