Page 3 of Unforgiving Queen
“If you’d read the status reports from Kian, you’d know Darius is overseas on assignment. Kian asked if you wanted someone else to fill in. You didn’t fucking answer the email.”
My head pounded, and so did my heart. There was an endless hole in my chest. It’d gotten bigger and darker over the last three months. But right now… it expanded to depths I didn’t think possible. I was terrified.
I had been so wrapped up in my head and with work, trying to ignore the outside world where Reina existed—without me—that I had completely missed Kian’s email. Now I had no one to blame but myself. This could have been prevented.
“You fucked up, brother,” Dante said in a dry voice.
“Tell. Me. What. Happened.” The edge in my voice was unmistakable. I was teetering on the edge of losing my shit. “Or I swear to God—”
“Two cars ran straight into her,” Dante answered, his eyes locked on Reina’s pale face. “I can’t figure out where she’s bleeding the most. We need to apply pressure, but I don’t want to shift her.”
My hands roamed over her. There were scrapes and cuts, but most of the blood seemed to pool around her waist. I grabbed her cold wrist and waited for a pulse with bated breath.
The whole world ceased to exist as one second passed. Two…
There it was—barely. A faint beat thumped beneath my touch, and I inhaled a lungful of air.
“What the fuck happened here?” Illias Konstantin appeared out of nowhere. His eyes flicked to Reina in my arms and recognition flared in them. Romero didn’t keep his daughters hidden from sight per se, but I didn’t like that Illias was here. That anyone from the underworld was seeing her in this vulnerable position.
I fucking hated it, actually.
“Her pulse is fading,” I said, desperation lacing my voice. “She’sfading.”
“My car is here,” he said, motioning behind him. “I’ll take her to the hospital.”
I stood up with her in my arms and followed him, Dante hurrying behind me.
“Shouldn’t you go back to your party?” Illias questioned as I held Reina’s body to my chest, her blood soaking my hands. He likely had no clue how his words would crush me, that it was my fault she’d been racing out of there. Why in the fuck did I kiss Sakura? It was so fucking wrong.
I should have let Reina approach me. Instead, I let my fear of her proximity and my inability to resist her get in the way. Fuck, I should have been stronger!
I slid into the back seat of his car. “Fuck the party. Just get me to the hospital.”
“I should take her,” my brother claimed.
“No.”
Dante refused to move, glaring at me. “You did this.”
He didn’t bother to hide his malicious stare as he spit his venomous words at me. The worst part? He was right.
Ignoring him, I looked at Illias. “Tell your driver I’ll pay all his traffic tickets. Just get us to the hospital.”
“I’m coming too,” Dante hissed, sliding in beside me.
My eyes remained on the girl who’d changed my life. The summer weeks we’d spent together were long over, and Reina had turned into a woman somewhere along the way. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, even though I could feel her slipping away. The weight of that reality felt like being trapped in a dark pit of my own doing.
But I refused to let her leave. She might not ever be mine, but I would see to it that she lived. And she would learn to be happy.
Even if it was without me.
2
AMON
Reina’s condition was critical.
A whole twenty-four hours had gone by and she had yet to wake up. Her sister and friends would come looking for her soon if they hadn’t already. The intel already had them blasting everyone’s phones and reporting her MIA. They alerted the police, even goddamn Interpol.
