Page 48 of Spiteful Heart

And me? Everything in me, every inch of my body was a scar.

“You don’t have a choice,” Aiden spoke, reaching inside himself—like, literally up inside the gaping maw of gore on his chest and stomach. The sounds of slick, slimy movement entered my ears, but I was rooted in place, waiting to see what he was searching for inside of himself.

He must’ve found it shortly after, because with a harsh yank of his arm, he pulled something out of himself. He held it between us. All red and oozing—still beating, too. His heart sat in his hand, working even though it wasn’t attached to anything.

I said not a single word as I lifted a hand, turning my palm up, fingers flattening. Aiden set his heart on my palm, stepping backward to the couch, where the others still were, watching me with heavy, knowing expressions.

The mere fact that a human heart sat in my hand should be enough. I should have an icky feeling. I should want to drop it… but I didn’t. No, the only thing I could do was stare at the heart and wonder why it still beat.

A sharp, sudden pain erupted in my gut, making me jerk back so abruptly I lost grip of the heart. It slipped off my hand, tumbling to the floor, bouncing once and splattering everything nearby with bright red. I looked down, finding a blossoming wound in my stomach. Blood had started to seep through the white fabric of the dress.

The last thing I saw was the look on my brother’s face, and it said only one thing.

I told you so.

My eyelids opened, and thank fucking God, I was no longer stuck in that dream. Instead of being surrounded by people I’d killed while stuck in my parents’ house, I was somewhere else. A hospital room, I think? I heard beeps and clicks of machines, and the room around me had not an ounce of personality, other than the hideously floral-patterned chairs near my bed.

Everything felt hazy. My eyes didn’t want to stay open. I thought about calling for a nurse, but then I’d have to talk, and that just seemed like an impossible feat right now. So, I let my eyes do what they wanted. They shut again, and I dozed off.

This time, I didn’t have any weird dreams. I should be thankful for that, because seeing my parents and Aiden again was a hard no-thanks.

The next time I opened my eyes, I wasn’t alone in the room. The very second my eyelids lifted, I was greeted by someone squeezing my hand—Sylvester. He must’ve been holding my hand while I slept, the freak.

“Lola,” he whispered, sitting in one of those ugly chairs. He’d pulled it closer to the bed, his blue gaze intent on me. He looked like he always did: ridiculously handsome, even in the suit he wore. His blond hair did look a little greasy, but I didn’t mind. It meant he’d probably been here, for who knew how long, waiting for me to wake up.

“You know,” I said, my voice so dry it cracked, “I never understood the sayinga sight for sore eyes, but I get it now.” Yeah, my damn eyeballs were sore as fuck. I had no idea eyes could feel this way.

Sylvester sent me a grin, and then he got up and placed a soft kiss on my forehead, murmuring, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

I watched him sit back down, and then I surveyed the room, expecting the others to be here. But they weren’t. It was just Sylvester and me. “What happened?” I asked, my memories fuzzy. In fact, everything was a little fuzzy from where I lay. The room, Sylvester’s sexy face, my memories of the events that led to this hospital visit.

I tried to sit up, but a dull throb of pain erupted in my lower gut, so I stopped. That, and because Sylvester said, “Don’t move yet, Lola. You got out of surgery a while ago. They’re giving you pain meds, but you shouldn’t aggravate it.”

He was still holding onto a hand, but I used my other to touch my stomach over the blanket. I felt a little swollen. The same hand was attached to a needle and an IV drip. Surgery, he’d said. I’d been in surgery, but why?

As I struggled to remember, my head foggy, Sylvester went on, “It might take a while for things to come back to you. Don’t fight with yourself. It’ll come back naturally.”

It occurred to me that he hadn’t answered. “What happened, Sylvester?” Things might be foggy in my head, but I didn’t want to just sit there and twiddle my thumbs while I waited for everything to come back to me. I wanted to know now.

I’d been stabbed. That much I remembered, but I had no idea who did it.

Sylvester didn’t want to tell me; I could see the hesitation on his face. Still, he let go of my hand, getting up to shut the door to the room. He didn’t say a word until he was sitting back down next to me, once again reaching for my hand. “We were jumped by men working with our killer,” he said. “They knew to expect all of us. They destroyed my car, shot Maddox in the arm—”

I tried to sit up again, but my body wasn’t cooperating. Sylvester added, “He’s fine. The bullet grazed him. He got lucky. We all did, really. There were a lot of men, more than we could’ve anticipated. We thought… all this time, we thought our killer was working by himself, but he wasn’t.”

And then it hit me. All of my memories that the anesthesia had been repressing came flooding back in a surge that might’ve knocked me over if I wasn’t already laying down. Getting hit with a drug-filled dart, waking up to find myself in chains… getting stabbed in the gut by none other than Tony.

“I have everyone that’s available cleaning up the scenes,” Sylvester said. “If there’s anyone else out there who’d been working with him, we’ll find them, and we’ll put an end to them. That’s a promise.” He leaned down, bringing my hand to his lips and placing a soft kiss on my knuckles.

“Tony,” I whispered. The mere mention of his name on my tongue made me want to throw up. Or maybe that was just the anesthesia.

The look on Sylvester’s face darkened, and he squeezed my hand harder. “Yes. I swung by the house he was holding you at to see him for myself. I had Viper and Big Mike meet Roman and Carter there for cleanup, and when Viper told me… I didn’t want to believe him.” He shook his head once. “That motherfucker was alive all this time, watching us.”

“Me,” I corrected him. “He was watching me. He had it out for me, and he did what he could to make me hurt the most.” Killing girls, raping them, brutalizing their bodies before leaving them for me. Oh, yes, I might be a little out of it right now, but I was sane enough to know that much.

“None of this is your fault,” Sylvester told me. “None of it. You can’t blame yourself for the actions of a madman. Tony was out of his mind. The man should’ve been dead, and he knew it.”

For the first time in a long time, I agreed with him about that. This… all those dead girls, they weren’t my fault. I didn’t force Tony to kill them. Their lives rested on his shoulders, not mine.

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