Page 7 of Three to Fall

I didn’t know why I felt the way I did. If I could have palmed it off as a crush, I would have. Except everything about her kept drawing me back in. Every time I saw her caring for a patient. Every time she laughed at one of my stupid jokes. I had no business falling for a woman who already had two men. It should have been simple to walk away from her.

And yet I hadn’t. Because I couldn’t.

I couldn’t explain why I loved her. Just that I did. I wouldn’t have voiced it this soon if Trig hadn’t forced the issue, but now I needed her to know.

I wanted so badly to reach out and touch her. To rip her away from Trig. To apologize for the danger I’d put her in by selfishly inserting myself into her life. “I’m in love with you.”

Her tears spilled over, falling down her rounded cheeks.

Trig shook his head at me, like I was completely and utterly pathetic. “You’ll never learn, will you? She’s Annette all over again. Got you so damn pussy-whipped you don’t see anything else.”

“Grayson,” she whispered, the terror in her voice so tangible I could barely stand it.

“Ah, fuck,” Whip spoke up from half a step behind me. “What are you doing, Trig? Let the woman go. This is cruel.”

Trig eyed the gun in Whip’s hand, his grip on Kara tightening enough that she winced. “Or what? You and the rest of your murder squad are going to hurt me? Shoot me in the leg maybe? Cut me up with that knife of yours?”

X cracked his knuckles. “If that’s what Doc wants, we will.”

But I knew Trig better than they did. And guns and knives weren’t the way to get him to do what we wanted. “He can’t feel pain.”

Trig sighed dramatically, shaking his head. “There you go again, just telling all my secrets. Whatever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality? Or even just family loyalty?”

“Like, seriously?” Torch asked, the flick of his lighter the only sign he was agitated. “He can’t feel pain at all? I could set him on fire right now and—”

“Wouldn’t feel it.” Trig’s gaze dropped to Torch’s lighter. “Wouldn’t recommend trying it though.” He glanced down at Kara with anger in his gaze. “This one probably isn’t as lucky to be blessed with my condition, is she?”

He tightened the noose.

Kara gripped it fiercely. “No! Please! I have a daughter.”

Her voice, so laced with fear and panic, was a knife cutting right through me, slicing open every organ and leaving me to bleed. She still had room to breathe. But barely. One more tug and she’d be fighting for her life.

“You think I care about your daughter?” Trig seethed. “Another little bitch in the making, no doubt. One the world will be better off without. You’re all the same.”

I wouldn’t lose another person I loved at my brother’s hands. I refused to let it happen. But I also knew him. And that more than anything, his twisted mind loved a game of cat and mouse.

I undid my buckle on my belt. Withdrew it from the loops on the suit pants I’d worn to work that morning.

“Uh, odd time to be getting naked, Doc,” X whispered. “Guarantee mine is bigger anyway.”

Ignoring him, I put the belt around my neck. Slid the end through the buckle. And then turned to Whip. “Pull it.”

Whip blanched. “What?”

“You heard me. Pull the fucking belt.”

“Grayson, no!” Kara fought against Trig’s grip, trying to get to me with no success against the bruising grip he had on her arm.

Trigger’s eyes darkened, focused on mine. “Don’t be an idiot.”

X screwed up his face. “But, Doc, if Whip tightens that belt, you’ll…”

“Choke?” I asked him. “Suffocate painfully? Yeah, I will. But see, what Trigger here isn’t telling you is that while he doesn’t feel physical pain, he does feel emotional pain.”

Trigger’s mouth twisted into an irritated line. “You think pretty highly of yourself if you think you suffocating would cause me to feel anything remotely like pain.”

I nodded at Kara. “Let her go, and we won’t have to test the theory.”

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