Page 94 of Marked for Obsession

“Poppy?” He stared back at her with confusion and disbelief. “No!”

She continued staring at him, afraid that if she looked away, he’d disappear forever. But her vision became hazy as she lost control of her movements.

Feeling as though she were floating in a sea of flames, she felt herself falling over, her head bouncing off the soft, cushy flooring.

“Penelope!”

From somewhere far away, Poppy heard Jax screaming her name. She blinked slowly, her failing vision revealing his, Declan’s, and Grady’s worried faces hovering above her.

Bringing her teetering gaze back to Jax, she managed to whisper, “L-love…you.”

And as the darkness pulled her under, she could’ve sworn she heard him say…

I love you, too.

* * *

“She’s going to be okay.”

Jax kept his eyes locked on the set of secured double doors at the end of the hall as he and Declan waited for Poppy to come out of surgery. She’d been back there nearly three hours.

It had been the longest three hours of his entire life.

His shoulder throbbed, and he was pretty sure his left hand was starting to go numb, but he didn’t care. The only thing he cared about was Poppy.

Smiling, stubborn, beautiful Poppy.

After all this time, he’d finally let his guard down and opened his heart. And for what? Just so he could lose her, too?

Why not? You lost your dad. Your mom. Why the hell did you let yourself think this would end any differently?

“You ever wonder about it?” His voice was gravelly as he posed the question to his brother.

“Wonder about what?” Declan shifted his stance as the two men leaned their backs against the stark white wall.

“This.” Jax clenched his jaw tight and swallowed. “All of it. I think about everything we’ve been through in our lives.” He stared at those closed doors, willing them to open. “What the people we love have gone through. And I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t somehow…marked.”

“Marked?”

He nodded. “Like evil marked us at some point when we weren’t looking. It just keeps coming after us, and it’s never going to stop. Not until it destroys us all.”

His brother was quiet, at first. But then Declan ran a hand over his weary face and sighed out a breathy, “Yeah. I’m not gonna lie. I’ve wondered the same thing a time or two. But the thing is, even if we do have some sort of black cosmic cloud hanging over us all, it doesn’t matter.”

Jax finally pulled his focus away to spare a glance in his brother’s direction. “Doesn’t matter?” He scowled. “Of course, it fucking matters. Poppy’s in there right now, fighting for her life because I couldn’t protect her.”

“You’re wrong, brother.” Declan stared back at him with a set of eyes that matched his own. “Poppy’s in there right now because she saw a dirty cop and one of De Luca’s henchmen with a man they’d just murdered in cold blood. And rather than crawl into a hole and pretend it never happened, she did the right thing…the brave thing…and fought to see that justice was served.”

“Justice?” Jax pushed himself off the wall. “You call lying on a cold fucking slab with her stomach cut open justice? She could die, Declan!”

“I know.”

“She could die, and I never even got the chance to…” Jax’s voice thickened with emotion. “I never got to tell her…” Jesus, why couldn’t he finish a fucking sentence?

“You’ll tell her.” Declan sounded so sure. “When she’s out of surgery and awake, you’ll tell her.”

Tears pricked the corners of Jax’s eyes, but he blinked them away. Breaking eye contact, he focused on the shiny tiled floor near his feet as he admitted, “I love her, Dec,” he choked out.

God, he loved her so damn much.

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