Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
LUCIFER
There are things that stay with a man, minor blips in time that he replays on his deathbed. Sins he tries to repent when he’s sitting in purgatory, waiting for the devil to drag him into his lair.
For me, the list is long, and everything on it centers on my club. Such as my first kill and the day I got my colors. Being appointed President, and feeling the weight of the gavel in my hand as I took my seat at the head of the table and called church to session for the first time.
Shit like that.
For good men, the highlight reel looks a little different, and it doesn’t play in purgatory. It focuses on the beautiful moments that made their lives worth living. Like the day they met their wives and held their child in their arms for the first time.
Today, I got a taste of how the other side lives, and there ain’t a doubt in my mind that when my time is up, I’ll remember Jess opening her eyes and looking at me.
The fear that seemed to fade the longer those hazel eyes stayed locked with mine and the relief that crashed over me.
The high I got just two seconds ago when she spoke to me.
A man could get addicted to her, and if I had a lick of self-preservation, I’d get the hell out of here. Instead, I hold her stare and commit every inch of her face to my memory.
The silence stretches between us. There’s so much to say, but words aren’t really my thing, and even if they were, there’s no sugarcoating the conversation we’re about to have.
“Why are you here?” she finally asks, her voice still raw from the tube.
I clear my throat. “Tori had to leave to see to her daughter.”
That much is true, plus the girl was running on fumes.
Dread had followed me from the clubhouse to the hospital, something I didn’t realize until they sedated Jess.
I left the room to get Tori something from the vending machine and found him lurking in the hallway.
He accompanied me to the vending machine, but neither of us spoke.
When I left him to go back to Jess’s room, he broke the silence, telling me he was sticking around in case I needed anything.
I cashed in when it came time for Tori to leave. Being as exhausted as she was, I didn’t feel comfortable having her get behind the wheel, but I also knew she wouldn’t be receptive to having Dread drive her. So I compromised and asked him to follow her.
“That’s not what I mean,” Jess says.
“How lucid are you?” The question comes out rougher than I intend.
She blinks at me, confusion flickering across her face. “I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“They keep shoving morphine into that drip,” I say, tipping my chin toward the IV hanging above her. “… and every time they do, you pass out. So I’m guessing you’re pretty fucking stoned right now.”
She closes her eyes, and for a second I think the drugs have won again. But then her lashes flutter, and she’s looking at me through half-lidded eyes.
Eyes that are so fucking pretty even when they’re glassy and red-rimmed.
“I guess you’re right,” she rasps. “But if none of this is a dream, then I’m lucid enough to know there is no good reason for you to be sitting at my bedside during my darkest hour.”
The words sit on my tongue like acid, but I force them out anyway. “You’re in this bed because of me.”
For a second, something shifts in her expression. Her eyes widen, the haze of morphine thinning as fear flickers behind them. Her body tenses, and I watch her throat work as she swallows.
“Someone threw a Molotov cocktail into the bar,” she whispers. “Did you do that?”
“No.” The word comes out low and rough. “But I might as well have.”
I drag a hand down my face, feeling the stubble scrape against my palm. My jaw clenches as I try to find the right words, but there aren’t any. There’s no way to soften the blow.
“I’m going to tell you some things right now,” I say, leaning forward in the chair, my elbows on my knees. “And I really hope you don’t forget what I’m telling you, because your care depends on your cooperation.”
She blinks at me, and I can see the confusion battling with the drugs in her system.
“After they brought you in, no one would give me any information. Not a word. They kept telling me family only.” I pause, holding her gaze. “So I lied. I told them I was your husband.”
Her expression doesn’t change. No anger, no shock, nothing. Just that same glassy, morphine-dulled stare.
“I couldn’t get in touch with Tori, and decisions needed to be made. Someone had to sign off on your care, authorize the surgeries, handle the bills.”
I watch her, waiting for some reaction, but her face remains blank. Either the drugs are dulling her response, or the information hasn’t fully registered yet.
After a beat, she finally speaks. “So, that’s why they keep calling me Mrs. Holland. They think we’re married.”
I lean back in the chair, contemplating whether I should just leave it there.
Let her rest and process what I’ve already dumped on her.
Then, when she’s stronger, tell her the whole truth.
But what good is delaying the inevitable when they’re going to have to move her to a different hospital in a couple of days.
“They’re calling you Mrs. Holland, because that’s exactly who you are.”
Her brow furrows slightly. “What?”
“I was paying cash for your medical bills,” I continue, my voice dropping lower. “But I didn’t realize how quickly they would add up, and I’m fucking broke. I needed to come up with a different solution, and there was only one.”
Her eyes widen, and I watch the morphine fog clear just enough for understanding to dawn. Her lips part, but no sound comes out. She just stares at me, those hazel eyes—still red-rimmed and glassy—filling with something I can’t quite name.
“You . . .” Her voice cracks. “You married me? While I was in a coma?”
“I had to,” I growl. “The bills were piling up and I couldn’t keep writing blank checks. You needed insurance. This was the only way to make sure you got the care you needed.”
“I don’t understand. Why would you do that? You don’t even know me.”
No. I don’t. And that’s the part that eats at me the most. I’ve watched her night after night, memorized the way she moves, cataloged every smile she’s ever given a stranger.
I’ve obsessed over her in ways that would make her skin crawl if she knew.
But I don’t know her favorite color. I don’t know what makes her laugh.
I don’t know what she dreams about at night.
I know nothing about the woman I married.
“I know enough,” I say quietly. “Look, it’s important that you go along with it.
At least until you’re healed. You’ve got a long road ahead of you.
More surgeries and rehab. The doctors are saying your recovery can take anywhere from six months to a year.
The insurance kicks in next week.” I pause, watching her face carefully.
“Once it does, you’ll need to be moved to a different hospital.
I can’t bring the card here. They’ll ask too many questions. ”
Her eyes drift away from mine, fixing on some point above my head. The slight furrow in her brow smooths out, and her expression goes flat. It’s almost as if someone reached inside her chest and turned off the light.
“Jess?”
Nothing. Not even a blink.
I lean forward, my hand hovering near her arm. “Did you hear what I just said?”
Still nothing. She’s staring at the ceiling now, her chest rising and falling in that mechanical rhythm that matches the beeping of the monitor. But her eyes—they’re vacant. Hollow.
Something tightens in my chest. I’ve seen this before—in the men I’ve tortured. They reach a point where living becomes unbearable and their minds just shut down.
But seeing it on her face makes my stomach turn.
“Aren’t you going to say something? Tell me to go fuck myself? Yell. Scream. Do something.”
I watch her, waiting for the anger, the fury, the righteous indignation that she has every right to feel. But there’s nothing.
Then I see it—a single tear, sliding down her temple and disappearing into her hairline. It’s followed by another, and another, tracking silently down the side of her face.
“You should’ve let me die.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. I feel them in my chest, in my gut, in the marrow of my bones.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “It would’ve been kinder than this.”
Something hot and vicious coils in my gut. She turns her face away from me, staring at the wall. Tears fall steadily from her eyes, and each one that drops feels like a nail being driven into my chest.
She’d rather be dead than be married to me.
Isn’t that some shit?
Don’t get me wrong, I knew her reaction to the news wouldn’t be good. I braced for the screaming and the accusations. Anticipated fury, and expected her to call me every name in the book.
Kind of like Tori did.
I even figured she’d demand a divorce.
The only thing I didn’t prepare for is this quiet devastation.
My jaw clenches so hard I can hear my teeth grinding.
I want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she understands that I did this for her.
That I emptied my savings, and drained Dread’s, committed fraud, and bound myself to a woman I barely know—all so she could live and get the care that she deserved.
But I don’t touch her.
“Look at me,” I say, my voice rough.
She doesn’t move. She just keeps staring at the fucking wall like it has the answers to this fucking mess.
My nostrils flare, and I grip the railing beside her bed, my knuckles whitening around the metal. “The second you’re healed and back on your feet. I’ll file for divorce. You’ll never have to see me again.”
Hell, I’ll walk out the door right now and never return.
Spare her the pain of looking at me and let Tori handle things from here on out.
After all, that was the fucking deal.
But the only thing worse than watching my wife suffer, is the thought of walking away from her.
Her eyelids grow heavy, and her breathing slows—a sure sign the morphine is pulling her under again. Part of me is relieved. At least in sleep, she can’t wish for death.
Her breathing evens out, and the machines continue their steady, rhythmic beeping. I sit there in the silence, watching her sleep, and for the first time in my life, I feel the full weight of every sin I’ve ever committed.