Page 21 of House of Scarlett
With every slicing statement, she flays me. I know I deserve all of it, if not worse.
“I know! I fucked up. I already figured that out. I’m going to make it right.”
Flynn’s shoulders hunch forward. “If you even get that chance.”
Goddammit. All I wanted to do was protect her from the shit swirling around me, and I could lose her anyway.
“I was trying to do the right thing, okay?”
Her chin rises even higher. “And see where that got you? She could die, and all you’ve done is cheat you both out of what you wanted. Smart, Legend. Real smart.”
“Hey, watch your mouth, kid,” Q snaps from the doorway. “Tell us which fucking hospital so he can go. He doesn’t need you ripping him a new asshole right now. You should both be there.”
Thank fuck for Q, because I’m frozen in place, crumbling inside and trying to hold it together. When Bump told me about Jorie, it was too late. There was nothing I could do. Right now, I might not be able to do anything for Scarlett, but I can sit in that fucking waiting room and pray.
“Come on. I’m driving.” The girl turns, her ponytail swinging.
“No way in hell.” Q glares at me. “I’ll get a car. We’ll follow her. I’m not riding with that fucking woman anywhere.”
I only have one word for him. “Hurry.”
Twelve
Legend
The private waitingroom is silent except for the sounds of the people in it shifting in their seats or getting up to pee, get coffee, or pace.
Amy, Scarlett’s store manager, took one look at me with Flynn and sat back down without a word. She’s been on her phone ever since, answering messages and emails.
“Is her dad coming?” Amy asks Flynn after she looks up again.
Flynn tilts the Styrofoam cup of burned hospital coffee in her hand from side to side. “I couldn’t get in touch with him. His secretary said she’d make sure he got the message. He’d better fucking show up, that’s all I know.” Flynn mumbles something under her breath that sounds a lot likethat fucking asshole, and I can’t help but agree.
Amy takes that moment to excuse herself from the waiting room to take a call.
If my daughter were in emergency surgery, I’d be here as fast as I could. Except I don’t have a daughter. Flynn’s words from earlier come back to haunt me.
“Did you even wonder if she might’ve been pregnant?”
I didn’t wonder, probably because I’ve nevernotbeen careful. After Jorie, I couldn’t imagine having a family with anyone, couldn’t imagine wanting to bring a life into this crazy, fucked-up world. But with one single sentence, Flynn unleashed a part of me I’ve kept locked up for years. Until Scarlett showed up in my office, wrapped in a goddamn rug.
How the fuck is this even real?
I scrub my hands over my face, wondering what the hell happened to my well-ordered life. As the owner of an underground club, I was a king in a shadowy world where good girls like Scarlett didn’t exist. Maybe it was on purpose? Because I knew that none of the women who’d show up in a place where men beat the hell out of each other for entertainment—and police raids shut us down on occasion if I didn’t keep the right palms greased—were a threat to my existence.
Then when I tried to step out into the light of respectability and make the promises I vowed a reality, I got my ass handed to me. The shooting and subsequent failure of my club hammered home just how out of my league I was. The things that kept people coming back to my club—violence and bragging rights—didn’t exist anymore. I thought for sure we were headed into bankruptcy and I’d lose everything.
Until Scarlett.
I could have just taken the help and forgotten about her ... if I were a different man. But I’m not. And something about her called to me at a level I didn’t know existed. She tugged at parts of me that have been buried for years.
It scared the living hell out of me.
The thought of finding another woman who could be taken from me was more than I could handle.
Flynn’s chair squeaks against the industrial flooring, bringing me back to the here and now.
The reality is that Scarlett could be taken from me whether I’m noble or not. If I lose her today, it’ll hurt just as much, if not more, than if I’d spent these last couple of weeks surrounded by her light and laughter.
