Page 42 of Lust

“She’s in an induced coma.” I say to the room, and his eyes snap up and on to me.

He swallows sharply. “What happened?”

I tilted my head. “She was beaten up, to settle a debt to a thug.”

“Name.” Kace said standing up. The conviction in his one word, told me he was prepared to go to war over this—he was willing to risk his public image, his reputation—everything to make this right.

Fuck. One would think he loved Ivory.

If I gave him the name it meant it would be left in Kace’s hands to make right. I hesitate.

“Name.”he growls.

Fuck it I didn’t have a choice.

“Jeff. Don’t have a last name.”

He nods his head and goes to storm past me and I grip his arm. “I wanna see a hospital admission for him.”

Kace’s lips twitched up and he looks me dead in the eyes. “He won’t make it to the hospital.” And he ripped his arm from my grip and leaves.

Can’t help but think that I just fed the devils addiction. That devil being Kace and his addiction being my little sister.

26

Kace

Two days. I took me to track this Jeff down. I knew who he was but couldn’t fucking track him down. He went under ground as soon as he heard I was looking for him. He did a small job for the club but was more known as a loan shark.

I inhaled sharply on a cigarette. Day three and he was mine.

I soaked my right hand in a bowl of ice. The swelling causing the pain, it was still a much needed distraction, knowing Ivory was still in a coma. And it took me three fucking days to make it right. That I would struggle to live with. Three, fucking, days. After all I was taught a man handles his own, and for me to take three days to make wrong right—disgusted me.

I had just made it right. Now I was preparing myself to go back to the hospital. But I knew once I saw her, it would bring back memories I can’t handle or cope with. But I had to go up and see her, and I might be in liver failure by the time I make it, as I threw back another shot. Mentally preparing myself for what I was going to walk into.

* * *

Arriving at the hospital,I got Ivory’s hospital room from the nursing staff. Who for some reason looked scared stiff of me.

I headed for the room. Only to push the door open and freeze. Seeing the machines, I was pulled back in time.

“Kace, you have to tell her goodbye.”

“I don’t want to.” The tears hadn’t eased once for the last week, since mom was admitted.

“The machines are breathing for her Kace, do you understand that?” My dad fed up with me not going into the room, told me. And then he gripped my be the shoulders, and pushed me into the room that I was scared to enter. That I didn’t want to enter. My eyes widened as I see my mother, dying. The machines beeping. Her chest barely raising.

I panic and duck around my fathers legs and run. I won’t say goodbye. She isn’t leaving.

GABE

The whole family was taking it in turns to be with Ivory. It was the third day in. I hadn’t left the hospital, feeling partly to blame for the beating. Because she would have borrowed the money for the NASCAR. I knew that, yet I didn’t have the guts to say that to my family.

This whole mess, was on my hands.

I was leaning forward in the chair when the hospital room door opened. And I see Kace standing there. Blood drops cover his white shirt. His fists cut up and bleeding. But his eyes were locked on Ivory. He stands there for a moment, then just turns and walks out. Well more like runs away from the room.

I get up going after him.

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