Chapter 58: Chapter 58

JACE ‘JR’ ASHER/TRIGGER

“J-Jace, THE BABY”

“T-the baby”

Her blood oozed from that spot on her chest I was trying so hard to apply fucking pressure on.

Her eyes were dimming and there was nothing I could do as I held her, my hands trying their best to incorporate every single fucking thing I had learnt from B&A about handling a situation like this.

“Stay with me, princess. Okay? S-stay with me”

My voice croaked; my heart pumped so hard I could hear the blood thrum in my ears with an uproar.

She was making it. She was going to make it. The baby was going to make it.

She had to. They fucking had to.

My hands were bloody, covered with her life, covered with my mistakes, when she opened her lips to speak, I saw life ebb out of her the same way my mother and father’s screams had assaulted my ears as fire took them away from me.

“Luce? Lucia? Come on, baby. Don’t, don’t do this. Don’t—”

And when my eyes couldn’t see shit, every noise I had tuned out since Lucia’s body went limp in my arms came back biting every inch of my skin.

Gun shots flogged the air.

Horses brayed.

The smell of rain filled my nostrils as rage simmered hot.

The gun holstered in my back burnt hot, I stood up took it out and aimed it at the fuckers who were still getting shot at by my uncle, my father and the man who’d brought all this shit to my porch in the first place.

There were two snipers.

Kade shot one man in the head and his body lay limp right outside the doorway of the stalls.

He’d shot her.

That motherfucker lying in a pool of his own blood had shot the love of my life and I wanted to unalive him, sever his head from his body and inflict the pain I was feeling on every inch of his skin.

The other sniper, the one still shooting us with lost aim and newfound fear was an easy one to take out. I spotted his ass wrapped around the maple tree and took him out with one clean shot.

“Anyone hurt?” Jason asked, the fear in his voice eminent.

“Misha?”

Misha coughed behind me and with a small cough, her ‘okay’ came out terrified.

“Dad? Dad she’s…she’s losing a lot of blood”

Cassie cried behind me but the thought of turning around seeing my woman on the ground as she lay in her own blood hurt.

Turning back and confirming what I already knew hurt.

Standing in the night, my hand on my gun, my heart on the floor, my world crumbled; it felt like I was back to being the little kid hiding behind that rock with my hand tightly clutching the phone while my parents stayed behind me preparing themselves for their death.

Death.

This was it.

This was the same torrid feeling I had felt that day. The sense that someone, someone very important to me wasn’t going to make it.

“Lay her on the side, Cassandra. Apply pressure on that wound as much as you can sweetie”, Nancy Asher spoke.

“O—okay”, Cassandra’s small voice stuttered.

Gunner made some calls; Jason made some calls too but my eyes focused on the man beside me.

The man looking at my fucking woman like he’d caused this.

And fuck whatever relations we had; I knew deep down in my gut he did this.

He had a knack of leaving death everywhere he fucking went.

My parents. Our mother. He fucking killed them.

And now--?

“You—”

“You brought them here. you fucking brought assassins here!”

I shouted, rage tearing off my seams, my gun up to his face.

I lost her.

I lost Lucia.

I lost fucking everything and right now, there wasn’t more I could lose because I had nothing.

“I didn’t know. They followed us here…they were supposed to be dead. I eliminated the Zetas, I- “

The Zetas?

Motherfucking fuck, he was involved with the Zetas? That gang was a fucking parasite, there was no eliminating them because they were parasites. You killed ten, twenty more reappeared.

He should have known that. but he didn’t care, did he? He never cared because that’s how he was programmed.

It was him first above everyone else.

My finger lay on the trigger.

One damn shot and I would stop everything bad that had happened to me.

His eyes cut back to mine and the fucker lowered his weapon thinking I would do the same with mine.

Thinking I would spare him.

“That does not look eliminated to me, Connor Hawkins. That doesn’t look fucking eliminated to me because my woman is the one dead on that cold grass and not you. It should have been you; it should always have been you”

“Jr- “

Fuck him.

One hard press on that trigger and my bullet would be between his eyes and this was what my dreams encompassed of. Me killing him. Me avenging everything his dad did, everything he took away from me.

“You should have stayed dead”

“I should have”

“You should have rot in the same grave your dad is rotting in”

“Then end this. End this now. End me”

I would.

On Lucia’s—

“Jace? Jace, she’s breathing. We have to take her to the hospital now! If we don’t-“, Nancy Asher started.

“If we don’t, she dies. They both die. Wanna sit here and explore your fucking shit, fine but any minute more and Lucia Amato will be gone”, Gunner finished.

I’d already dropped the gun, running to Lucia and picking her up in her already drenched clothes.

Kade…Connor, whatever shit he went by with in nowadays drove us to the hospital and while tension flared high, my only concern was that my princess made it out alive.

Everything else didn’t matter.

Jason and Gunner together with their wives were driving behind us, keeping a close check on any attacks from the Zetas incase the fuckers had brought more than two men to the circus.

My entire body went lax the minute the doc took one good look at Lucia before the nurses whisked her away and just because I was going out of my goddamn mind, I told the doc she was pregnant and the look he gave me?

Damn, I knew it as well as he did what it meant.

She was pregnant. With a fucking wound on her chest.

One of them was making out tonight and the chances were, it was Lucia and not our baby.

And if everything went to shit, I would lose them both.

All in one fucking night, shit!

I crouched on the sofa in the waiting area, my face in my hands, the grotesque sight of her blood making me sick to my stomach.

Jason, Gunner, Misha, Nance and Sy arrived two minutes later.

Jason and Gunner were trying their best to act like shit hadn’t gone sideways while Misha and Nance were by my side. Both women feeding me lie after lie about how everything was going to be alright.

Cassandra showed a few minutes later.

The last time I had seen her was when I got off her boyfriend’s pickup and the nurses took Lucia.

Kade was nowhere in sight and that prompted the kill switch in me.

Standing up, ignoring Nance and Misha, my height towered over my sister and despite the tears visible on her cheeks there was no hiding the hate I felt at this fucking second.

“You shouldn’t be here”

My voice came out harsh, she flinched.

“JACE I never wanted this to happen, you know that. I would never- “

“That’s the fucking thing, I don’t know what you are capable of Cassandra. You looked me in the eye and lied about being in danger. You knew he was dangerous and you still brought him to our house. Whether you wanted this to happen or not, it doesn’t change the fact that Lucia’s in there fighting for her life, it doesn’t change the fact that she might lose our baby because of you.

And if she pulls through, you know what will be hard? Telling her our baby is no more. Looking her in the eye and saying ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you because my sister messed up big time and fucked us both up’. Do you know how that feels? To lose everything?

Do you know how I feel watching you standing here telling me everything is going to be alright when everything is your fault in the first place? Just leave, Cassandra. Just leave. Please”

And that was me begging because I couldn’t trust myself not to lash out when I saw her face. When I saw her boyfriend’s face.

Cassandra wiped her tears with a hard swallow and with a wobble she uttered,

“Okay”

I watched her run in the direction she had come from with shaky legs and although I felt like shit, I wasn’t sorry for every single word I had told her tonight.

She could run to her boyfriend’s arms for all I cared.

As long they didn’t show their faces here, everything was going to be okay. My princess was going to be okay.

CASSANDRA BATES

ONE MINUTE I was watching everything go to shit and the next Jace was carrying Lucia Amato’s lifeless body while Kade drove like a maniac high on Molly.

The dead body I had seen in the parking lot when I first met Kade couldn’t compare to seeing Lucia Amato barely breathing with Jace holding her like he was trying to tether her to the physical world, like he was trying to hold onto to her spirit before it slipped.

There weren’t any words spoken in the car but I could feel the melancholy jab me in the throat.

Jace looked lost. I had never seen that look on his face. That look of ‘he was dying a painful horrible death’.

When we got to the hospital, the nurses were by our side taking Lucia from Jace’s arms. I watched with my hands on my mouth as Jace went after them, trying to make sure Lucia was in safe hands.

My dad’s truck parked behind us a few seconds later, everyone storming in the hospital with worry etched on their faces.

I could only stand still next to Kade’s car and when everyone was gone, I whipped around to the man who’d barely said anything since the truth dropped like a bad omen.

His hand gripped the steering wheel hard, his eyes were glued past the windscreen but I could see it in his eyes.

The guilt, the self-loathing, it was all there and I wept for him.

He couldn’t have known the Zetas were still out there, he couldn’t have known they followed us, he couldn’t have known they would attack.

This was not his fault.

“Kade?” I whispered leaning on the passenger’s side window.

His jaw rippled; his eyes bloodshot.

And worse he didn’t look at me.

“Go with them, Cassandra”

The sound of my full name bouncing off his lips made me queasy. The way he said it, without love, without any emotion…it killed me.

“This is not your fault, Kade. None of this is your fault”

“It’s my fucking fault and we both know it”

He might have tried being calm but it was failing as his eyes looked at the nothingness past his windscreen and his hands strangled his steering wheel.

“Jace was mad and he has every reason to be but that doesn’t mean-“

“Go with them, Cassandra. They are your family, they need you”

“They are your family too”, I EXHALED, THE WORDS SLIPPING FROM MY MOUTH BEFORE I COULD STOP THEM.

They were his family.

“No they are not”

“You are my family, Kade”, I whispered scared of breaking into tears due to his indifference, due to the pain he was trying to mask.

“Not anymore”

What?

“You don’t mean that. I know you are upset; everyone is but that doesn’t mean- “

“We are over, Cassandra”

A frown marred my face as his words cut deep, I felt like I was drowning and the water was killing me second by second.

“You don’t mean that. No, you promised me you would never hurt me. You promised we would always- “

“Are you hearing yourself right now? You knew I was bad for you; you knew this would never be more than it is and you should have known better than to trust a man like me. Because men like me use things and discard them afterwards. That’s how I’m built Cassie. Whatever fairy tale you have going on in your mind, it’s just that. A fucking fairytale”

No.

He was lying.

He couldn’t even look at me while saying those words because he didn’t believe them.

He loved me. I knew he did because I did too.

“Use things? Was I a thing to you? All this time, every moment we’ve spent together? Was it all for your own amusement? Answer me, Kade because I refuse to believe the shit coming from your mouth right now. Answer me, damn it and look me in the eye like a fucking man and tell me you don’t love me”

Please no.

Please just say you are hurting and you need time but don’t push me away like this.

He turned to face me, the distance between the driver’s seat he was currently occupying and where I was standing, thinning by the second.

His deep brown eyes blended into mine and for a split second, I thought he’d apologize, take back his words but he didn’t.

“You played hard to get from day one. Who the fuck wouldn’t like that? You were a challenge, Cassandra and I made it my mission to have you open your damn legs for me. it took a while but you did. You gave me your pussy and the interest withered.

Every moment we spent together? Every damn moment I was with you, I fucked you. Fucked you till the hype died and I’d go back to my normal life while you pranced back to yours. There was no love Cassandra because men like me don’t love, they destroy, they wreck and they take anything they damn want”

If I thought my world collapsed, this one took the whole cake. His word impaled me, tears welled in my eyes and fell on my cheeks betrayingly.

My throat stung, my heart constricted and the only thing my weak self could do was take off my ring and throw it at him in a fit of fury.

“I guess we are done then! “I screamed bolting to my family because they were the only people right now who loved me more than I loved myself.

Or so I thought…

It hadn’t been five minutes when Jace lashed at me about everything being my fault and although I tried to understand where his pain was coming from, there was no denying somewhere behind his bitterness, the truth reared its head.

It was my fault. Everything was my fault.

For loving a man, I shouldn’t.

For the death of my niece or nephew.

God it all hurt and as soon as my feet stepped into the outside world, I was racing like a freak with tears blinding my way and my heart crashed into smithereens.

My lungs burnt, my throat hurt, my lips quivered, everywhere hurt as I struggled to breathe by a creepy alley away from the hospital. Away from them.

Two breaths in and nothing was going away.

My heart drummed so hard, I could feel it threaten to tear away my chest and when I thought everything would be okay, that I would pull through this like I pulled through every shit that hit me, my legs buckled, my vision blurred, next thing I knew, I was falling and I welcomed the darkness with solace because it was the only thing giving me hope.

I BLACKED OUT.