I crash tackle the brute clamping his hand over my savior’s mouth so violently, his bounce across the tiled floor exposes his scrubs are fraudulent. He isn’t a medical professional. He’s one of my father’s goons. The make and model of his gun that skids across the floor with him exposes this, much less the Petretti emblem tattooed on his neck.
If my father can’t brand you with disdain, he takes the old-fashioned route. Every member of his crew has the Petretti family emblem tattooed on their neck.
“G-Get the fuck out of here!” I shout after gathering up his gun and directing it at his head.
I’ve never fired a weapon in my life, but for once, my namesake works in my favor. The goon looks worried. So he should be. I’m seconds from blowing his brains out. That’s how unhinged I feel from taking in my rescuer’s unmoving chest and pale, lifeless face. She looks like she’s dead, and her wish to help me was what pushed her into her grave.
“Your father—”
“Will be the least of y-your worries if you don’t leave r-right fucking now!”
After dusting his hands down the front of his mock uniform as if it is as stained as my gown from landing into a bush under my savior’s window, he tosses a glass vial across the room.
Not thinking, I snatch it up before it shatters on the tiled floor.
The goon grins like he’s walking away victorious. I discover why when he mutters, “Good luck explaining that.”
On his way out, he jabs the emergency call button on the doorframe of the private suite. It sends a ‘code red’ alarm through the paging system of the hospital. It alerts nurses that a patient is crashing in the room I’m standing in with a gun, a vial of vapor-like liquid, and an unresponsive woman.
Matters couldn’t get any worse.
“T-This wasn’t me,” I advise the first nurse who races into my savior’s room. It is the young medic from earlier, the one who told me my rescuer’s life wasn’t in danger a second before she was removed from the room by my father’s surly tone.
I guess she forgot to calculate the odds of my father never leaving any witnesses to his crimes.
After taking a couple of seconds to assess the situation, the nurse slings her eyes to the left. “Bring me the crash trolley.” While I do that, she switches off the emergency alarm, then shouts down the corridor that it’s a false alarm. “The patient accidentally bumped the button in the bathroom. She’s a little woozy. I’ll get her back into bed before finalizing my rounds.”
I can’t hear what the person replies, but the nurse doesn’t wait around for it either. She returns to my savior’s bedside even quicker than I arrive with the trolley, then she commences assessing her condition. “Did you see what he gave her?”
While taking in my rescuer’s name scribbled across the whiteboard above her head, I shake mine. “No. He h-had his hand clamped over her m-mouth.”
Her groan is so potent I feel it more than I hear it. “The liquid in the vial you’re holding, does it smell vinegary?”
As she opens Jae’s mouth to take a whiff of her breath, I pull off the cork stuffed into the glass vial, then take a sniff of the liquid inside. “It’s k-kinda vinegary.”
When I dip my pinkie into the vial to see if it tastes as it smells, the nurse shouts, “Don’t sample it. If this is what I think it is, even a droplet will cause significant memory loss.” She pops open Jae’s hospital gown to place heart rate monitor pads onto her torso. “Betradezliroid is rampant in the sex trafficking market at the moment. The less the girls remember, the less zombie-like they are with their customers. It’s all the rage in mafia industries.”
I’m taken aback by her openness, considering she knows my last name. It’s rare to find someone so frank, let alone when they’re informing that knowledge to the son of a criminal underworld figure. “If that’s the c-case, if all he wanted was for her to f-forget, why did he h-have her hand over her mouth?”
The nurse shrugs. “I don’t know. But right now, we don’t have time to work that out.”
I assume she’s referencing the horrifying straight line on the heart monitor she recently attached to Jae’s chest but learn otherwise when she nudges her head to the corridor. A tactical response unit is preparing to storm Jae’s room. The only reason they haven’t charged is because I’m still clutching the gun I snatched off the floor earlier.
After realizing the duo helming the campaign are the mercenaries my father paid off outside my hospital room only minutes ago, I snap my eyes back to the nurse.
“Go,” she encourages when she spots my massively dilated gaze.
I shake my head. “I can’t. I-If I leave, they will kill her.”
“I can protect Jae,” the nurse promises. “But I can’t issue the same guarantee to you. They won’t let you come. They say you’re not redeemable. That none of the men are.”
What is she talking about? What does she mean I can’t go with her? And how can I be unredeemable when I haven’t done anything wrong?
Oh, God. Does she think I hurt Jae?
“T-This wasn’t me!”
The tactical response unit uses my distraction to their advantage. They race into the room with bulletproof shields helming their campaign and knee-capping batons picking up the slack.
