20. Chapter 20 – Sloane
Chapter 20 – Sloane
I looked at my watch again, for the twentieth time since getting to Prism for my ten o’clock meeting with Tamen. Arriving twenty minutes late, fueled by spite for the ungodly meeting time, I found his new office—his proper office, not just a table in a room—empty.
The only place I didn’t search for him was the room I was forbidden to enter; my stage room. He kept that entire room a secret, which annoyed me, but if I was honest, it also excited me slightly.
No one ever surprised me with anything, let alone a whole grand theater designed for me to work from. Or at least that was my hope; knowing Tamen though, he probably purposefully designed the entire space so I would hate it. He loved irritating me for fun.
Which was why he was running late to his own meeting, I was sure. Just to irritate me and exert his dominance over me.
But as the clock neared eleven, I wondered if there was something else keeping him away. Last night before he left Prism early, he had a message on his phone, and it wasn’t as if he looked overly happy about it. He didn’t even rise to the occasion to tease me back when I embarrassingly pried for information about his plans for the evening. Which was very un-Tamen-like.
I paced his office, avoiding the hordes of construction crew members finishing up last-minute projects and continued to catastrophize all the scenarios possible for keeping him away. Rubbing my hands together and then wiping the sweat onto my jeans, I gave into the worry and did something I swore I’d never do.
I unblocked him.
And then I dialed his phone number.
Chewing on my thumbnail as the phone rang and rang, my heart sank further with each trill through the line. And then his voicemail picked up.
“Fuck.” I hissed, grabbing my purse off his desk and walking out as the recording started. “If you’re fucking with me right now Tamen, I quit. If you’re not, you’d better be dead for making me worry. I’m on my way to your hotel.”
The entire cab ride a few blocks over to his hotel, I worried myself into a fit.
Tamen was dark; I knew that. He didn’t pretend to be normal or sane, not once. Never mind the tidbits of info I had overheard from him or his sisters when we all hung out. There was danger in his life and now that he had gone MIA, I was worried.
God, I hated worrying. Especially over a man.
When I walked to the private elevator leading to his penthouse, the doorman simply nodded to me and swiped his key card to give me access. Did he look worried?
Or was I overthinking?
“Thank you.” I nodded, as the doors shut and started the long assent up to the top. “Please don’t be dead.” I whispered, and then the doors opened.
The last time I had been to the penthouse, it had been bright and open during our meeting, giving the best views of the surrounding city, yet today, darkness met me as I hesitantly walked out into the foyer. “Tamen?”
Silence met my greeting as I made my way toward the large, open living room. I didn’t know if he was home or not, but if he was, something was wrong. “Tamen!” I snapped as anxiety grew in my chest.
I pulled my phone from my purse and hesitated, not even sure what I intended to do with it until I pushed Peyton’s name and left my thumb hovering over the call button as I ventured deeper into the dark room. “Tamen, are you here?”
I ran my knee into an end table and grabbed the lamp a millisecond before it fell off onto the ground. Flicking the switch and bathing the room in light, I could finally see.
And I wished I couldn’t.
“Tamen!” I screamed, covering my mouth in shock and dropping my phone as I found the man in question sprawled out on his stomach across the couch, but hanging halfway onto the floor like he had slid off.
He was wearing only a tight pair of boxers—and blood.
“Oh, my god!” I fell to my knees next to him and pushed his damp hair off his forehead as I leaned over him. “Please, be alive. Please god, be alive.”
His face was cut up in different places, and the blood had crusted over, leaving hard lines across his features. He didn’t even twitch as I shook him, trying to rouse him. The moment my hand touched his back, as I tried forcing him onto his side, a thick, warm stream of blood welled up from a wound on his shoulder, instantly coating my hand; it felt slick and hot.
And a weak groan slipped from his lips.
“No.” I sobbed, my hands shaking as I pulled a plush blanket from a basket on the floor, its texture soft against my fingers, and pressed it to his back. “Tamen, please! Please, you have to wake up. I don’t know what to do!”
“Shh.” He slurred, turning his face so it was no longer buried in the cushion. “You’re ruining my buzz.”
“I hate you.” I hissed. “Is this a bullet hole?” With trembling hands, I lifted the blanket to find a gaping, circular wound on his back, spilling blood. I slammed the blanket back down, the horrifying sight seared into my memory, praying it would somehow stop the bleeding. “What the fuck happened?”
“Bad day.” He grumbled and finally cracked one eye open to look at me. It was so bloodshot I couldn’t see any white.
“I have to call for help.” I whispered, “I don’t know what to do.”
He shook his head slightly, “You can’t.”
“Why? I don’t know how to help you. You’re bleeding to death!” The sobs wracked my body as I cried in hysterics, a torrent of tears blurring my vision.
“Aw, Rainbow. Worried about me?” He slurred again, closing his bloody eye and going so still I thought he passed back out again.
“I hate you!”
A sarcastic smile graced his bloody face. “Right back at you.” With a pained groan, he attempted to sit up, his arm falling limply onto the couch before his body, failing him, slumped forward into me; the smell of his sweat sharp in the air. “Christ, that hurts.”
“Please let me call someone. Dane or Peyton, maybe.”
“No.” He scoffed. “I don’t need their judgments.”
“You need their help !” Holding him up as he once again tried to sit on his own unsuccessfully. I mustered all my strength and shoved him with all my might, sending his large body sprawling back against the couch cushions until he was sitting upright. “ I need their help!”
“No.” He repeated, lifting his chin from his chest where it rested and finally, opened both eyes to look at me. “You can leave; I’ll be fine.”
“No, you won’t.” With a shake of my head, I acknowledged the grim reality; his stubborn refusal to seek help would lead to a slow, silent death if I left. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to help you.”
His eyelids drooped, his face pale, and I was terrified he would lose consciousness once more before he let out a shaky sigh and confessed, “You have to remove the bullet so you can stitch the wound.”
“Me—” I stammered as my stomach rolled at even the thought of looking at the wound again. “I can’t.”
“Then I’ll bleed to death.” His eyes opened again, “I’m honestly surprised I made it this long.”
“I hate you!” From the floor, I screamed, wiping my hands down the front of my black dress as I stood. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”
“I know.” He coughed, “Now be a doll and go in my bathroom, and get the black leather bag from the closet. Hurry now, I haven’t got all day.”
I ran to his bathroom, because even though I did hate his fucking guts, especially right now, I was terrified of something bad happening to him. I was terrified of him slipping away while I wasn’t there to drag him back from Hell’s flames.
If anyone was going to torture Tamen Bryce with pain and suffering for years to come, it was going to me, dammit. Hell didn’t get him, not yet anyway.
Sliding across the marble floor into his bathroom, I found the big leather bag that resembled a doctor’s bag and ran back to him.
“I got it.” I cried, laying it on the floor as he fell back onto the couch, laying on his stomach so I could access the wound. “What do I do?”
“Out of the bag, grab the rolled-up gauze, alcohol, and the long scissor looking tweezers that pinch together at the tip.”
My stomach rolled with nausea as my fingers pulled the long tweezers out from the bag and imagined sticking them inside of Tamen’s body. But what choice did I have? Gathering the supplies he instructed me to; I laid them out on the floor at my side and then faced him. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“I slept with your friend last night.” His face squished back into the couch, and he slurred. “Came so hard I nearly went cross-eyed.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I screeched angrily. “Who? When?”
“The brunette.” He coughed, “The bossy one.”
Raven. Fucking bitch!
“I hate you.” I hissed, “I should let you die.”
“Or you can channel that rage, using the cold, hard metal tool to dig into my bullet wound to get it out, and take it out on me that way.”
I grit my teeth, knowing he was fully trying to send me into a manic rage, so I’d play a demented game of Operation. “I should puke into your wound, so you get sepsis. Then you’ll really suffer.”
He chuckled as I pushed the blanket away and stared at the wound. “Is that like gonorrhea? I had that once. That bloody sucked.”
“I hate—”
“Yes!” He interrupted, “You hate me, we know. You should diversify your insults, that one is getting boring.”
Without even thinking twice, I shoved the tweezers into his back and ignored the disgusting noise they made as they pushed through coagulated blood and flesh. Tamen bit the couch as I dug around to stay quiet. Silently, I worked, trying like hell to find the bullet, without having a clue what it would feel like once I did.
I was nearly hysterical, sweating and fighting the urge to puke, while simultaneously praying to a God that I wasn’t sure existed, and planning out how I was going to get itching powder into Raven’s G-string on opening night.
Maybe that was how people went insane. Working through high stress moments like the one I was in until they lost their grip on reality and dove straight off the deep end. I could see it.
The end of my tweezers hit something hard, and I paused, trying to tell if it was Tamen’s shoulder I was scratching against, or maybe the illusive bullet. “I think I found it.”
He released his teeth from the couch and took a deep breath, “Can you carefully try to pull it out?”
“What if it’s your brain?” I murmured, “If I pull it out, you’ll be even more useless.”
He sighed, resting his forehead against the cushion, “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”
“Hmm.” I hummed, and then carefully, trying to not let it slip out of the tweezers, pulled it out of his mangled flesh. “Got it.” Holding the flattened bullet up in front of my face, I stared in awe. “All that drama for this little thing?”
He scoffed and looked over his shoulder at the piece of lead. “Care to close me up before I lose any more vital heart lube?”
Rolling my eyes, I dropped the bullet onto the coffee table and looked back into the bag of sadistic tricks to find the suture kit he was talking about, but saw something else that looked faster.
“Got it.” I replied, eyeing him up as I poured the alcohol into his wound and wiped away the excess. Tamen was mansplaining to me how to stitch up the wound, like I didn’t take sewing in eighth grade Home Economics class; I even won first place for my quilt pillow that semester. So, as he spoke, I nodded my head and gave the occasional ‘Yep, got it’ to keep him calm.
“Make sure the stitches are close and tight, but not too tight. The wound needs to be able to breathe—”
The deafening click of the staple gun cut him off as I started closing his wound as aggressively as possible for all the emotional turmoil he had put me through in the last thirty minutes. “Yep, got it.” I reassured cheerily.
His growl sounded animalistic, and I smiled bigger as I went. “You.” Staple. “Fucking.” Staple, “Cunt.” Staple, staple, staple .
Let’s be clear, the last two were frivolous additions, completely unnecessary to closing the wound. But by the time I was done, I felt way better.
“All done.” I slapped his back and rose to my feet as he glared daggers at me from his prone position. “Tight, but not too tight. Just like Raven.”
“You’re insane.” He glared at me over his shoulder and then pushed himself up onto his ass again. “Clinically committable.”
“I was normal before I met you!” I pointed the stapler at his face and the intrusive thoughts almost won out, leaving him with an extra staple in his forehead, but I dropped it back into the bag before I could tempt that monster anymore. Crossing my arms over my chest, I grimaced as his blood started to crust between my fingers and on the front of my dress. “I might still hurl.”
“Come on,” He stood up, swaying on his feet and leaning into me heavily before walking us both toward his bedroom. “You can help me get cleaned up.”
“I’m not helping you with anything.” I snapped, irritated all over again at the entire situation. “Not until you give me some answers.”
“Answers.” He hummed, walking slowly and falling into the wall until I had no choice but to wrap my arms around his slim waist and help support him as we went. “The sky is blue because of reflections off the oceans. The dung beetle does, in fact, eat dung. And no, Olivia doesn’t really like you. She just hates me so much she’s willing to pretend.”
I paused and glared at him, contemplating dropping him on the floor completely. “Take that back.”
He groaned as we started walking into his bathroom and he sighed dramatically, “Fine, I don’t know if she likes you or not. But she does really hate me.”
“Because you hit her sister with a car.” I deadpanned, remembering what the girls said that first night.
“Meh,” He shrugged, leaning on the stone shower wall as he reached in and turned it on. “Probably has more to do with the fact that I kidnapped her and stood by as a mad doctor tried to cut Rory out of her stomach to sell her. But that’s just speculation.”
I dropped my arms from him, and he fell forward into the stone, glaring at me. “You did not.”
“Did.” He shrugged, and then half grimaced, half winked at me as he pushed his boxers down, revealing the cock that I had dreamed about non-stop. Forcing myself to look away, he smirked at me and stepped backwards into the hot spray, sighing. “But in my defense, I didn’t know she was Peyton’s sister. I never would have allowed anything to happen to P’s sister.”
I scoffed, flapping my arms out at my sides, at a complete loss. “We’ll come back to that later, but I want answers to what the fuck happened to you. Who shot you?”
“Join me and I’ll tell you.” He countered, placing one hand against the wall and staring at me. It was hard to look at him, still covered in blood and grime, while he simultaneously tried to seduce me in his weird way that kind of worked.
“I don’t understand you.” I stated plainly, feeling vulnerable by even admitting that.
He apparently felt more vulnerable by that statement, because he responded with a jab. “Even the most educated shrinks don’t understand me, Rainbow. I wouldn’t expect a hooker to figure me out.”
I hated that it hurt.
I hated that at some point, I had allowed him the power to say things to me that hurt.
So instead of joining him in the game where we lob insults and digs back and forth for fun, I turned and walked away.
“Wait!” He called after me and I paused right outside of the bathroom door. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did.” I replied, because we both knew the truth.
“I’m cranky.” He admitted, sounding tired. “Blood loss has a way of doing that to a man. Even one as invincible as me.” Turning, I chanced a look back at him, noting how weak and tired he looked standing there in the large shower, calling for me. “Please stay.”
“Why?” I asked, opening myself up for yet another insult, but hoping for something more, anyway.
He shook his head and shrugged slightly, “Because I want you to.”
“You’ll tell me what happened?” I reiterated, hoping he’d play nicely.
“Yes.” He nodded, but held his finger up a second later. “But I don’t want you to think that it’s going to reveal some big super-secret answer to the inner workings of my brain if I do. Because it won’t. Hell, you’ll probably just be more confused.”
Taking a step back into the bathroom, I pulled the dress up over my hips and then shimmied it up off over my head. “I’ll take my chances.”
Nudity had never made me feel vulnerable before, or at least not in my adult life. It was why I was so damn good at my job.
But stripping myself bare, for Tamen, even though he had already seen most of me at one time or another, felt powerful. It didn’t make me feel powerful like being nude in front of a man usually did. But it felt like the act was powerful.
Raw.
Real.
Kicking my panties to the side, I walked into the shower until we were toe to toe, and his blue eyes traveled back up my bare skin to my face as he spoke. “Thank you.”
“For what?” I whispered, caught up in the moment.
“For staying.” He tilted his head to the side as he gently slid his fingers through mine, pulling me flush to the front of his body. “For helping me.”
“Tell me the truth now.” I said, and he smirked as he backed us up into the spray of the shower more fully. He rinsed the blood from his face as I took the cloth off the rack and poured a gallon of soap onto it. It would take more than that to clean his skin of the mess, but it was a good start.
“Well, you see what happened was,” He started, pausing to watch me as I started rubbing the cloth across his chest and stomach. “There was this girl, in a glory hole—”