AllFreeNovel
Share Us
23
ABRAM
It’s taken a week for me to recover to the point that I can operate mostly normally, but the doctors still want to keep me around in case my stitches burst. They told me I was minutes from death based on the location of the bullet wound. I’ve never been so mad about being right.
I’ve been sitting in the hospital with a lot on my mind. Everything I said to Cambria was cruel, stupid, and untrue, even down to the things I said about her outfit. I feel like an idiot for pushing such a sweet girl away, but I thought I was protecting myself. I thought I was protecting everything I worked for, but all I did was hurt someone who cared about me.
Josiah is clearly the one behind all of the leaked information, the shooting that happened at the club, and the recycled inventory that got Antonio so angry. I’m angry at myself for not seeing it sooner, but sitting in this hospital bed and being angry will do nothing but cause problems. I need to make a plan that will go over his head somehow.
But I can’t think straight at all.
Just as I’m trying to force myself to calm down and fall asleep, the devil himself walks through the door – Josiah.
Without a thought, I fly out of my hospital bed, tearing my IV out of my arm with the force of my movement as my hand pins him to the wall by his throat.
“I know exactly what you’re up to, you fucking waste,” I growl, watching his reaction closely as I start to see red.
“Oh yeah? What is it that you think you know?” he chokes. It’s in his nature to waste oxygen to be right, even if it means he dies.
“I saw you talking to Jaden. Why the fuck are you involved with him?” I spit, my face feeling hot as I struggle not to crush his trachea. I can’t kill him, not yet.
I release some of my grip. He clearly didn’t come here prepared for this, and he’s still an old man when you take away his power. I don’t need to try hard to end his life if I need to.
“You know what happened to Marcus, don’t you?” I say, my voice deep in my throat like a threatened pitbull.
He glares at me.
“Answer me!” I shout.
“He knew I was working with the ATF, so I killed him. He would have blown up the entire operation. You have no idea how much fucking money we made because of my cooperation with them,” he wheezes.
I press harder into his throat, and he grabs my hand, scratching at it desperately.
“They are trying to shut our shit downright now, you fucking idiot. That means life in prison for both of us on multiple charges. You jeopardized our lives for what? More money? Did you not have enough already?!” I bark, watching his eyes bulge as the capillaries break under the strain of my hand.
“I already confessed. If you kill me in a hospital, you’ll go away forever no matter what. Don’t try to be bigger than you are, boy,” he warns, giving me one last condescending look before I slam him into the wall multiple times.
The back of his head bounces against the eggshell white plaster, making a bloody dent. He doesn’t struggle. He hardly makes a noise. It’s as if he knew his time was coming, and he’d rather just get it over with.
My breaths are labored and shaky as I try to orient myself to the situation at hand. Before I can make a plan, a nurse opens the door and sees Josiah’s body crumpled on the floor at my feet. She screams, dropping the sterile supplies she had brought to change my bandages.
The IV site in my right arm is bleeding profusely now, and I need to cover it before it bleeds me dry. I grab one of the packs of gauze from the nurse, shoving her out of my way as I sprint out the door. I tear open the package with my teeth as I run, wrapping it messily around the bleeding puncture wound.
I’m wearing nothing but boxers and a hospital gown, so my first priority is to make myself blend in to avoid suspicion. I figure it will be easy to get ahold of a pair of scrubs in the locker room attached to the on-call suites if I can find them.
Every passing minute increases my frustration tenfold, and I resort to pulling one of the med students into a supply closet as he passes by me with his morning coffee.
“What the fuck?” he exclaims before I place my hand over his mouth.
“You need to do exactly as I tell you, or I’ll crush your fucking windpipe. Do you understand me?” I say, trying to sound intimidating without being loud enough to draw attention.
He nods emphatically. He has absolutely no spine.
“You’re going to give me your scrubs in exchange for this gown I’ve got on, and you’re not going to say or do anything about it, or I’ll find your entire family and hang them from the Willis Tower. Nod if you understand,” I command.
He nods again, this time as tears well up in his eyes. He looks like a good kid, probably raised by a doctor himself who warned him about going to med school in “Chiraq.” Definitely played water polo in high school and never fired a gun in his life.
“I’m going to take my hand off your mouth, and you’re not going to say anything,” I say, slowly easing my hand from his mouth.
