Page 75 of Cruel Savior

He nodded.“I’ll ping your phone with the all clear and then you get the hell out as fast as you can.”

I nodded because no more words were needed. As he disappeared through the doorway, I realized that my life didn’t matter. It was her. It was always going to be her.

No matter what she’d done in the past.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Amanda

Sometimes waking up sucked.

When it was inside of a hospital even worse. I tried to lift my arm, to wipe the sleep grit from my eyes and found bandages and tubes in my way.

“Hey, you’re back. It's about time.”

I turned my head to see Axel leaning over my opposite side and nearly whimpered in relief. He was alive. The last thing I remembered was him falling on top of a dead man, trying to rescue my—

Panic seized me.“Where’s Nat? Is she okay?” My throat was dry and the words came out rougher than I’d meant them to.

“She’s fine. Traumatized but healthy. I didn’t recognize her at first. Not until she told me who she was.”

“He used her to control me. Just like Frank, he knew my weaknesses more than I did.” I could feel the burn of tears at the back of my eyes as an onslaught of memories shoved their way to the forefront of my mind.

“What does that mean?” he asked, confusion bringing his eyebrows together.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s ancient history.”

“Bullshit. You’re in the hospital, where you almost died. That’s about as current as it gets.”

I looked up at him. “It would have been okay if I did. All that mattered was getting rid of Frank’s son and saving Natalie.”

“That’s not an answer.Natalie told us Anthony AKA Frank Jr. used her to get to you. But what does that have to do with Frank Sr.? Is that why you helped him? And how did he even know about her? Tel says your family records were scrubbed clean. The internet says you have no siblings at all.”

“I did that after Frank’s death. I never wanted anyone to find Nat again. But of course, Anthony already knew about her. He was there to witness—everything.”

I could see all the confusion on his face. He wasn’t going to let this go, but I didn’t want to think about it anymore, let alone talk about it. It was over. The damage was done. “Can I see her?”

He frowned. “She’s already gone. They kept her here for psychological evaluation for forty-eight hours and then her mom checked her out. I don’t know where they went from there.”

I held back another sob at the loss. Even five minutes with her alone would have been nice. I could have said goodbye.“How long have I been out?”

“Almost three full days.”

“And Frank Jr.?”

“He’s definitely dead. I shot him.”

Oh yeah. I rubbed my head as the memories continued to file in.

“You almost got us all killed.”

“We were all doomed the moment we entered that little house of horrors. I took the only shot we had to get out.”

I guess I couldn’t disagree with that. Anthony had only been moments away from realizing that he’d been poisoned when he grabbed my knife. His body's reaction would have been violent, but he might have remained lucid enough to press that button or worse. But like Axel, I'd been out of options. It had been my only choice.

"What now?" I don't know why I bothered asking. No matter what he said, I wasn't going to like the answer. I'd burned my bridges with Axel and the club. No one would ever trust me again.

"I've still got a lot of questions," he said slowly, taking a seat back in the chair next to my bed like he was settling in. “We need to talk about you going rogue in the middle of an operation and almost getting yourself killed, and why you didn’t tell me about what really happened with you and Frank Sr.”

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