Chapter 5
JACE
When Sabine leaves, her house gets quiet real fast. My leg throbs with every heartbeat and the fever makes everything feel distant and unreal, but I'm alone now, and that means opportunity.
Training says to use the time wisely, to learn everything possible about the woman who stabbed me, because I have some sort of verbal truce with her now.
We've made this arrangement like symbiotes, and the more I know about her, the better I'll be in the end.
Standing takes effort, and the walk from the kitchen table to her bedroom feels longer than it felt coming out here.
My injured leg drags slightly with every step and pain radiates up through my hip.
I didn't make the bed because I can barely stand, and the sheets are stained from where my wound seeped, but they're not as bad as the floor.
My blood is everywhere. No doubt about my DNA being present if she did decide to call the cops.
Her dresser stands against the far wall with nothing on top except a lamp and a small dish that holds spare change and hair ties.
The drawers are disgustingly organized with everything folded to almost sharp lines.
Shirts in the top drawer, pants in the second, and when I open the third drawer, I find exactly what I expected to find and also what I wasn't looking for.
Her bras and panties are all cotton and practical, nothing sexy or silky, and under them sits a small zippered pouch that my hands open before my brain can decide whether this crosses a line I shouldn't cross.
I'm here snooping in a target's bedroom, and I find a dildo and a vibrating bullet.
God, how embarrassing for her, but what a turn-on for me.
My dick twitches as I close the pouch and set it back where I found it, and that's when I see the notebook tucked beneath a stack of sports bras in the back corner of the drawer.
The leather is worn and cracked at the edges, the pages yellowed, showing years of handling. A diary, maybe, or a journal where she documented things she couldn't say out loud. My hands pull it free and open it to a random page, and the date at the top reads October 2022.
Her handwriting is flawless, like her training.
Every loop of a letter, every I dotted and T crossed is a work of art.
My eyes skim over every word of every entry as I lower myself onto the bed and relax a little.
This isn't a "dear diary" sort of book. This is a military journal where this woman wrote down specifics of things that happened to her, things she did on missions.
I flip through a few pages noting how she wrote down specific commands given by specific people and her reactions to them. They're stamped with time and date, and even locations at some spots. Like she's recording for her own record what happened so she wouldn't forget.
When I stumble upon an entry from around two years ago, my reading slows.
I see the name she mentioned before, Captain Jason Bryan, and suddenly, her handwriting isn't so neat and meticulous anymore.
Now it's scrawling, scribbles and rushed writing, like her hands were shaking.
It's hard to make out some of the letters at times, but I get the gist.
This sick fuck forced them to walk into a house or building where innocent people were and then proceeded to kill them all with his own service weapon after some of his men protested and refused to help.
It makes me feel for her, but I'm not here to judge anyone or take sides. If that man thought it was the right thing, she was obligated to follow his command, regardless. He outranked her. She was his subordinate.
But I keep reading. And the thoughts get messier and the words darker.
…He put his hands on me. He told me if I talked, he'd kill me like he killed those people. Then he forced me to remove my pants and underwear, and then he…
I can’t keep reading. I can—I mean, the writing is neat enough—but I see the words "penis" and "thighs" and I know what that sick fucker did.
In all my days, in all the nasty, horrific things I've done, I've never laid my hands on a woman like that. And I never will…
Some women are horrible people, and sometimes they deserve death, but there are things far worse than death, and that's one thing I'd never do. To violate a woman like that and then expect her to live the rest of her life and function like a normal human?
My hands close the diary and I sit there on the edge of her bed holding it while the fever makes my skin feel too hot and too cold at the same time.
Bryan didn't just order the hit on the people who could expose him.
He raped Sabine to silence her, recorded her recanting her sworn statement while doing it, and then used his connections to bury her complaint and push her out of the career she'd built.
And now he's systematically eliminating everyone who knows what happened on that mission, including the woman whose only crime was refusing to stay quiet about murders he committed while on duty.
Sabine is trying to bring down a man who violated her and threatened her and is now trying to have her killed, and I'm the weapon he chose to make that happen.
Don Vittorio handed me this contract without telling me the full story, and I took it because refusing wasn't an option and asking questions has never been part of my job description.
That's what she meant when she said she hates him.
And now I know.
Now I've read her words and seen the evidence of what Bryan did, and the idea of finishing this list without helping her get the justice she's been chasing for two years makes me feel sicker than the infection spreading through my leg.
I sit there and think about how many times I've followed orders without even thinking about it.
How many lives I've taken, and how many people pleaded with me not to kill them.
Am I like that? Like Captain Jason Bryan and his disgusting hierarchy that expects people to just bow to him and follow orders?
And that's why Barone was so upset over that girl.
It wasn't that he wanted the girl killed along with her parents.
It's because I didn’t obey him. Maybe a little about that girl.
I know she can ID me if the cops ask her, but I know in my heart if I'd have killed her, I could never live with myself.
The same way Sabine can't live with herself, and she didn't even pull the trigger. Bryan did. And now she wants him to pay.
The diary goes back in the drawer exactly where I found it, and I close it carefully before limping back to the living room.
My leg is worse now, the pain sharper and the fever climbing higher.
Sabine wasn't wrong at all. I definitely need a doctor.
But walking into a hospital or clinic with a knife wound in my thigh will raise questions I can't answer.
Doctors are mandatory reporters for injuries that look criminal, and explaining how I got stabbed without involving police isn't possible.
And antibiotics are controlled substances requiring a prescription at a pharmacy counter. They're locked behind glass in most places, but they're also stealable if someone's desperate enough and willing to take the risk.
Twenty minutes later, I'm seated in my truck with the engine running to warm up because it's really fucking cold in Chicago in late November.
And I can't think about driving when my teeth are chattering this hard from shivering.
I'm sure it wouldn't feel nearly as bad if I weren't so feverish, but I am, and it does.
Robbing a pharmacy isn't part of any plan I had when I woke up this morning, but plans change when circumstances demand it and right now, my circumstances are a spreading infection and no way to treat it through legitimate channels.
The gun in my glove box is loaded and ready, and my hands check it automatically before tucking it into my waistband where it sits against my hip as I drive.
The pharmacy I choose is small and independent, the type of place that doesn't have armed security or elaborate camera systems covering every angle.
It's not too far from Sabine's apartment in a neighborhood that's seen better days, and when I pull into the parking lot there are only two other cars present.
Early afternoon on a weekday means minimal traffic, minimal witnesses, minimal chance of this going wrong in ways I can't control.
Walking into the store requires forcing my limp to be less obvious, and the clerk behind the counter barely glances up from her phone when the door chimes my entrance.
The pharmacy section is in the back, separated from the main retail floor by a half-wall and a gate that's currently closed.
A pharmacist in a white coat works behind the counter filling prescriptions, and the locked cabinet where they keep antibiotics and controlled medications sits visible through the glass partition.
My hand moves to the gun at my back and pulls it free in one smooth motion, and when I raise it to point at the clerk, her eyes go wide and her phone clatters onto the counter. "Don't scream. Don't move. This will be over in two minutes if you cooperate."
Her hands come up slowly and she nods as her eyes go wide and her jaw drops. She's barely older than the girl I let run in that botched hit, but necessity overrides guilt, and I gesture with the gun toward the pharmacy section.
"Open the gate. Tell the pharmacist to step back and keep his hands where I can see them." By all accounts, I probably have less than ten minutes, but I only need two if they just move faster.
She moves on shaking legs and calls out in a voice that trembles. "Uh, Jim… We have company…"
The pharmacist looks up to see me standing there with my gun trained on his employee.
His hands come up immediately and he steps back from the counter with a pale face but controlled movements.
He seems like a smart man and he's not really making any stupid moves.
I respect that. I'm not here to hurt anyone.
I just have to get drugs so I don't die.
"Antibiotics." My voice stays level and calm, though I blink my eyes hard to keep them focusing straight. "Amoxicillin, cipro—whatever you have for treating infections. Pain medication, gauze, antiseptic, medical tape. Put it all in a bag and slide it across the counter."
The pharmacist nods and moves slowly, reaching for bottles with hands that shake slightly but manage to pull the right medications from the locked cabinet.
He fills a plastic bag with everything I asked for plus a few things I didn't, and when he slides it across the counter, his eyes meet mine for a brief moment.
Then they drop to my thigh where I know the blood stain is quite visible.
"There's a free clinic two miles east." His voice is quiet but clear. "They don't ask questions and they treat infections. You don't have to do this."
It's ironic that this man who's sworn his life to help others is still trying to help me even with a gun to his head. It makes me feel like a real worthless piece of shit. "Appreciate the information. Now step back and stay there until I'm gone. I don’t have to hurt anyone, okay?"
Both of them nod and comply without argument, and I grab the bag, checking the contents quickly before backing toward the door.
The clerk is crying now, silent tears running down her face while her hands stay raised, and the guilt that's been my constant companion since I let that little girl run hammers my conscience like a wrecking ball. God, I hate myself sometimes.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart." My words feel inadequate but I say them anyway, and then I'm out the door and moving as fast as my injured leg allows toward my truck.
The engine roars to life and I'm pulling out of the parking lot before anyone inside can think about calling the police or getting a license plate number.
The bag of stolen medication sits on the passenger seat, and my hands are steady on the wheel as I drive.
I feel like shit—morally and physically.
What the fuck is Sabine Hart doing to me, anyway?
The drive back to her house is short but feels like an eternity.
This fever is making me feel like I'm hallucinating or zoning out every two seconds.
When I finally park the truck and turn it off, a few blocks from her house, I know I don't have the strength to walk that far right now.
I keep the car running and dry swallow a few pills, then nod off.
If they got my plate, they'll probably find me passed out here in the front seat and never connect it to Sabine at all. God knows, that's the last thing she needs is to add armed robbery to the things she could be suspected of.
If they didn't get my plate, I'll be just fine until I'm out of gas, at which point I hope she's home and comes to check on me.
Because I'm sicker than fuck, and it's all her fault.