AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He was rushed by an emergency helicopter to the private hospital favored by the wealthiest patrons of Manhattan and straight into surgery. The fear that the bullet may have hit an artery and he is bleeding out internally is of the utmost urgent concern.
I have never been so frightened as I was holding that pillow to his chest and trying to stop his blood from seeping out of him. Then he uttered those words, “She is mine!” like some commanding force, and my heart clenched in my chest. In that moment, I wanted to reassure him that I was, but the words would not leave my lips. I couldn’t utter falsities as my last spoken words to him in case they were the last thing I ever got to say to him.
He had heard Ajax's and my conversation. Shame filled me in that moment, and I felt like the worst traitor for even allowing Ajax to enter our home. How long was he there before he ran into the room and put himself in front of me, taking a bullet for the woman that was listening to another man trying to convince her to leave him?Why did he even risk himself after hearing Ajax’s words?
“She is mine!” Once again, his voice echoes in my mind, and I can’t stop the tears from cascading down my face or the trembling in my hands. My limbs feel weak, and my stomach is filled with wretched acid and the knowledge that Jaxon now knows I slept with his best friend. Regardless if it was a year ago, it was still something that I should have told him, not let him find out in that horrific way. Then he took a bullet for me, after everything he must have been feeling.
He took a fucking bullet for me, the lunatic!I drag my hands down my face, unable to understand why he did it. My hands that are still tinged in his red blood, despite wiping them. The knowledge that someone was trying to kill me is not even of the slightest importance when balanced against the actions of my possessive husband. My husband, the one I have been avoiding and running from. The one that terrified me a week ago and had me contemplating leaving him.
I watch as Ajax once again tries to approach me. His hands held before him in a placating and soothing manner that indicates that he means no harm, his shoulders hunched in and fear across his features. Pure rage like I have never felt before fills me just by looking at him, just by his mere presence here in this corridor. Outside of where my husband is fighting for his life. How dare he try once again to confront me after Jaxon just took a bullet intended for me. How dare he even be here right now after betraying Jaxon and attempting to convince me to leave him.
My hand slams out before I can think clearly, connecting with his chiseled face. The sound is loud in the empty hallway as he stumbles back a step from my attack.It’s not enough. I need to hurt him like we hurt Jaxon! I move forward and slap him again and then again. Unable to stop hitting him as my body and mind loses control to my rancor. “Stella, fucking STOP!” He shouts, using his arms to cover his face to prevent the blows I am raining down on him from landing.
“You traitor, you despicable man!” Smack. “How dare you come here!” Smack. “How dare you come here after you tried to convince me to leave him!” Smack. Ajax grabs onto my arm and pulls me hard into his body, the air momentarily rushing out of my chest. I try to fight his tight embrace, pushing and shoving against his body. I raise my knee to try to hit him in the crotch, but he sidesteps me at the last moment, preventing the blow from landing.
“He took a bullet for me!” I scream. “He…took…a…bullet…” I can’t even get the words out. They devastate me, breaking my heart into fragile pieces, my lips tremble, and I press them together.
“I know Stella, I know.” He tightens his grip and cradles me into his body. The smell of his cologne and the feel of his hard chest against mine causes the bile I was trying to suppress to race up the back of my throat.
“No! Fuck, no!” I push against him, and he loosens his hold, releasing me so that I can take steps away from him. My head is spinning, my chest is tight, and I feel like I am having a panic attack. I can’t stop the trembling that is taking over my whole body. My body sways back and forth as my legs turn to Jell-O. I try to take deep breaths but end up with my body doubled over and my hands on my knees, panting harshly as vomit races from my throat.
“Jesus, Stella.” Ajax tries to approach me, but I lift my hand warding him off. I don’t want him to touch me. I don’t want to feel his skin on mine. Both of us are traitors for what we were doing. I am aJudasfor allowing Ajax to even speak those words to me.
Once I have nothing left to spew up, I lean my head and shoulder against the cool white tiled wall, taking deep breaths to clear my head. “You need to leave, Ajax,” the words come out raspy and on panting breaths. My stomach clenches painfully once again, threatening to bring me to the ground.
I turn my glare toward the offending figure before me. He’s all light in direct contrast to Jaxon’s darkness. The sunlight through the windows glints in his golden hair. His dark brown eyes are filled with emotion and pain. His lean, tall body encased in the fine fabric of his dress shirt and pants with my bloody fingerprints as macabre splatters across it. Fingerprints that are coated in my husband’s sacrificial blood.
Ajax has always been handsome, and his spirit was always peaceful to me. Never causing me distress or volatile emotions, unlike his best friend. It’s why I gave him my virginity all those years ago and then kept seeing him quietly without my parents knowing, but that ended months before my father gave me away as a prized pig to Jaxon.
I couldn’t find any joy with Ajax. Yes, he brought me peace, but I craved passion. I felt something was always lacking, and because of it, I forced myself to end it. Ajax never stopped pursuing me, never accepted it as our ending. Even now, he refuses to accept it while wearing Jaxon’s blood.
Looking at him now, he no longer brings me peace, just torment that I was even in that room with him. That I allowed him over the last week to appear at Penticton Industries and the estate trying to convince me to leave Jaxon. Like there was ever going to be a possibility of that. Jaxon would have never let me out of our marriage. “She is mine!” His voice once again bellows in my mind causing sobs to leave my lips.
“Get out of here, Ajax. It’s over! Whatever our past was, it’s over. I am his wife. I will never fucking leave him!” The words spew from my mouth in a scream so high-pitched that it sounds ripped from a deranged animal. He takes a step back, his eyes wide and shock across his face. “I never want to see you again. Do you hear me! NEVER AGAIN!”
A noise from the end of the corridor catches my attention, and I raise my eyes to see Mrs. Pox and Fergus rushing toward me. Fergus reaches Ajax and pulls him away toward the elevators, and Mrs. Pox envelopes me in her arms. “It’s going to be alright now, dear.” Her voice is soothing and commanding, and I burrow into her warm embrace. Hoping that her words are correct and I haven’t just caused my husband to go to his grave thinking I betrayed him.
It’s been eight hours since Jaxon was taken into surgery, and still no word from the doctors in the operating room. I lean my head against the back of the chair of the private waiting room I am currently sitting in. Mrs. Pox left thirty minutes ago to find us food, despite me indicating that I had no appetite and there was no way I could stomach anything. Nausea is still plaguing me, and my stomach is tied up in knots of apprehension.
My mother is somewhere in the hospital trying to procure tea for us. She came immediately once she heard of the shooting, my father absent from her side. No doubt he is sitting somewhere with a drink in his hand, hoping that Jaxon succumbs to his injury for siding with me against him.The fucking selfish, bastard.
Once again, the thought of who could have shot at me or sent someone to shoot me runs through my mind. The officers that questioned me earlier had no leads as of yet. Just that it appeared to be one shooter and that he wasn’t an amateur as he left very little evidence and somehow knew how to get past the cameras on the estate.
Someone hired a man to shoot me. Could it have been my father? Perhaps one of the disgruntled board members that I had terminated in the last week? Was it Kalista Cain? I did ruin her fucking life and take Jaxon from her. So many new enemies at my door.Great job, Stella, your first eleven days as Mrs. Jaxon Stratford, and you have ruined lives, been shot at, and almost become a widow. Great fucking start!
“Darling, I couldn’t find a proper tea latte, but this pitiful excuse for a tea was available. I will have Stanley deliver us proper tea shortly.” My mother walks back into the room, holding two Styrofoam cups of steaming liquid. She looks so distressed and disheveled that it’s almost comical. I don’t think I have ever seen Rachel Penticton with a hair out of place, yet here she is, wrinkled, hair falling out of her chignon and makeup smeared. If the situation wasn’t so dire and I didn’t feel like my heart was being ripped apart with guilt, I would wrap my arms tightly around her.
“I am sure it is fine, mother.” She hands me the cup, sits beside me, and reaches for my hand. My mother has never been overly affectionate, knowing that my father disapproved of that. Today it seems, far from Thomas Penticton’s eyes, she has decided that she will be motherly. Emotions clog my throat at her act of soothing compassion. Right now, I need her unwavering strength to help keep me together. I know I have to be strong, I am a Penticton, but I am also a Stratford, and Jaxon would be disappointed to see me falling to pieces here. I have caused him enough pain. I refuse to add to that by being weak.
I clear my throat, holding the cup in my hand and meeting her distressed gaze. “Do you think it could have been father that sent someone to shoot me?” I hold my breath, awaiting her reply. Part of me honestly believes he would be more than capable of issuing an order like that to assuage his bruised pride over being ousted at Penticton Industries. The other part of me hopes with all my might that despite us never seeing eye to eye on anything, he wouldn’t attempt to murder his only child.
“No, Stella, I don’t. He is too desperate to continue the Penticton legacy, which would end if you died. He has no one else to pass on this curse of an empire to.” She sighs and takes a sip of her tea, grimacing at the subpar taste.
I let out a relieved deep breath at her words. If it wasn’t my father, then who was it? Who would dare send a shooter to my home, to Jaxon’s home, to attack me? Who would have even had the knowledge that I would be there?
“Stella, what was Ajax doing at the estate? Was he there with Jaxon? I saw him down in the entryway, he is beside himself with worry and covered in bloody fingerprints.” My mother raises her beautiful eyes, ones that are identical to mine, and waits for my answer.
I shut my eyes and bite down hard on my lower lip. I don’t want to ruin this mother-daughter moment we are having, but I also don’t wish to mislead her into thinking that Ajax was there with Jaxon. “He was there to see me.” My voice sounds small and guilty even to my own ears. I watch my mother’s expression carefully. She raises a concerned eyebrow and takes another sip of the hot tea. “I see. It seems he has not managed to move past his infatuation for you, regardless of your marriage to his best friend.”
