Page 112 of The Bad Brother

“Jesus Christ,” Cade barks behind me, his tone held together by barely controlled panic. “He shot her, Jen—he fucking shot her.If you don’t fucking kill him, I will.” Cade again, quieter now. More controlled. “Come on, Doc. You gotta hang on, okay? Help is coming... just hang on.”

Ethan’s expression shifts, the first real hints of worry, rippling across his features. That worry is tinged with confusion because he never thought this would happen.He’s become so used to beating me that he thought there was no possible way he could lose.

“Whaddya gonna do, Jen?” He gives me a woozy head shake. “Shoot me back? We both know you don’t have it in you.” Lifting a hand, he gestures weakly at the still empty street. “Sheriff’ll be here any second. The best thing—the right thing—to do is just let him arrest me, don’t you think?”

The right thing?

Probably.

It’s what Tank would do.

What he’d expect me to do if he were here, but it’s not thebest thingbecause we both know it won’t stick. Murder doesn’t stick to money. For people like Ethan, there’s always a way out. And as long as there’s a way out, my brother will always be a threat. No one I love will ever be safe.

“You heard him,” I say, tightening my grip on the gun I have pointed at his chest. “If I don’t kill you, Cade will.”

“Did you forget about your security cameras, brother? I’m unarmed—” He holds out his hands, arms extended in a show for the surveillance cameras I had installed only days ago. “how’s that going to play out for you?”

“Don’t worry,” I tell him, with a tight head shake. “I turned them off.”

“What about your precious Tank?” he sneers at me because he knows it’s over. He knows what happens next and the best he can hope for is hurting me, one last time. “He’d be pretty disappointed in you, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” I answer him honestly. “Probably—but I think maybe he’d understand.”

“I hope she fucking dies.” Ethan gives me one last psychotic grin, right before I pull the trigger.

DR. RAGNAR PERFORMED MY SURGERY.Nearly eight hours that cost me three shattered ribs, a punctured lung, my kidney, my spleen, a part of my liver, and nearly a month in the hospital. Every time I asked when I could go home, Jensen and Ragnar would step into the hall, only for Ragnar to come back in a few minutes later to tell mewe’re going to give it a few more days.I don’t think it’s at all a coincidence that the announcement for a new pediatric trauma center was announced in the midst of my hospital imprisonment.

For his part, Jensen never left. He ate, showered and slept in the same space I did. Even when I told him to go home so he could sleep in a real bed, he just laughed at me and shook his head.

You’re here. That means I’m here. I’m not sleeping in that bed—not one goddamned night—without you in it, Peach.

It wasn’t until I finally threatened to call my mother that the both of them backed down and agreed to let me go home. Even then, I had to agree to a full-time nurse for the first two weeks, and that I wouldn’t even think about trying to come back to work for a full 90-days.

Your job will be here, waiting for you, when you get back, Dr. Merrick. The only thing you need to worry about is healing.

Turns out the new waitress Jensen hired isn’t just a waitress. She’s also a home health nurse. She got certified so she could take care of her grandfather. Jensen hired her, putting her waitressing gigs on hold, so she could sit with me at night while he worked downstairs—even though he ended up spending more time checking up on me than he did behind the bar.

It took River a while to come see me. Not until I was finally home. I woke up from a nap on the couch to find her sitting on the coffee table, watching me sleep, Gemma nowhere to be found.

“You said jump,” she told me, tone sharp, sky blue eyes flooding with tears. “You told me to jump.You were supposed to?—”

“I couldn’t,” I said, sitting up on a slow head shake. “I couldn’t jump. I had to stay in the car to make sure Ethan stayed too. I had to make sure that you and Jensen were safe.” When her brow crumples, I take a chance and reach out to her. “In that moment, keeping you two safe was all that mattered to me.”

“He shot you,” she said on a watery huff before taking my hand. “That asshole shot you.”

“He shot you too,” I reminded her. Just the thought of itmakes me dizzy. The bullet grazed her head. Another inch, just a second faster, and she’d be dead.

“It doesn’t even really hurt.” Reaching up with her free hand, River rubs the patch of blonde stubble surrounding the quartet of staples in her head. “Itches like crazy but it doesn’t hurt.”

“I’m sorry, River. I know...” My throat tightens and I shake my head. “I know what happened. To your parents. How they... Jensen told me. If I’d known, I?—”

“No.” River leans into me with a sad smile. “Don’t do that. Watching you recover has been better for me than the last ten years of therapy and a million NA meetings.” Squeezing my hand, she gives me a head shake. “But if you ever pull something like that again...”

“No more driving my car into giant oak trees,” I promise her quietly. “We’re safe.”

We’re safe.

Neither one of us say it but we both know what that meant. It meant Ethan is dead.

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