Page 141 of Grumpy Billionaire Bad Boy

"Archer," I tell her.

She brings the device back to her mouth. "Patient is related to Archer Sin. Send in any and all available staff."

Part of me strongly dislikes the weight my name carries, because we gained it from doing terrible things, but in times like this I'm grateful for the destruction that led me to have this power.

London's body goes rigid, and she looks up at me.

"What is it?" I ask, terrified that something even worse has happened I haven't yet discovered.

"I don't have health insurance."

"Shh. You don't need to worry about that. Not anymore." When she doesn't seem to soften her resolve, I scan her face. "What's wrong?"

"I don't want a male doctor."

I nod and reach out to the lady from the desk leading us back. "No male staff. That's an order."

She doesn't question me, she simply gets on her radio and makes sure London's wishes are met.

From there, the next hour is a blur of doctors and nurses coming to and from the room as they check London over and patch her up. The final workup is that she'll be fine in a few weeks when she heals. Most of the damage is superficial with minor internal injury. It appeared a lot worse than it really was, and for that, I am grateful.

I sit next to her in a hospital chair, holding her hand between mine, never having left her through all of this.

"You don't have to stay," London tells me, the color returning to her cheeks after going through what must have been such a traumatic event.

"Do you want me to leave?" I ask her.

London shakes her head. "No."

"Then I'm not going to." I lean down and press my lips to her fingers. "Can we talk about what happened?"

She licks her dry lips and uses the controller next to her to raise the hospital bed. "Yeah."

"Who did this to you?"

London clears her throat. "You're never going to believe me."

I steady my breathing, trying my best to maintain my composure. If it were up to me, the person responsible for hurting her would already be dead, having suffered at my hands and shown no mercy. I want to rip the flesh from their bones, cut them a thousand times over until they beg for my mercy, and just when they think I'm finally going to grant them reprieve, make them suffer even more. At the very least, they deserve that.

"You can trust me, London. I'm sorry I made you feel like you couldn't. I know things are messed up between us, but I still care about you, I always will." I keep hold of her hand, silently begging her to understand how much she means to me even if I don't know how to articulate it myself.

"I don't even believe it," she says, something strange in the cadence of her voice.

"Walk me through what happened, then. We'll make sense of it together."

"I was at work. Andrea was in her office. I asked her if she needed anything else. She told me there was a customer that needed a consultation, and she wasn't going to make it in time, something about paperwork that came through from the health department earlier today. Anyway, she ordered me an Uber to the house. I was supposed to do the sales pitch and hopefullytake their order." London breaks, her eyes darting off in the distance like she's recalling what went down.

I wait patiently for her to continue.

"I knocked on the door, a woman called out that it was unlocked. I went in. I had a bad feeling. I was reaching for my phone, to text you to let you know where I was, and that's when the guy came out of nowhere and pressed a chloroform rag to my face. I fought him off and kicked him in the shin. He hit me, knocked me down."

Anger consumes me but I keep it at bay and listen to the rest of the story.

"That's when she told him to tie me up, and he did."

"Who told him? Who was it?"

London looks at me, tears welling in her eyes. "Madison."

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