myself to give my aching jaw a break and keeping quiet rather than inform the entire hospital I was awake and not happy about it, the nurse returned. She regarded me through narrowed eyes, nodded, and grabbed the clipboard hanging from the door, jotting a note down on it before heading to the IV drip. She pressed a button. “Good evening. Can you tell me your name?”
Whatever button she hit dialed my discomfort down to tolerable, and I changed my opinion about her and the IV line. After a few more moments, I realized most of the pain came from my left side, which explained why I’d been restrained. It hadn’t been to keep me from pulling out the IV line and its catheter, but to keep me from inflicting additional injury to myself. “Jade Tamrin. I think somebody shot me.” I wondered why I’d told her that. The woman probably didn’t give a shit. People like me didn’t go to the hospital; we couldn’t afford it.
I had no idea who the hell was going to be paying the bill, but it wasn’t me. Unless I turned myself in for the bounty and used it to pay off my debt, after which I might be able to afford the bill.
“Yes, Miss Tamrin. That’s correct. You were shot. You were found in the outskirts and brought here by a resident of Asylum.”
Crap. Sandro. My only other contact in Asylum tended to stay there, and Noah tended to steer clear of trouble despite—or because of—his black market operations. Getting kicked out of the place would ruin his plans, of which he had many. That didn’t change what my magic had told me; someone had ventured into Asylum to get the weapon, and I considered myself lucky to still be alive. I would have to think long and hard about why someone would try to kill me.
Beyond Carlos. Carlos had good reason to kill me after I’d smacked him in the face with a stick. He didn’t handle his pride being damaged all that well.
I frowned and furrowed my brow to trick the nurse into believing I took my time coming to terms with my situation. “Was it Sandro? Sandro Moretti?”
The nurse blinked. “Yes, as a matter of fact, it was. We were curious over why he would have brought you here.”
Well, well, well. Two could play the same game, and he’d gotten me to sign the paperwork, so I’d see if that paper held any weight at all. “I signed a contract with him to tentatively become his uncontested courtesan several days before I was shot. I wanted to think about it, but he wanted to be able to stake his claim before someone else. I told him I’d consider it, but I needed time. He wanted paperwork, so I signed paperwork giving me time to think about it. That was our compromise.”
The nurse’s eyes widened. “You’re his uncontested courtesan?”
“If you have my pack, there should be a copy of the paperwork in it, although it might be ruined.”
“Mr. Moretti claimed your property for cleaning and safe keeping.”
Sandro needed to stop being a decent person. His gentlemanly behavior charmed my fox and made her want to roll over and show him her belly. The shameless hussy longed for someone to scratch her belly to see if it was nearly as wonderful as domesticated dogs believed it to be. “Oh. He has my copy of the papers, then. I’d been on my way to see him.”
It wasn’t quite a lie; I would’ve ended up on his doorstep after exhausting all of my other options. It would have taken me a day or two of dodging other bounty hunters before I’d gotten to that point, but I would have gone to see him at some point.
My stubborn pride would be the death of me. In the recovery department, it might become my salvation.
“I will verify the situation,” the nurse announced before heading for the door. “Someone will be around to attend to you shortly.”
As the magic button she’d hit had done a good job of numbing the pain, I didn’t care if shortly was ten minutes or several hours. A nap would help more than anything else, and I wasted no time making myself as comfortable as possible before closing my eyes and doing my best to sleep off having been shot.
I couldn’t tell if I succeeded at napping or not; voices outside the door annoyed me into cracking open an eye, and the