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Father Charlie had saved me in more ways than one. He’d given me a reason to live. If I could not live for myself, I could live for him. He’d been there for me, listened to me every time I needed an ear—and I didn’t just mean confession-wise. He was a kind, generous man, warm and gentle, and his words were never harsh or acidic. He was, in a way, what my father should’ve been.
And then I lost him.
And then I killed for him.
And then we moved to Cypress, I got a bodyguard who wouldn’t leave me alone, and I met the others all vying for the same position on the Black Hand as my father. I met the other heirs, joined a sex club to try to overcome my anxieties when it came to sex and touching, and kissed said bodyguard. I might’ve made some enemies by wearing white and being chummy with Shay Arrowwood’s boyfriend, Nix.
I started to feel again. The feelings in me were too much, too soon. I didn’t think they’d come crashing back quite like that, and they overloaded me. Having feelings for someone else, someone I knew I could never truly trust—someone who worked for my father—was one of the most stupid things I could do.
So I went back to the Playground and found my mystery dragon guy, the same guy I’d had sex with before. I may have left him there, chained to the bedpost in one of the private rooms, and ran away.
Then I got shot.
The last thing I remembered was Damian’s tattooed face hovering over mine, along with the words he’d said: “Well, aren’t you lucky I’m here, baby girl?” I’d tried to say his name, tried to say anything since the sparkle in his dark eyes had done nothing but make me feel worse—and that’s on top of the bullet lodged in my gut, but he’d shushed me and added, “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of you.”
I didn’t believe him. In fact, how did I know he wasn’t the one who’d shot me? I’d seen someone in a black hoodie, and Damian always wore black. No hoodie from what I could see, but my vision had started to blur. Unfortunately, I couldn’t voice those concerns, mostly because I was too busy passing out from the pain and shock.
Getting shot. Who knew it hurt so bad? Out of all the things I’d done in my life, it should just be another notch on the belt. But holy hell, it was a pain unlike any other. Mental anguish could only do so much to you, make you zone out, make you wish you weren’t alive anymore, but the sheer level of physical agony was another story entirely.
My last thought before I’d passed out was that I was probably going to die. With my luck, Damian was going to take my body and leave it in pieces for my father to find—or, fuck, I didn’t know, something along those lines. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d wake up in a sterile white room, positioned on a bed with various needles hooked into my wrists.
But I did.
My eyes felt like stone, but they opened. I couldn’t really feel the pain anymore, so I wondered if one of the IV bags dripping fluids into me was some kind of drug. I wasn’t going to complain, because the pain in my gut after the bullet had shredded into me was not something I ever wanted to feel again.
I was alone in the hospital room, and I didn’t try to move. Well, I guess I owed one to Damian, and if I said that shocked me, I’d be a liar. It did more than shock me. I couldn’t even find words.
Drowsiness overtook me once more, and I dozed off, unable to fight it. A crushing, heavy weight on my body and my mind, a fogginess that probably had come with the drugs pumping through me. I slept like a rock, and I slept hard.
The next time I woke up, I heard two voices speaking in the room. My eyelids gave me more trouble this time, so I simply lay there, wondering if Damian was still here. Not sure why he would be, but I supposed I did owe him a thank-you. Being in debt to someone like that wasn’t something I looked forward to, and yet that was my new reality.
Damian had saved my life. I just hoped he wasn’t the one who’d shot me. He did pop up awfully fast after I’d fallen, which meant he’d been nearby—and if he wasn’t the one who shot me, what the hell was he doing there?
The man who must’ve been the doctor was busy saying, “We were able to remove the bullet and the fragments from her body. She’s lucky the bullet wasn’t an inch to the left—it didn’t hit anything vital. Still, we’d like to keep her here for a few days to make sure everything’s working as it should. Your daughter was very fortunate someone was nearby and called an ambulance for her so quickly.”
Ah, so it wasn’t Damian. It was my oh so lovely father, AKA the man who was probably the reason I got shot in the first place. He’d done nothing but paint a target on my back the moment we arrived in Cypress.
I was so done with him, so it was a good thing I kept my eyes closed and pretended I was still asleep.
“Thank you, Doctor,” my father said. “Are the police outside the door necessary?”
“They want to speak with your daughter about what happened when she wakes up.”
“Nonsense. They can come to our house once she’s released, and she can tell them what happened then.” I knew what my father meant by this: he didn’t want me speaking to the police before I spoke to him, first. He wanted to know what happened, probably wanted to interrogate me to see if I’d seen anything, if this was due to something he’d done.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to take that up with them,” the doctor said. “All I know is, every gunshot wound has to be reported and investigated. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other patients to see.” Footsteps left the room, and I assumed that meant the doctor was gone.
The air in the room was heavy. I could feel it weighing down on me, so I knew my father remained, and I’d bet anything he currently stared at me with those dark, calculating eyes. I wished he would leave, because the last thing I wanted to do was open my eyes and talk to him. No, I wanted to get my bearings, think up something to say, and right now, I was too damned tired to do any of that.
Getting shot and operated on was exhausting, apparently. Who knew?
Eventually I heard my father leave the room, and I peeked open one eye to see him in the hall, talking to the police officers standing there. I could barely hear what was being said over the beeping of the machines attached to me, but from what it sounded like, my father was doing his damnedest to send those officers away.
His voice grew firmer, louder: “If you give me your card, I will call you the moment she wakes up.” A lie, because before doing any of that, he’d interrogate me first. “There’s no need for you gentlemen to wait here. Surely there’s a better use of your time and this city’s tax dollars?” The way he spoke, came off so unyielding, it had to be obvious to the police that he wasn’t going to give in.
I watched as both police officers walked away, and then my father reached in his pocket and pulled out his phone, calling someone as he walked away from my room in the opposite direction as the officers. That was fine; it gave me some room to breathe. The longer he was on the phone, the more time I had to think about what happened.
Let’s go over the facts, what few I had.
