Page 93 of The Pretty Psycho

I didn't have a chance to ask her about the soldiers from her ranks that had betrayed us all, but Adrian mentioned that she disposed of an entire unit after she found out they were conspiring against her. What disposing meant, I didn't ask, but whatever it was I knew she would have dealt with it in the best possible way.

"Anything?" she asked as she walked inside the room, her eyes plastered to the man in the bed.

"No." I shook my head. "The doctor just left and his vitals are stable. His wounds are healing, so?—"

"So, he's just being stubborn," she huffed, sitting down right next to me.

The nurses tried kicking us out several times that first day, but after they realized we wouldn't be going anywhere, they decided to move Jax to a room that at least had a couch and enough space for all of us at the same time. That whole rule from the doctor where only two of us were supposed to be in the room at the same time pretty much fell into the water the moment we saw Jax and the state he was in.

There was gauze covering the left side of his face, where that goddamn cut was, and his upper body was littered withbandages right where the gunshot wounds were. But he was alive, and that's all that mattered.

I opened my mouth to reply, when the voice we hadn’t heard in days spoke, shocking us all to our core.

"I'm not stubborn," Jax rasped as all of our heads swiveled toward him. "I just didn't want to see your faces."

The three of us jumped up, swarming him like bees and surrounding his bed.

"Jax!" I screamed, holding on to the bed as if my life depended on it. "You're awake."

"And you're very loud," he croaked. "I need water."

Gabriela moved away from us and pulled a bottle of water open, putting it inside the cup sitting on the nightstand next to his bed.

"Just slowly," she murmured, bringing it to him. "Baby sips."

"Yes, Mom." He chuckled, bringing the straw Gabriela had added into the cup to his lips.

"I'm glad to see you awake, brother," Adrian rasped, and when I looked at him I could see a thousand emotions playing on his face. "I think we need to call the doctor to check you out."

"I'll call them," Gabriela said. "Stay with him."

She rushed out of the room, leaving us with Jax who was still holding on to the cup of water she gave him. His left shoulder and left arm were in a cast, making it difficult for him to move. The moment Gabriela went out, he looked at us, that smile slipping from his face faster than it appeared.

"Do you already know what happened?" he asked, looking straight at me.

"We do," I bit out. "I'm sorry, Jax. I didn't know. I?—"

"I know you didn't," he said. "None of us did. She played us pretty well, don't you think?"

I could only nod, unable to say another word. To know that the person responsible for him being here was the person Ibrought into our circle did not sit well with me, but if he blamed me for it, he didn't show it.

"How are things at the Academy?"

"Good," Adrian answered. "Ethan and Dante are there. They should be arriving in about an hour to the hospital and then I’m going there. The rest of the teams have arrived as well, so we're all ready to go once the moment strikes."

"And Yolanda?" he bit out.

"She's missing," I answered this time. "W-What—" I cleared out my throat. "What are we going to do about her?"

He smiled, the sinister look on the part of his face we could see chilling me to the bone.

"Oh, I have a plan for our little Yolanda. She's going to wish she was never born." His fingers tightened around the plastic cup he held, but the promise in his eyes made me realize that what Yolanda did to me with this betrayal was nothing compared to what she did to Jax, and I wasn't talking about the physical aspect.

That look… That look could only come from a love that turned into hatred.

That look could only come from a man who wanted to destroy the woman who tried to destroy him.

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