7. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
Rory
W hen I see Sophia rushing down the hallway towards me, her eyes pinging from side to side as she searches each room she's jogging past, panic, fear and nausea overtakes me.
I jump up from the chair I've been seated in for the past hour and walk towards her.
"What's wrong? Is everything okay?" I ask hurriedly, hoping that everything's fine and I haven't somehow done something wrong.
"Yes, but come, quickly!"
She takes my hand, spins around and drags me through the corridor towards Jaylen's room.
My heart thumps inside of my chest as my mind races through everything I did earlier whilst I was checking up on Jaylen.
There was no way I did anything wrong. Markus checked him over after his eyes opened. He's been for scans as well since I was last with him.
Oh God.
Did they detect something in one of his scans?
We burst into his room and my frantic eyes scan over the machines beside his bed, looking for anything glaringly alarming and when I see that they're all fine, my eyes land on Jaylen, seeing his drooping eyes planted firmly on me.
"What's going on?" I ask, looking between Sophia and Jaylen as my brows furrow in confusion.
"Well, I was trying to communicate with Jay by getting him to blink in answer to my questions and when I asked him if he's in pain, he blinked twice, meaning no. I wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing, so I came to get you."
My shoulders slump and I breathe a sigh of relief as I realise that nothing's wrong.
"You scared me when I saw you rushing around like that. I thought something might've been wrong."
"So the fact that he's not in pain isn't a bad thing?"
"No," I tell her, walking over to Jaylen's bedside and pointing at the IV in his hand. "Painkillers are being pumped into him, so it's likely he won't be feeling much pain."
I glance down at Jaylen to find him watching me. "You'll probably be in some discomfort, and you may be experiencing a small amount of pain, but nothing severe. Although we will be reducing the amount of morphine we're giving you each day."
"That's great!" she says excitedly, smiling down at her cousin.
"You two seem pretty close," I say, observing the way she smooths her hand against his cheek before sitting in the chair beside him and taking hold of his hand.
"Yeah, we are," she replies, nodding her head and turning to look at me. "He's been my bodyguard ever since I was like, eighteen. Even before that we were best friends, but we became much closer once he was my bodyguard because we had to spend near enough every minute of the day with each other."
"Didn't you find it annoying at times?" I ask her, genuinely curious because I found it hell the few times that Danny had people watch me back in Ireland.
"I found him annoying, that's for sure," she says, chuckling and glancing over at Jaylen to see him side-eyeing her.
"But, honestly, being a part of my family, I knew that it was necessary to have someone watching over me.
I'm kind of glad it was Jaylen because not only did it bring us closer, but it meant that I wasn't held on as tight of a leash as other girls and women are in my position.
He allowed me to be free and enjoy myself, and I trusted that he would keep me safe whilst I was doing so. "
"Sounds like you were real lucky."
"Yeah, I really was. Thankfully, my father is quite a laid-back guy, despite the fact that he's the leader of one of the most powerful organisations in London. Well, he was at the time."
"How comes you refer to it as an organisation and not the London Mafia?" I ask.
She shakes her head and scoffs .
"Because we're not what you'd typically class as Mafia.
As soon as anyone hears the word Mafia, they become fearful.
We don't want people to be scared of us.
Well, obviously we want our enemies to fear us, but not the people that live in the city we protect.
Since the whole switch up, everything's gotten complicated because Alessandro wanted everyone to fear him and his family, which in turn had most people terrified of us too, but I think now that Alessandro is dead and Dominic is taking over, people are starting to realise that we're not bad people. "
"People will always be scared of you, though," I say, not thinking before I speak.
"Why'd you say that?" she asks, her blue eyes crashing with mine.
"I should get going," I mumble, shaking my head and turning away from her.
"No, please, stay here. I'm genuinely curious as to why you think that."
I gnaw on my bottom lip as I turn back around and my fingers fiddle with the hem of my scrubs when I find both Jaylen and Sophia watching me.
"Well, your family is powerful. Extremely powerful.
People with power should be feared because they can use that power to do bad things, for example, kill people and get away with it.
It's easy for you guys to bury things because you're like the puppet masters of the city and you control everyone inside of it. "
"See, I would've agreed with you a few months ago, but now that Alessandro is dead and Dominic is in charge, we're not going to abuse the power we have.
We're trying to make this city better. We're not going around ruining people's lives.
We don't kill innocent people. Plus, we stay out of all the dirty trades, strictly arms deals, illegal and legal, and that's it.
No drugs, no people. Alessandro and his followers were the ones that gave the people of London a bad impression of us all, but us Kings, we're not like that.
Everything that we do is for a reason and has a purpose," she says, shrugging.
"You still kill people, though. "
"Yeah, we do," she sighs. "And that does make us just as bad as the people we go after, but it's what we have to do to protect people.
The difference between our organisation and most people in the Mafia is that we care about civilians.
We just want to keep people safe. Take this as an example as to how we're different; we've never bribed or threatened any police, politicians or doctors.
In the past, Alessandro has, and we're working to clear out the rats, but what Alessandro did has nothing to do with us.
We've always gone the right way about things. "
"Never?" I ask, genuinely shocked because you always hear about the Mafia threatening higher ups so that they can get away with things.
"Never," she confirms, shaking her head. "Well, honestly, Kaleb has. Not someone that works for the government, not that I know of anyway, but he's definitely bribed a few people here and there, but that's just because he's… a little strange."
"How so?"
"Well, he's… let's just say he's a little obsessive and he's the type of person that gives in to his intrusive thoughts when he probably shouldn't."
My brows raise and she laughs at my expression.
"I should probably stop talking and let you get back to work, shouldn't I?"
I nod, not wanting to continue this conversation any longer and start to walk out of the room.
"You seem to have some strong opinions on the whole Mafia subject," she calls out, just as I reach the door. "You also don't seem to be worried around us, considering you speak your mind. That's unusual. "
Panic filters through my veins as I slowly flick my gaze back over to her.
She smiles at me from where she's sitting.
"It's nice to meet a woman with a backbone," she says. "It's refreshing actually, and I'm glad that you're Jaylen's nurse. He needs someone like that."
My brows furrow at her words and she chuckles.
"Once he can speak again, you'll understand what I mean. If you were timid and shy, I'm afraid you wouldn't last a day in his presence."