Page 4 of Final Vendetta

An oxygen mask covered her nose and mouth, blood streaked across her face and arms. Any control I’d managed to retain over the past few minutes crumbled, leaving only raw terror.

My feet moved of their own accord, driven by the desperate need to feel her skin against mine. To feel some sort of reassurance she wouldn’t die because of my actions. But as I approached, a member of the hospital staff stepped in front of me, her expression firm.

“Sir, please stay back.”

But I couldn’t stay back. Not when it came to Imogene.

“You don’t understand. I need to know if she’s going to be okay. She’s?—”

My voice cracked under the weight of helplessness consuming me. I hadn’t felt anything remotely close to this since I woke up in a cold cell and learned my fate.

“Please,” I begged, hoping this woman who’d probably witnessed death on a daily basis would show me compassion.

“We’ll do everything we can for her,” she assured me, but her words felt empty. She probably said the same thing to everyone in my shoes. “But to do that, I need you to stay back.”

I wanted to shake her, force her to tell me what I needed to hear. But I stayed rooted in place, watching them wheel Imogene inside, my only tether to this world slipping farther away with each step.

I thought I’d faced hell in all its forms. Survived horrors beyond imagination and lost parts of myself I knew I would never get back.

That was nothing compared to this.

A hand landed on my shoulder, and I whirled around, staring into Henry’s green eyes.

“Let them work, Gideon. She’s in the best hands now.”

His words were supposed to reassure me, but they didn’t. They couldn’t. Because none of this should have happened. The one person I’d tried to keep safe, the one person I’d wanted to protect from everything I’d become, was now lying on an operating table, her life hanging by a thread.

All because of me.

Confucius warned when starting out on a journey of revenge to dig two graves.

I didn’t anticipate that one of those graves would belong to Imogene.

Chapter Two

Gideon

The clock on the wall ticked, each second dragging me closer to the edge of sanity as I paced the length of the waiting room, counting every tile, every chair. Anything to keep me from giving in to the helplessness taking root in my chest.

Minutes felt like hours. Every second that passed without an update only twisted the knife deeper. Henry watched me with cautious scrutiny, but he knew better than to say anything. This was one fight he couldn’t help me win.

As I paced, I tried to shake the image of Imogene’s crumpled car or the blood staining her blonde hair, the bruises already darkening her skin. My mind reeled back to the sight of her on that stretcher — how still she had been.

Toostill.

She’d walked away from me once, furious at the man I’d become, and I couldn’t bear the thought that she might leave for good this time.

There was nothing I could do to bring her back.

The worst part about all of this had been calling Imogene’s mom to tell her what had happened. To hear the worry and panic in her voice.

And it was all my fault.

The sharp crackle of the TV sliced through the quiet room, and I darted my gaze toward it as the eleven o’clock news began its broadcast. The top news story was about the police pursuit from earlier. The newscaster droned on, his voice hollow, detached.

“Earlier tonight, Senator James Turner led police in a high-speed chase through Santa Monica following the release of a recording implicating him in the coverup of a murder five years ago. He’s currently in critical condition after crashing his vehicle. For more details, let’s go to Lexi Rhymes at the scene of the crash.”

My blood boiled as I listened to this reporter talk about James Turner and what his current condition might mean for his senate seat without a single mention of the woman he hit.

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