Page 95 of Red Flagged
I hesitated, then twisted open the zolpidem. One pill. Then one diazepam. I left the Vicodin where it was. I’d taken enough of that for the time being.
I knew what each one could buy me, what little mercy they offered. Zolpidem would give me maybe five hours of sleep before the world came rushing back, if I was lucky. Diazepam would stretch that calm just a little longer, slowing everything enough that the pain didn’t feel like it was chewing through me. I’d learned their timelines by heart after the last loss. How long until the fog came. How long until it thinned again.
It wasn’t oblivion. It was a pause, a goddamnreprievefrom the screaming inside my own head.
I dry-swallowed both, chased them with a sip of lukewarm water from a half-empty bottle beside the bed, and set the glass down with shaking fingers.
While I waited for the delivery notification to buzz my phone, I went to the bathroom. I stripped out of my leggings and underwear, and reached down to tug the tampon free. It was already half-full despite changing it less than an hour ago. The sight made my stomach turn. I dropped it into the bin, cranked open the bathroom window, and stepped into the shower, turning the water as hot as I could stand.
Steam filled the air of the large square space, curling around the tiles and fogging the glass doors. I stood there until my skin flushed pink and my feet were pruning. The heat should’ve helped, but it only made me more aware of each cramp.
When I shut off the water, the silence was deafening. For a second—a stupid, foolish,hopefulsecond—I thought it was over. Until I looked down and saw bright red blood, thinned by the water, running in ribbons down my thighs and pooling at my feet.
“Fuck,” I whispered, but my voice came out small. I reached for a towel, hands shaking, and smeared red across the beigecotton. It soaked through almost instantly. I pressed it between my legs, watching it bloom darker, and felt the urge to cry rise in my throat again.
The doorbell rang.
I froze, then looked toward the bedroom. The sound echoed from the hallway, almost as if it came from another world. I hurriedly wrapped the bloody towel around myself and made my way through the house barefoot, dripping blood and water with every step.
A delivery bag waited on the porch when I opened the door. The driver was already gone. I bent to pick it up, felt the towel slip, and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass bordering the door as I closed it. Sopping hair, blood on my legs, a haunted stranger staring back.
I locked up again and dropped the bags on the counter. I tore through the delivery bags one by one, lining the contents along the counter. I didn’t care that I was leaving bloody handprints on everything. I just needed control oversomething.
This process was messy. The bathroom was messy. Everything was messy.
But it was fine. I’d clean it up later. After I rested, after the pain stopped clawing at me from the inside.
I grabbed the water, the diapers, the wipes, my diffuser that Emilie had prepared for me, and the bar of dark chocolate I’d tossed in at the last second, then steadied myself against the counter as the meds began to crawl warm and heavy through my bloodstream. The world mercifully softened at the edges.
I shuffled back to my room, leaving sticky, faint red prints on the doorframe as I went. Everything was duller, number now. That floaty feeling made it easier to go back to the bathroom, where I stripped the towel away and pulled on one of the overnight diapers. The sound of it crinkling felt obscene in the silence.
There was nothing more degrading than standing there half-naked, half-alive, wrapped in medical-grade cotton. Humiliation and grief twisted together until I couldn’t tell them apart.
I washed the blood off my thighs, wiped my face, brushed my teeth and hair because that’s what functioning people did. Going through the motions felt easier than breaking down again.
When I was done, I reached for one of Callum’s shirts folded on the box that had the matching dresser to my new bed—gray, soft, smelling faintly of laundry soap and him. I pulled it over my head, the fabric hanging loose past my hips, and let the sleeves swallow my hands.
The meds were working now. My limbs felt heavy, my mind slower. Each task felt like its own sentence with strict punctuation. Refill water bottle. Turn off bathroom lights. Plug my phone in. Put the chocolate bar on the nightstand. Set up the diffuser.Check, check, check, check, and check.
I turned off the lamp and crawled into the bed, sinking into the cool sheets. The ceiling glowed faintly with moonlight, thin silver lines stretching across the plaster like veins.
My body still ached. My chest still hurt. But at least the edges were starting to blur.
I rolled onto my side, pulling the blanket up to my waist, one hand curled against my chest. For a moment, my mind slipped somewhere softer—half-lucid, half-dozing. I missed him. God, I missed him. I wished he were here, that he knew. That he could hold me through this the way only he could.
But I also knew he needed the distance right now, to think, breathe, and figure out what came next. We both did.
I didn’t cry again, not when my body was already bleeding enough for both of us.
The thought barely had time to finish forming before it unraveled into static. My eyelids were too heavy to lift again. The medication was a tide pulling me under, slow and absolute.Between the pills, the blood loss, the pain, the travel, and the heartbreak, it wasn’t sleep so much as surrender.
And as the dark closed in, the last thing I registered was the hollow sound of my own heartbeat. Steady, fragile, and still here.
I steppedinto the private lounge where the meeting with Beckett Lachlan and Maverick Mercer was being held. It was quiet and discreet, tucked behind a luxury hotel on the outskirts of Monte Carlo. High wood-paneled walls. Thick carpet. No cameras, minimal risk of leaks. It was exactly the kind of place men like Beckett Lachlan and Maverick Mercer made business decisions that changed the landscape of a sport.
Once, I might’ve felt out of my league in a room like this. A kid from a small cottage outside Edinburgh with grease under his fingernails, trying to play nice with billionaires. But I wasn’t that kid anymore. Not really. I had money now, influence and leverage.
Even if I didn’t know every nuance of mergers and rebrands, I understood legacy, risk, and control. And I knew when something was worth betting on. I’d let my asset managers handle most of my investments up until now, allowing them togive me just the thirty-thousand-foot view. This, though—this was different. This wasn’t passive income. This was skin in the game. A new kind of circuit. One I intended to learn inside and out.
