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After Ferris’smasterpiece,there wasn’t much to be done except setting off a fire to cover for what had happened. If we could dispose of the bodyguard’s bodies, with the governor was a whole different deal. We couldn’t get rid of him without people asking questions so I needed to come up with something legit.
And who was to say I wasn’t a genius? My men replaced the governor’s guards in front of the police to sustain theaccidental firehypothesis. I left the guards’ bodies that didn’t have bullet wounds to burn along with the governor’s — less work for me and my men. No one gave too much attention to some hired bullies anyway, so as far as I was concerned it would be a case closed in just a few weeks.
The instant everything was settled, I was back at the hospital and on the verge of putting a bullet between someone’s eyes if I didn’t get the right answers.
Things were bad.
Bea’s condition was critical and there wasn’t any-fucking-thing that I could do about it. It was a day straight out of a nightmare and we were far from seeing the light.
At least she was alive. That was all that really mattered, even if the state she was in could barely be called living.
I never left the hospital for the days she had been committed. But I didn’t go in to visit her either. At least not as long as Cole was awake.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have it in me to see her like that. It was much more that I couldn’t allow another person to know what her wounds were doing to me. I felt that anyone present could see the maddening pain scribbled on my face, when in reality I didn’t want to admit it even to myself.
But I did go into her room. I did it every night when Cole was either asleep on a chair or outside for a smoke. I was beginning to learn the pattern of her body better than my own, tracing each bruise and cut and waiting with each passing hour for them to heal, even just a little.
Strange how it reminded me of the time I was washing Benjamin’s blood off her while she was unconscious at my apartment. But if at that time my thoughts were charged with wicked cravings, this time around my gestures didn’t hide anything sexual within them. It was something much worse than that. They were protective, and so taken to the extreme that I felt the need to take the hospital blanket away and check beneath her nightie every inch of her flesh to make sure she was healing properly… And her full bottom lip almost broken in two... I kept staring at it every time I was walking next to her bed, wondering that if I would bring my lips to her, would I hurt her?
I never kissed her, despite my urging need, I was afraid she was feeling even the slightest of pain.
Funny, for a manset out to break herI was fucking close to losing it and taking Ferris’s place in the private institution that I had committed him into, two years before.
Exactly when I was getting much closer to insanity than normality, Cole announced to me that she had woken up. Not for long, but at least we had a start.
We moved her to Ferris’s place the very same day, and if in the hospital I needed to keep an eye out for Cole, now it was also Ferris preventing me to get a few alone moments with her.
None of them could see exactly what I was going through — especially Ferris. He was always so strong and yet so fragile. His imbalance was pushing him from one cliff to the next and I needed to be his rock, not the abyss below us.
I tried to stay away for the first night she was in the mansion, but the news of her waking up had brought me to her doorway.
Cole was amusing himself about something while Bea’s tigress eyes glared straight into my own the second she noticed me there.
‘I see you’re feeling better,’ I said, observing her body was a little higher than the usual laying position, being supported on some pillows.
She didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the trauma or just because she fucking hated me, but I felt needed to ask, ‘Did the nurse give you something for the pain?’ I took a step closer to her to assess her bruises again. I was developing a rare case of OCD when it came to doing that, like a reflex that couldn’t be kept under control until the purplish-green color would be completely gone.
‘Do you even care? Or are you just asking random questions?’ Bea was still pissed off at me, and had every right to — in her opinion.
I wouldn’t say the same if she had known the hell I’d been through for the last couple of days. But I was the only one keeping her from finding out, so whatever the consequences would be to that, they were on me.
And it seemed Bea hadn’t finished what she had to say. ‘I’m not the pretty face you dream of, Brax. I am sure you can find a replacement for me, at least until I recover.’
She was right. I told her that she meant only that — a disposable good, with every occasion I had. I even told myself the same thing. Strange how her mind seemed to have listened but mine didn’t. She was worlds away from being just my toy, even though deep down I still wished for her to be just that.
‘Get out, please,’ she ghosted the words almost losing all strength.
Instantly, my nerves tensed to their max. No one could talk to me like that, no matter the circumstances, especially with someone else present.
Still, I couldn’t find it in my power to argue with her.
‘I’m going to find Ferris,’ I was instantly out the door, searching for the first balcony to take a breath of fresh air and try to calm down. I was one word away from an outburst of anger and that certainly wouldn’t help anyone in that case. There wasn’t any enemy I could spill my wrath on. Just me and her, and when I came to think about the real guilty, it was me.
Not even I could tell how I managed to calm myself down, but I know I only succeeded with a small backup from my trusted friend — a glass of whiskey.
I needed to stay away from her, at least for a couple of days until she would come to her senses.
That was what Ineededto do, and not what I did.
