Page 29 of High Stakes

“What do you mean?” Hayden hisses. “You knew?” The betrayal in his voice makes me sick to my stomach. “The whole time?”

I open my eyes and Emelia is still staring me down with cold eyes. “I did,” I whisper to Hayden.

He shoots to his feet and slams his palms onto the table. “Who?”

I lift my chin and steel my nerves for not only his wrath, but from the impending heartache looming just on the other side of my confessions. “The Cabrera Cartel.”

Hayden visibly pales and Emelia clenches her fists on top of the table. Neither of them say anything for a long time. Then Emelia stands slowly and makes her way to the door. Hayden inhales sharply and steps after her, but she jerks a Glock from the back of her waistband and points it directly at his chest. “Don’t,” she says and I’ve never heard her voice so cold and deadly.

With his hands up, Hayden backs away and cuts his eyes to me. I just shake my head. There’s no stopping her. We can’t offer any further explanations. She’s made her choice and we have to let her go.

Emelia opens the door, but pauses before stepping into the cool night air. “The name,” she says quietly. “What was the name of the place you razed to the ground?”

My shoulders sag and I twist the knife deeper into my chest with my next three words. “The Lotus Blossom.”

She nods once before slamming the door behind her, and then she’s gone. I stand and brush past Hayden, unable to even look him in the eye. I need to find something to punch, and if he gets in my way, it very well may be his face. Emelia is gone and she’s taken every piece of me with her.

13

SILAS

“Do you remember anything, sir?” The short bald man shining an annoying bright light into my left pupil asks me. He’s the third person to ask me that question in the last two hours.

“Other than waking up about a week ago, no, sir,” I respond politely, and blink my eyes furiously when he pulls the light away. The brightness may be gone, but that stupid white spot in my eyes is still there, blocking my vision. “Can you tell me what happened?”

He rolls backward on his wheelie stool and looks over my chart that’s open on the computer screen hanging on the wall. “You were brought in as a John Doe. Some hikers found you hanging from a tree by a torn parachute.”

Fragments of images flash through my mind, but I can’t grab hold of any of them long enough to really get a sense of what happened. “How long have I been here?” I ask hoarsely, and wince at the pain in my throat.

“It’s been 73 days,” the doctor responds automatically without looking away from the screen. The clicking of his fingers on the keyboard and the monitor are the only two sounds in theroom, but my head is pounding. I’ve been here for almost three months. Why the fuck don’t I remember anything?

“You had some pretty extensive burns along your right side, your left tibia was fractured, you had a concussion and a large cerebral hematoma that needed to be surgically decompressed. There were several gashes along your left arm and your right thigh that needed to be cleaned and sutured closed.” He rattles off my injuries like he’s reading them from a grocery list.

I look down at my body for the first time and notice that both my legs are bare and the muscles are noticeably atrophied. There are freshly healed scars along my thigh and arms. I reach up and touch the back of my head to feel a small knot where a suture had once been. “Anything else?” I ask as I lift up the blanket and take in the healed burnt flesh along my right side.

“They had to keep you in a medically induced coma to control your pain and prevent you from doing any further damage. Apparently, you woke up a few times in a rage, screaming about a plane and a woman named Emelia.” He finally looks up at me and clicks his pen repeatedly in his pocket. “Do you remember your name?”

I hesitate for a moment. My name is Silas Kennedy and I thought I died in a plane crash trying to save the one woman I thought I couldn’t live without. “No, sir,” I say with a slight shake of my head. “Everything is still foggy.”

He nods again and closes out the chart on the computer. “It may take some time to fully regain your memories. Best we can figure is that you were in the plane that went down a few miles outside of town. You were the only survivor.”

My heart stops beating in my chest and I struggle to inhale. The only survivor? Was Emelia on that plane? Did I fail? “When can I leave?” I ask and clear my throat of the remaining irritation.

“Well, since you don’t know who you are and there is no one here to claim you, I can’t let you go until you’re medically cleared.”

I sit up in the bed and wince at the tinge of pain in my side. “I want to leave. Now. Bring me whatever forms you have. I’ll sign them.”

He blinks at me in shock and just shakes his head. “I’m afraid I can’t recommend that.”

“Well then it’s a good thing I’m not asking for a recommendation.” I channel my inner Declan and narrow my eyes at him. “Bring me the forms. I’m done here.”

The doctor nods his head and stumbles over his own feet as he leaves the room muttering, “Right away, sir.”

I lean back onto the mostly flattened pillow and stare up at the ceiling, trying to piece together the broken memories of my existence from the last three months. I remember getting on the plane with a stunt that would make the Fast and Furious proud. Then I remember killing the pilot and that fucking Italian asshole. The empty car. The plane ripping in two. My parachute deploying, but then being cut by metal as another explosion sent the plane spiraling into pieces.

Then I remember waking up in agony. It felt like my skin was being boiled off and my head was being split open by a dull ax. Doctors running around me in a panic, yelling orders to secure an OR for immediate use. My leg also felt like it was being hacked off by a dull blade.

And then I felt nothing but a quiet stillness.

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