Page 172 of Hate to Love You
“Sorry? Oh, you’re sorry. Oh, well, what a fucking relief!” I say sarcastically. “Well, I guess if you’re sorry, then I guess that makes everything all better then!”
“Really?”
“No, you moron!” I shout at him, spit flying from my mouth. “I gave you one job—one fucking job to do, Pasha! You were supposed to meet with the guy from Pace Transport, and make the transaction—now he’s sitting in a fucking ambulance with a bullet in his leg!”
“Actually, Sir, it’s not in my leg,” Wesley says, looking up from the stretcher. “It’s actually just my ass cheek that—”
“You shut the fuck up!” I hiss at him, shooting him a look.
“Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir,” he says nervously, immediately putting his head back down.
Pace’s munitions “expert” can’t be much older than my brother, and lays on his stomach on the stretcher as two of New York’s paramedics, that I have paid handsomely to not report this incident, work to remove the bullet fragments from his right ass cheek.
Glaring between Wesley and Pasha, I’m not sure who to be more pissed with, but I’m leaning toward Pasha, who looks exponentially guilty.
“You shot one of Jaxon Pace’s men,” I snarl at Pasha. “Do you even realize what that means? It means that if he wanted your head in retaliation, there would be little to nothing I could do to prevent him from killing you!”
“I promise I won’t say anything!” Wesley calls from the stretcher. “To be honest, I’d probably be in a lot of trouble anyway for—”
“I said shut the fuck up!” I snap at him.
“Sorry, Sir,” he says apologetically. “Again.”
I see the realization of what could have happened register in Pasha’s eyes, and he immediately hangs his head.
After staring at him for a few seconds, I finally sigh, and bend down so that only he can hear me.
“Do you have any idea what your death would do to me?” I ask, imploringly. “It would break me, Pasha.”
“I’m sorry, Roman,” he says quietly. “You’re right, I was an idiot. I didn’t mean to be so selfish. And stupid.”
The tone in his voice and inability to look at me tells me that my brother is finally understanding the gravity of his actions.
Placing my hand on his shoulder I open my mouth to say something, but I’m distracted when I hear someone else walking up behind us. Rising I whip my head around, only to be greeted by Noah, who is carrying more clothes he found scattered on the dunes.
“Boss…here is the rest of…” he says breathlessly wiping his sweaty brow.
However, that’s when I notice that he seems to be sweating far too much for these temperatures, and even in the bright sun his skin looks sallow and pale.
“Noah?” I ask, watching him clutch his chest. “Are you al—”
But I don’t get to finish this sentence before Noah just collapses face down in the sand in front of me, making me jump backwards.
“What the fuck?!”
Despite the paramedics’ efforts there was nothing they could do to save Noah’s life. He died right there in the sand.
But even before they loaded him up, and took him to the morgue for a formal autopsy, I already knew what the coroner was going to find as his cause of death.
It was going to be a heart attack.
How did I know this? Because after recalling the events of the morning, I realized that Noah had been the only member of my team to ask Abby for a coffee in our early morning briefing with Pasha before the Pace deal.
The only one besides me.
Yet I felt fine. In fact, I’ve never felt better.
And it only further supports the idea that Abigail Wayne does in fact have something to do with my men dropping like flies around me.