49
I wake, and as usual I’m confused about where I am and need to take a few moments to assess my surroundings.
I’m in a shared hospital room; that much is clear. Valérie’s in the bed to my left, Miranda to my right, and across the room, Silke.
‘Great.’
“The bitch is awake,” Miranda says loudly.
I give Miranda a deadly look before turning my attention to Silke.
“We’re all here because of you,” the German snaps.
“How so?”
Her expression becomes incredulous.
“You shot Miranda in the arm and me in the leg.”
“I didn’t shoot Miranda; she was hit by a ricochet from Khutulun,” I murmur, noting I’m hooked up to an IV, unlike the others. “I shot Khutulun in the head. You’re welcome.”
“Ricochet or not, if you hadn’t held us all up like a bloody bushranger, neither of us would be hurt,” Miranda snaps. “And you deliberately shot Silke in the leg, so you can’t wriggle out of that one.”
“Yes,” I nod, “and I shot Natia in the heart. At least it was a quick, clean death, unlike what you did to Laura. Just be thankful I spared your lives, although I’m prepared to rectify that at any given moment.”
I don’t bother adding that I hadn’t wanted to shoot Natia, but she’d come at me like a bull in a ring when I’d taken out Khutulun.
Her quick responding shot had taken me in the side only because I’d stumbled.
If I hadn’t, it would be me with a hole in the heart now, and not her.
As it was, she missed mine by a wide margin, the bullet going straight through my side, grazing my ribs on the way through and nicking an artery.
‘And I’ll bet that, once again, I’d needed a blood transfusion. Oh, Christ, please say he didn’t leave another note.’
I struggle to sit up to look at the small cabinet near my bed, but fall back straight away. I’m too weak to rise; I still feel like I have a hot brick sitting on my chest making it difficult to breath, and my gunshot wound, although not deep, hurts.
Turning my head I see a giant bouquet of red roses near my bedside cabinet and a small note.
Reaching over with great difficulty, I read his latest taunt and groan.
“Puss, Puss, Puss.
Soon.
Valentino.”
‘Bastard. At least I’m safe for the time being. There’s no way you’d try to get me when I’m in a room full of other contestants…surely.’
Tuning back into what the other two are saying now, I stare at the ceiling and wonder how long before I can get out of here, or when they’ll be sent back to the hacienda and the game, as I catch the gist of their conversation.
“She didn’t shoot me,” Valérie says quietly.
“She cut your face,” Miranda quips, “and you’ll likely scar. If you live that long.”
“That’s not why I’m here, though,” Valérie shakes her head. “Claire and Silke left me to drown. Catriona’s team saved me.”
“Dead right, Valérie,” I whisper, my lungs afire.
“You know what Claire always said,” Silke snaps, “it’s the sheep that bleats that loses its bite.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Miranda snorts.
“It means true strength comes from action; those who complain are not the ones who will protect you. All Valérie ever does is complain. We knew we couldn’t count on her.”
“It makes no difference what you think about the Frenchie,” Miranda laughs without humour, “everyone’s going to want to eliminate Annie Oakley over there. Everyone.”
“Wait,” I frown. “Are you still talking about me? Why would everyone want to kill me? I ensured the team I wanted to come last did. Everyone else I made deals with.”
“That was before the bachelor caught you in his arms and ran you to the ambulance as though his heart might break if you didn’t live,” Valérie says quietly.
“He did WHAT?”
‘Oh, merda, tell me this isn’t so. All my careful planning…’
“Yes,” Miranda sneers, “we all saw it; his expression was distraught. You’re obviously a favourite. He’s just put a huge target on you. If you even make it out of this hospital, that is.”
I close my eyes and lean back into my pillows, signalling I don’t have anything to worry about from them, although in reality, any one of them could probably kill me right now. I feel weaker than I ever have.
“I don’t know what he sees in her,” Silke snipes.
“Well, clearly not as much as he saw in Daniela. That’s why she killed her.”
I open my eyes again and turn to glare at Miranda.
“I didn’t kill Daniela.”
“You may as well have,” Miranda rolls her eyes, “her team — well, what was left of it — Daniela and Luo, came last just like you wanted, and the Viscount sucked the life out of them.”
“He did not,” I scowl.
“He did,” Valérie says quietly.
I frown and lean back again to stare at the ceiling. If this is true, then what he told me was a lie. He said he wouldn’t suck anyone to death.
‘Has he changed his mind? And if so, why let me live? Why not just finish me off?’
I open my mouth to ask for further clarification when a doctor walks in.
She’s tall, dark-haired and wearing blood-red lipstick, which strikes me as odd for a doctor. Taking a quick look at each of the beds, her eyes seem to brighten when they light upon me.
“Let’s take a look at you,” she says quietly as she picks up the chart from the end of my bed and scans it before raising intense blue eyes to mine. “Well, well, well. The rumours are true — this ought to be good.”
I shrink back into my pillow at her slow, malicious smile, every hair on my arms and the back of my neck rising. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this woman was a vampire.
As she places my chart back on the end of the bed without taking her eyes off mine, Miranda draws her attention.
“Hey doc, can you check me out too? My arm’s really fucking hurting.”
Ignoring Miranda, the woman moves to step towards Silke when the doors swing open, and another doctor enters, a man in his mid-forties with a busy, professional look about him.
He seems surprised to see her, and his steps falter, but before he can say anything his colleague spins on her heel and stalks out without a word.
I breathe a sigh of relief as the door swings shut behind her, and the doctor, shaking his head as though he didn’t know what just happened, walks around to the side of my bed, takes my wrist in his fingers, presumably to check my pulse, and smiles at me.
“You’ll be moving soon,” he says gently before taking a syringe from his pocket and inserting a needle into the IV.
“Oh?” I frown. “What’s wrong with this room?”
“You don’t belong here, C.”
It takes me a full, long second to realise what he’s just said, but by then the world is starting to blur.
‘C. The only one who calls me that is my father. Oh, fuck!’
Gasping, I rip the IV out of my arm and move to roll out of the bed away from him.
“Do something!” I shriek to the others as I hit the floor, pain shooting through me from the wound in my side.
But Miranda and Silke just stare as though I’ve gone mad as the doctor walks around to the side of the bed where I’ve fallen and shakes his head at me, pulling out another needle.
Groaning, I try to scoot away from him, the world spinning as whatever he’d injected into my IV takes hold.
But just as he grips my arm and moves to inject me, our door swings open with a bang and, faster than I can follow, the Viscount is behind the doctor, and his coat has turned from white to red.
As the doctor falls to the floor beside me, his face a picture of shock, I look up at the bachelor where he stands, the man’s still-beating heart in his hand, his eyes now locked on mine.
‘He’s magnificent.’
Dropping the heart and wiping his hands on his shirt as though what he’d just done was nothing out of the ordinary, he leans down and scoops me from the floor as if I weigh nothing, depositing me gently onto my bed before straightening up and stepping three feet away.
Looking at me from across the room, his eyes flick to my throat before meeting my eyes.
“Who is Valentino?” He asks quietly.