Chapter 43
Xavier
I can barely hold the paper in my hand.
“Gestation? What does that …” Orion mumbles.
“A child,” Atreus says, sucking in a breath. “That is what Samuel Garcia was trying to hide.”
But all I can focus on is the word abortion.
Sunny … was pregnant?
No, that can’t be. She never once acted anything but her normal self, and she didn’t have a visible belly, no other symptoms that I noticed, or anything else that I noticed was off.
Suddenly, the images of her in the hospital come flooding back into my brain like a tsunami. The pain in her eyes when she first saw her family. Her inability to talk to them. The doctor wanting to speak to her in private.
Something grave happened to her body that changed her forever.
She had an abortion.
She was pregnant.
And those fuckers who did it to her walked free, so she killed them all.
An ocean of hurt washes over me because she suffered alone, and I wasn’t there to help her. I drop down onto hands and knees with the paper beneath me, as tears begin to flow.
The pain they forced her to endure.
No medication after the operation.
Dropped off at a random location.
They were getting rid of her.
She was the evidence of their crime.
“So that’s what she was hiding,” Orion mutters. “She lost her child here. Maybe even in this room.”
All the men on her list that she killed are lined up in my mind.
Perry, the drug seller who probably sold the meds to this “hospital.” Paul, the nurse, Mike and Carlo, the duo who operated on her. Jimmy, the driver who probably dropped her off somewhere after the ordeal.
And then there’s Samuel.
The man who impregnated her.
My hands ball into fists, and I slam them into the concrete floor over and over until my knuckles bleed.
“I’m going to rip their corpses from their graves, summon their spirits from the afterlife, and kill them again just to make them experience an inch of the suffering they gave to her!” I yell.
Orion kneels beside me and puts his arm around my shoulder.
“They’re the ones who destroyed her. This is where it happened. This is how they did it.”
“And she got her revenge,” Orion says.
“No,” I growl, glaring at him. “Samuel still walks. We have to find him.”
I wipe the snot and tears away, jump to my feet, and swiftly snatch Atreus’s gun from his holster and haphazardly point it at his face. “You were the one who found her. Tell me where.”
“In the woods, not far from here,” he replies, holding up his hands. “Think about what you’re doing, Xavier.”
“I know what I’m doing. We have to go back to the hospital you brought her to,” I say, marching toward the exit, still carrying his gun.
“Hold up, what the fuck are you planning?” Atreus asks.
“I need to see her files,” I say.
He grabs my arm and forces me to stop, and I nearly hit him with the barrel.
“You’d better have a goddamn good reason to stop me, because I will raise hell on this motherfucking earth for breaking the only woman I have ever adored.”
“You can’t just go and break into a hospital, Caruso,” Atreus says.
“No? Then what’s your plan? Because you know damn well everything you’ve been doing has only made things so much goddamn worse!” I yell in his face.
“Calm down, guys,” Orion says.
The gun in my hand sways back and forth. “No, if he’d done his job, those fuckers would’ve been arrested. He knew. He knew about all of this.”
It’s so goddamn tempting to shoot him down and end it all. Even if he isn’t the cause of her wounds, it’s because of him that they continue to bleed to this day.
“No, I didn’t, and I would’ve arrested them if she’d told me the fucking truth about what happened to her.”
My eyes widen. “She … she didn’t tell you either?”
“No. She refused to talk to anyone.”
“Because she knew you would never give her justice,” Orion says, licking his lips.
“I would have,” he says. “If she’d given me a chance.”
Orion ponders. “Who could ever trust, when man always abuses?”
And I realize, even if I am a man, that he is right.
Men …
Are always the ones to hurt women.
No wonder she couldn’t trust anyone with her secret.
Atreus releases me from his grip. “I know how to get the info you want. An insider.”
I grimace. “Oh, now you suddenly want to help us?”
His nostrils flare. “I’m trying to do you a favor. Take it. Before I change my mind.”
My eyes narrow. “I should pummel you in the face again.”
“And how’s that going to help you get the information you seek?”
Righteous motherfucker.
I keep the gun pointed at his chest. “You’re just saying that so you can catch us committing a crime and arrest us too.”
“We’re here for the same reason. Justice. As long as our goals align, I won’t pursue anything against you.” He swallows, unintimidated by the prospect of death. “Besides, she’s been through enough.”
“Ah … so you’re just concerned with how she’ll look at you if you try anything on us,” Orion muses. “If she’ll ever even look at you at all.”
His eye begins to twitch. “I am not. I don’t care. Not in the slightest.”
Orion chuckles and pats him on the back as he passes us both. “Right. Keep telling yourself that. Welcome to our side.”
I tuck the gun into my pocket and turn around.
“I’m not on your side,” Atreus quips, but he still follows us out the door.
Orion tosses me my car keys. “Let’s go, boys.”
“You think I’m going to sit next to you while you drive?” Atreus throws me a glance. “That’ll be the death of me.”
I throw him an insulting smirk. “Who said you could sit next to me?”
Minutes later
I open the trunk of the car and smile at Atreus. “Enjoyed the ride?”
“Fuck you,” he growls as he crawls out. “Why couldn’t you just put me in the back seat?”
I flash his gun. “Because you needed to learn a lesson.”
Serves him right.
“What happened to you two getting along for Sunny’s sake?” Orion asks.
“This is a mutually beneficial partnership that ends after we find what we’re looking for,” I say, closing the trunk.
Atreus sucks in a breath through his nostrils. “What he said.”
Orion rolls his eyes. “Okay, we’re at the hospital. What now, Detective Foley?”
Foley pulls out his phone and makes a call.
“Meet us outside. Bring the documents I requested.”
He hangs up the phone again.
“Who was that?” I ask.
“Hospital staff,” he replies. “I texted them earlier.”
Orion frowns. “So you’re having them steal it for you?”
“They don’t steal. They borrow.”
I laugh and turn my head away so I don’t have to listen to him lie. “Whatever, man. You’re so full of shit.”
“We only take pictures. They keep the original. There’s no stealing involved,” he adds.
“You always pretend you’re so much better than us.”
“Do you even know what kind of family you belong to?” he retorts.
“I don’t know, do you?” I quip.
“The Foley name is held in high esteem in this community. Unlike the Carusos, Riveras, and Torreses, who frequently come into contact with nefarious organizations.”
“Interesting, I heard your dad was a sack of shit who terrorized the campus because he couldn’t get laid.”
He nearly comes at me again, but Orion steps between. “Guys, guys, stop it, please. This isn’t getting us anywhere. No one mentions anyone’s dad. Just stop it. Behave like adults for once, please.” He sighs. “Why do I have to be the responsible one? I hate it.”
Atreus rolls his eyes and pulls out a cigarette, lighting it up. “Quit bitching and wait. He’s going to come soon.”
“Can we even trust this dude?” I ask.
Atreus takes a drag of his cig. “He’s already had a run-in with the cops when he tried selling a stash of fentanyl he stole from the hospital, so I’m pretty sure he’ll stay quiet.”
Orion nudges me. “Someone’s approaching.”
I tuck my hand into my pocket to make sure the gun is still there as the man comes closer, in his hands a few pieces of paper. He stops right in front of us and nods at Atreus. “I got what you’re looking for. Are you going to do what you promised? I want my records deleted.”
Atreus snatches the papers from his hand. “Consider it done.”
“Great. Send it back to me by mail before the end of the day.”
The guy looks us up and down, as if he doesn’t trust us either, and I don’t blame him. I’d gut him like a fish if he did anything to set me off.
Atreus holds up a cigarette. “Want one?”
The guy holds up his hand. “No thanks. It’s a hospital. I don’t smoke.”
“Wise words,” Orion muses, but the man simply ignores him and walks off again. “Okay, bye,” Orion adds, all snooty and offended.
I grab one end of the paper to read along with Atreus, while Orion looks over his shoulder as we search the pages for clues on what happened to Sunny, but we don’t have to search long.
The doctor’s notes are right there at the bottom, and what’s written shocks me to my core.
The doctor confirmed the pregnancy and abortion in this very hospital, and the loss of blood was so severe that it nearly took her life.
Shock ripples through me, and I suck in a breath.
They damaged her uterus so badly during their botched attempt to perform an abortion that her uterus was removed.
Sunny can no longer have any children.
My fingers begin to shake, my rage unending, as I clench my teeth together and grit, “I’m going to murder the son of a bitch who got her pregnant.”