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“No” I mumble out through my damaged lips.
“You will take that fucking suit off on your own, or I will! You choose.”
“Max, you have lost your mind taking me. How is this supposed to end?”
“At this point, I don’t care! You ruined me, all I needed was a little help, and you threw me out, and I lost everything!” He is screaming by now, spit flying everywhere. The crazed glazed look in his eyes lets me know he’s high out of his mind.
“I gave you more chances than you deserved, and you know it!” I yell back reopening the cut on my lips. I lick the blood flowing from my lips before throwing up yet again.
“That’s a lie! Those stuck-up bitches were always complaining about something, they felt they were better than everyone else. I thought you were different, but you were worse. I lost visitation of my kid after I got kicked out of my apartment because I could no longer afford the rent. It took months of rehab to be able to use my hand again, and until then, no one would hire me. You ruined me! And now I am going to ruin you, and then I want to know what all the hype is about. You got one of the richest men in Mississippi to marry you, and the only way I can see you making that happen is with what’s between your legs.
“I’d rather die first!”
“And I’m okay with that. Dead or alive makes no difference to me.” He says. Another wave of nausea hits me, and I sway, falling on the filthy floor right in what I just threw up. He’s so enraged he begins hitting and kicking me again, and this time when the darkness comes for me, I don’t fight it, anything to get away from the pain erupting from all over my body.
Jaasiel
We found her phone, watch, and charm bracelet. The only tracker left is her wedding ring. Aryan and I are breaking every traffic law there is but this place is out in the boondocks. A perfect place to take someone and not have to worry about someone accidentally crossing your path. The car barely comes to a stop before I am out and heading in the direction the tracker is leading me. When I opened the door, I realized the place was on fire, and the tracker was moving again.
“Do we follow the tracker or search here?” I think about it for a second, logic would say follow the tracker, but all my instincts tell me she’s here.
“Let’s search here, and we better make it fast,” I tell him. Luckily for us, the second floor isn’t sound, so we know she’s not up there, so that narrows it down to the main floor. We move in formation, quickly clearing rooms as we go along. The fire is eating up this building, and we are going to be forced to abandon the search soon.
“Looks like the fire started back here. If we are going to look, we better hurry up before there’s nothing left,” Aryan says, and we double-time it to the back. Door after door, room after room with no Parker, and I am beginning to feel like my gut was wrong and we should have followed the tracker.
“Last room. If she isn’t here, we’ll have to hope whoever went after the tracker finds her. We have to get out of here.”
“I know,” I say, kicking in the door and smelling her immediately. “She was here,” the room is untouched by the fire, making her perfume that much stronger. We go in looking everywhere until I see her hand from under a bunch of shit. There is a disgusting mattress on the floor that she is laying on, with a bunch of rags, clothes, and even garbage covering her. She is not moving, and my heart sinks, almost making me frozen in fear.
Please, God, do not let her be dead. I pray I think it’s in my head, but the way Aryan looks over at me, I’m pretty sure it was out loud. And then we move, flinging things off of her until I finally reach her. When I see her, tears come to my eyes unbidden, I barely recognize her. Her face is badly beaten, and her body has bruises everywhere. She is so still I am almost too afraid to check her pulse, and thankfully my brother notices my hesitation and does it for me.
“I have a pulse, it’s weak and irregular, but she’s alive, Jaasiel,” he tells me in full medic mode. “Grab your wife. We have to move.”
Gently and quickly, I take her in my arms, following Aryan back through the building as the second floor begins falling all around us. I hold her tighter to me as I navigate my way out of this hell until we are finally outside, and I can finally take a deep breath. I realize Aryan somehow found enough time to call our brothers when I see them pulling up.
“Lay her down. I need to take a look at her,” he says, placing a blanket on the ground. I lay her down and move out of his way so he can do what he needs to do.
“I need my kit,” he says, galvanizing me into action before he is done talking. I am back handing him his bag in record time.
“Lennox is sending a helicopter for her; it should be here any minute,” Josh says. Any minute is not fast enough, and I have to fight against my desire to put her in the car and take her to the hospital myself. I am pacing back and forth, watching Aryan tend to my wife, and I have never in my life felt so helpless. Just as I am about to say fuck it and take my chances with her in the car, I hear the helicopter. A few seconds later, it comes into view, but I don’t feel any type of relief until I see Dr. Brooklyn Maxwell get out of the copter heading to Parker.
“Lennox is waiting for us at the hospital. Baby, what are her injuries?” she asks Aryan, and he begins to run down what he’s noticed in his exam. They work together to get her to the helicopter.
“Come on, Jaasiel, get in,” Aryan says.
“Brooklyn, do you need Aryan’s help?” I ask.
“Yes, but I can handle things by myself, you need to be with her,” she says, already working getting Parker hooked up.
“Aryan, you go. I will be there. Take care of my wife,” I say to him, running to my car.
“I’ll drive,” Atlas says, and I don’t bother arguing with him. I just get in the passenger seat and hold on.
Twenty-One
Lennox is waiting for me as soon as I step through the hospital doors, “She’s in surgery. She has several broken ribs, and at least one punctured her liver. Normally we’d wait for the body to heal itself, but with her other injuries, we felt it best to operate. We have a waiting room for everyone.” I follow her to the waiting room, as do my brothers, and wait on any news. I find a seat in the corner by myself and wait. Eventually, my sisters show up, but thankfully no one comes over to try to make me talk or give me a pep talk.
Sometime later, Liam, Luke, and Lucas walk in, along with Eliza and Emerson in tow. Liam walks straight to me, “Boss, we followed the tracker to a pawn shop,” he says reaching into his pocket and handing me a box with Parker’s rings in it. “The guy who owns the pawn shop is supposed to get us the security tape by tomorrow,” he says.
