Page 101 of The Doctor

“Meh.” I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop from pivoting toward the kid, as if doing so could somehow save him. “As much as I’d love for you to get the chance to finish what you started” —Stephano shrugged, pulled one hand from his pocket and examined his nails— “I’m going to have to go with Zee. I mean, he is fucking my sister after all.”

My throat closed up as the kid turned his smirking face my way. Cosimo stepped toward me, raising his gun to my head once more. The old man stared down at me with a scowl on his face.

“I’d like to say it’s been nice knowing you, Doctor, but that would be a lie.”

With cold steel pressed to my forehead, I squeezed my eyes shut. I wasn’t ready to die. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the people I loved, to leave Clara behind with nothing but memories and a broken heart.

But I had no choice.

I swallowed hard and waited for the gun to go off.

35

Clara

Go in the back, he said. Everything will be fine, he said.

What he didn’t say was that the back of the warehouse was a fucking maze, full of shipping containers and crates packed with weapons and only God knew what else. There wasn’t a single person around at that time of night.

And there wasn’t a single light on in the entire damn place, either.

More than once, I’d slammed my shins into the corner of a box. I’d stubbed my toes a dozen times and was cursing my decision to lose my heels at the back door rather than clip-clopping the entire way through the deserted space. I could just make out the blood-red polish on my toenails through the moonlight shining through the too-few windows near the too-high ceiling, and I was torn between watching them so I wouldn’t hurt myself again, and not wanting to relive the bloodbath from earlier every time I caught sight of the red paint.

Stephano promised me there wouldn’t be anyone in those far-back rooms, but I wasn’t about to take a chance. I’d lost my heavy purse halfway between here and the door, taking with me the only thing I could possibly need: Stephano’s gun.

Though, my phone would have been nice. It had a flashlight. It had a way to communicate with my brother, who’d left me in this godforsaken place so he could do whatever he thought he was going to accomplish on his own. He wouldn’t listen to me when I suggested he contact Jet. Said some bullshit line about how he could handle it.

Handle it, the way he handled Jayden.

And that thought just added more blood splatter to my thoughts.

“Ouch! Fuck, that hurt!” I grabbed my toe, grabbed the side of a crate, tried to bite my tongue to keep from screaming at the pain. A splinter broke off the wooden box when I moved, jamming deep under my fingernail. “Fuck!”

My phone would have been lovely right about then, and my purse stuffed full of bandages and other supplies I’d started keeping in there like it was a medical bag. Both would have been helpful as I tried to find the splinter and pull it out in the dark. But stupid Clara had to leave her stupid phone in her stupid purse as she stupidly made her way through the stupid dark.

I sucked in a deep breath.

Let it out until there was nothing left.

Then I lifted my chin, pulled up my big girl panties, and continued on.

Lights were on in the rooms up front, and I let them guide me forward, pausing briefly to peek around corners and ensure I was alone. Just as Stephano said, there was no one in the back. But through the open door to the front rooms, I could see the tops of peoples’ heads.

And I could hear voices as they floated my way.

“Make your choice, Stephano. Unless you’d rather go first.”

“Meh.” My brother tilted his head to one side, and his eyes flashed with recognition as he saw me before he moved them across the room. He was so fucking nonchalant, so blasé about the fact that Cosimo had his gun pointed at Zee and Arik and our father, about the fact that one of Cosimo’s men had a gun trained on him, that I wanted to strangle him. “As much as I’d love for you to get the chance to finish what you started, I’m going to have to go with Zee. I mean, he is fucking my sister after all.”

It wasn’t until Cosimo stepped toward Zee and raised his gun that I realized what Stephano meant.

He just told Cosimo to murder Zee.

I wasn’t having it.

I wouldn’t let him get away with it.

This man had brought enough heartache to our lives. I was not about to stand by and let him take away the one man I’d always loved.