Chapter 63 Sloane
Sloane
My sister is a married woman.
A million thoughts go through my mind when I learn this. The first and foremost of these thoughts is Hell. To. The. Mother. Fucking. No.
My sister was kidnapped. Kidnapped. And then, more than two years later, she turns up married?
A large part of my brain is assuming that this marriage was forced on her.
The remaining part of my brain is dedicated to imagining brutal and painful ways I could kill this Rebel guy without being arrested for murder.
I’m a doctor. I have access to any number of substances that could cause lethal damage to the human body.
Or at the very least, there are a number of items in Zeth’s duffel bag that would fix this situation very quickly.
While shooting Rebel with a Desert Eagle won’t undo the damage that’s already been done, it would certainly free Lexi from future torment.
But my homicidal plans are brought to a halt when I meet the guy.
He saw fit to leave the hospital when he learned that Lexi was still asleep, but he returns a couple of hours later, when we’re waiting for permission to go and see her.
Cade seems as on edge as I am. I can only imagine how worried he is over what Lexi will say if I talk to her before Rebel has a chance to intimidate her into saying something else.
However, his nerves only seem to grow when a tall, dark guy with arms full of tattoos saunters down the corridor toward us.
Zeth leans against the wall opposite me, his own arms crossed and eyes fixed firmly on me as I watch the guy approach.
Cade rubs his hands on his thighs, sucking in a deep breath.
“He’s left the other guys outside, sweetheart. Just go easy on him, okay?” he says to me.
“Go easy on him? I’m gonna tear his fucking balls off.”
Zeth’s mouth curves into a positively evil smile.
Cade, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to think this is a funny prospect. “Soph’s gon’ be pissed at you if you do that.”
“My sister’s name is Alexis. And this bastard’s probably brainwashed her, haven’t you, you fuck?”
The guy arriving in front of me reels back, eyebrows rocketing up his forehead.
The most annoying thing about him, aside from the fact that he’s incredibly good-looking in a rugged, bad-boy kind of way, is that he has the gall to look shocked at my accusation.
He gives me an irritated look. “The hell you talking about, woman?”
“I’m talking about you forcing my sister into doing God only knows what against her will. You do realize that a marriage isn’t legal unless it’s overseen by a state official, right?”
Rebel snorts. “First, you’re wrong. Carnie got certified online.
He married us back in New Mexico, and we sent off the paperwork.
Recognized by any court in America. Second, what the hell do you mean?
Soph said you gave us your blessing. She also said you were too busy being a fucking hotshot doctor to come to your own sister’s wedding. ”
What the actual…? I close my eyes, I’m shaking my head. “You’re such a fucking liar.”
Zeth snorts, eyes glinting with mirth, and suddenly I’m itching to punch him in the face. “What, you think this is fucking funny?”
He shrugs, shoving off from his leaning post against the wall. “Not at all. I’ve just never heard you swear this much. Not even at me.”
If he thinks my language is bad right now, he should lock me in a room with this punk and see what I say to him then, with no innocent bystanders around to hear it.
“I’m not lying,” the guy says simply. “I’m telling the truth. Not that I have any reason to justify myself to you, Dr. Romera.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“What?”
“Dr. Romera? You say my title like you’re trying to swallow down liquid shit.”
“Oh, nothing. I just don’t get why you haven’t spoken to your sister in so fucking long.
She needed you, y’know. And where were you, huh?
Your fucking job’s been too important. Your fucking patients have been too important to leave, even for a goddamn weekend?
” He doesn’t turn red as the temperature of his tone rises; he turns a pasty white, which makes his frosty blue eyes seem even cooler.
Well, fuck him. Of all the messed-up, delusional things to accuse me of.
The guy’s lost his freaking mind. “You are off your meds, asshole.” I prod him hard in his chest, hoping it hurts him as much as it hurts my goddamn finger.
“My sister was taken from her home and her loving family, and you bought her from a fucking pimp! Like she was fucking takeout! You don’t get to lecture me on how much I care about my sister.
I have been looking for her every single day since she went missing!
” Nope. The finger stab wasn’t enough. I slam my palms into his chest, shoving him as hard as I can.
I don’t even get to see how far Rebel—who the fuck is called Rebel, anyway?
—staggers back. A solid band of muscle locks around my waist, and my feet are suddenly a clear six inches off the floor.
Zeth’s voice is in my ear, dark and deep and hypnotic.
“Come on now, angry girl. Less of the angry.”
I struggle, but it’s pointless. The man’s arms are made out of reinforced steel.
“All right. All right, okay. All right, I’m fine.
Jesus!” I must be mad. I don’t believe in the church anymore, but I still have a lifetime of my father’s anti-blaspheming lectures under my belt.
I think I was twelve the last time I said Jesus without it being in between the words in the name of our savior, Lord, and Amen.
Zeth puts me down, though he lingers behind me, ready to grab me if I look like I’m going to start throwing fists, no doubt.
I try to shake off my rage, but it spikes when I see that Rebel isn’t on his ass three feet down the hall.
He’s standing right where I left him, with a crooked frown on his face.
“So… Soph didn’t tell you she was okay?”
“No! Probably because she wasn’t okay!”
“She told me you didn’t wanna know her anymore.”
“I—That—” That makes no sense. I want to accuse him of lying again, but this look on his face…
Rebel isn’t a master of concealing his emotions like Zeth is.
Or maybe it’s just that I’ve become very adept at reading people, having so little to work off with Zeth all the time.
Either way, I think he’s actually telling the truth.
Over Rebel’s shoulder, a nurse is walking toward us with purpose. Her skin is a pretty taupe color, two shades lighter than Michael’s. “What the hell’s going on here? No bickering in the hallways. It’s a rule! Sick people are trying to get better here!”
“I’m sorry, I—” Urgh, I’m not sorry. I still want to kill this guy. The nurse gives me a look, daring me to cause trouble, but…
Cade steps in, his leather cut creaking as he folds his arms across his chest. “Sophia ready to see people now?”
The nurse shoots him a filthy look, then shares it around our group, making sure she levels it at each of us for an awkward amount of time. “I’m not letting troublemakers into my patient’s room.”
I hold my hands up in surrender; in this hospital, this woman is God. “Look, I am sorry, okay. I’m just worried about my sister. If you could just let me see her—”
Rebel holds up a hand, too. “I’m worried about my wife. I should go and see her first, just to let her know—”
“Shut up. You can both go in and see her. Together. Sophia can choose which one of your asses she wants to kick out all by herself. You two,” the nurse says, pointing an authoritative finger at Zeth and Cade. “You two are gonna wait here.”
Zeth and Cade do as they’re told and wait in the hallway, and I follow the nurse down the corridor, Rebel jostling at my elbow, into an elevator, up three awkwardly silent floors, and then into the ICU.
I should feel at home here—the majority of my trauma patients either start off or end up in a ward just like this one at some point within the length of their treatment—but I don’t.
I feel sick. The smell of disinfectant and the chorus of life support machines blipping from behind closed doors ignites the kind of panic I’ve only ever experienced once before, in Jacob Dixon’s kitchen.
The nurse guides us to a room and opens the door, giving both Rebel and me a glance of warning before disappearing.
Rebel walks in before me, his hand covering his mouth.
Alexis is bundled up in the hospital bed, thankfully not hooked up to life support, but she looks bad. Her face is drawn, and her eyes are bloodshot. But most importantly, her eyes are open. She sees us the moment we enter the room, and her mouth falls open. “Oh my God,” she whispers. “Sloane?”
I’ve imagined this moment a thousand times.
A million. And in none of my imagined moments where Alexis and I are reunited does she look horrified.
She’s overwhelmed, deliriously happy, crying with tears of joy.
Not gripping her blanket so hard her knuckles turn white.
She swallows, looking from me to Rebel and back again. “What are you doing here, Sloane?”
“What am I doing here? What the hell am I…” I can’t. I can’t even…
Rebel, a towering pillar of muscle and tattoos, moves around to the side of her bed and sits on the edge of it, taking hold of her hand. “Are you okay?” he asks softly.
Alexis’s gaze flickers to him. She nods, the gesture robotic, as if she’s at a loss for words.
“Good. I’m glad you’re okay,” he says carefully. “Babe, remember when we got married? And you said it would have been the most perfect day if only your sister could have been there? Well, about that…”
Alexis tries to pull her hand away, but Rebel has a decent if cautious grip on her.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she says. “I just… I didn’t…
” Tears well in her eyes. Alexis always was one for crocodile tears when she wasn’t getting her own way, but these look genuine enough.
She’s shaking. “I swear I didn’t mean to lie to you.
And I swear I’ll tell you everything. But…
can I just have a moment with her?” With her?
Alexis sees how black my mood is becoming and amends her words. “I need a moment with my sister.”
Rebel grunts, stands, and then places a kiss on the top of her head. “Be careful,” he says to her. “Dr. Romera attacks when provoked.”
He leaves the room, winking at me as he goes. I think about Zeth and how he would react to something like that. Probably smash his head through the observation window or something. If only I had Zeth’s body mass.
“You can stop looking at him like that.”
Alexis’s voice is a little stronger now, but it’s still shaky. “How the hell should I be looking at him, Lex? Should I be warmly embracing my new brother-in-law, the human fucking trafficker?”
“Yes. No, wait. He’s not… He isn’t what you think, Sloane.”
I can barely believe my own ears. He has brainwashed her. She has Stockholm syndrome. This is a classic presentation. “So you weren’t kidnapped from outside college? And this guy didn’t force you to marry him?”
Alexis sighs and falls back against her pillows, wiping her face with the back of her hand. The tears are falling now. “Yes, I was taken. But it wasn’t by him. He helped me.” She sets her jaw. “And he didn’t force me to marry him, Sloane. You have to believe that.”
“Then why on earth did you marry the president of a motorcycle gang? Because I’m really struggling to understand any of this.”
She sniffs, swatting the tears from her cheeks. “I married him because he’s the other half of me, Sloane. The slightly grumpy, slightly scary, deeply wonderful other half of me. I married him because I love him.”
This is all too much to take. So it’s all true.
She told Rebel I didn’t care about her. That I couldn’t be bothered coming to her wedding.
I need to know why, but right now I have a more pressing need, and that is to get the fuck away from her.
After all this worrying, all of the nightmares about my poor baby sister being used and abused, she’s blissfully happy. And married.
Fucking married. I can’t breathe. I need time to think. To process all of this properly.
I turn, and I walk away, and I do not look back.
I make it down to the ground floor, back to where we were waiting earlier before—
“Hey, Sloane!”
It’s him, the tattooed bastard, following me down the corridor. I try to power walk away, but he grabs my arm. I spin around, ready to lay into him again, but he lets go of me, holding his hands in the air.
“Don’t be mad at her, Sloane. She’s been through hell and back.”
“And was it you who put her through it?”
He clenches his jaw, eyes narrowing. I wasn’t paying attention before, but the color of his eyes is so blue they look like flints of ice. “No.”
“Then how the hell did she end up with you?”
“Maybe that’s something she should tell you. You can probably hazard an educated guess, though.” Pulling on his leather jacket, he smirks infuriatingly as he jerks his head down the hallway.
Toward Zeth.
He’s watching us. He cuts an imposing figure, standing there like he’s carved out of rock. Rebel’s smirk morphs into a grin. “You both have similar taste in men, after all, sweetheart. You both like us dark and dangerous.”