her head and said, “Police are on their way, and that sounds like them coming up the damn stairs.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when the cops poured into the apartment.
Jane would be fine.
That’s what the ER doctor told me and Asher. It turned out Asher was her emergency contact, so they called him when she got rushed to the hospital.
I had never been so relieved to see someone wake up as I was when Jane’s eyes fluttered open as the paramedics hurried into her apartment.
After detailing Jane’s injuries, the doc told me and Asher we could see her. They were keeping her overnight for observation due to a concussion.
“Concussion,” I muttered as Asher and I approached her hospital room.
“What?” Asher halted. He looked shaken. Pale.
The guy might have real feelings for Jane after all.
“Concussion,” I repeated. “From trauma to her temple. Fractured ribs where the bastard kicked her. Multiple lacerations and swelling to her face from where he repeatedly hit her.”
“Jamie—”
“I swung her ass out there.” It felt like there were pieces of glass stuck in my throat. My words were rasping. “This is my fault.”
“While I’m not happy that you involved her in this, this is no one’s fault but my father’s and Kramer’s.” Something beeped and Asher frowned. He pulled out a cell from his pocket and his expression grew taut. “I need to take this. I’ll just be a few minutes.”
He left me there, hesitating on the fringes of Jane’s room.
I kept screwing up with her name, telling everybody it was Jane when they asked, forgetting her legal name was Margot.
Not that it mattered.
I should clean up her apartment so it didn’t look like shit when she got home in the morning.
Wait, no, Ivy said she’d take care of it.
The police hadn’t been too happy about the gun, but Ivy showed them her permit and they backed off. They would arrest Kramer once he was released from the hospital. The shit stain survived, despite Jane’s best efforts. The cops said they’d question Jane after, but they’d need her statement soon.
What the hell would she say?
What explanation could we give?
Well, you see, the piece of scum with the keys in his neck, he helped frame me for a crime I didn’t commit and then years later, I came back for revenge; he found out and took it out on my girlfriend.
Yeah, that didn’t sound far-fetched at all.
Taking a shuddering breath, I pushed open the door and stepped carefully inside. It was a small, private room. I paid for it so she didn’t have to share a room with a bunch of strangers. Jane would hate that.
I faltered at the sight of her lying on the bed, her eyes closed. One eye was swollen to twice its normal size, dark red and purple and angry as fuck.
There was a cleaned-up cut on her lower lip.
A massive bruise on her cheekbone, stitches where he’d split her skin open.
Imagining what she’d gone through in that apartment made my legs shake. I walked to the end of the bed and grasped the footboard. Bowing my head, I tried to pull myself together. She was alive. That was what mattered.
Was it?
Because the woman I loved was lying in a hospital bed, beaten to a pulp, because of me.
“Jamie?”
I lifted my head at the croaky voice.
Jane could only open one eye. I straightened and covered my mouth with my hand as I stared up at the ceiling, trying to get my shit together.
“Jamie, come here.”
I didn’t deserve to be anywhere near her, but still I went. I took hold of the hand she held out to me, pulled the chair by the bed closer, and kissed the back of her hand as I lowered down into the seat. Her fingers tickled at my cheeks, scratching against my stubble.
I couldn’t speak.
There was too much to say.
“I’m going to be okay.” Her voice was husky, like she’d been shouting for a long time.
“Nearly had heart failure when I heard her scream again.”
Jesus fuck. I closed my eyes.
“Jamie, I’ll be fine.”
I forced myself to look at her.
“The bruising and swelling will go down. By some miracle, he didn’t break my nose. Yay for that.” She tried to smile and then winced when it pulled at the cut.
“He will pay for this, Jane.”
“I don’t want that.” She squeezed my hand.
“Well,” Asher’s voice sounded loud in the room, “it’s going to happen.”
I glanced over at him as he came to a stop by the bed. His