Page 33 of Fallen Empire (The Fallen Trilogy #2)

Jaxson moved to his usual side of the bed while Nurse Ruth and Millie stepped closer. He was at my back again, gently guiding me toward the center.

“I’m going to pull you up. It may hurt a little,” he said.

I nodded, my vision flickering in and out, everything blurring around the edges from the agony.

After a few careful pulls and slow, bracing twists, I was finally back on the mattress. Propped against the angled bed, I let my head fall back onto the pillow Jaxson had just adjusted, too weak to lift it again.

“You did amazing, sweetheart. Now, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?”

I looked at her, tears stinging the backs of my eyes, and simply nodded.

She didn’t need the words.

Her cold fingers tapped gently against the top of my hand, soft and steady in that strangely comforting way she had.

“Very well,” she murmured. “I’ll get you some pain medicine. We’ll try a little more walking later.”

“She’s actually the devil,” Millie snapped the moment the door clicked shut behind Nurse Ruth.

“The devil in a damn stellar disguise,” Jaxson agreed.

I didn’t have the strength to laugh. I just focused on breathing—slow and steady. In, and out. In, and out.

My eyes were growing heavier by the second, but there were questions I still wanted to ask. Things I needed to know before she returned, and I let the pain medicine pulled me under.

I glanced toward the cup on the rolling tray. Millie caught it instantly, already on the move.

“Here, let me get you some water.”

Jaxson was still standing beside me. Watching. Waiting. I blinked back the burn in my eyes before finally looking up at him.

“Savannah,” he said softly, “you are one amazingly brave woman. I’m proud of you. And I love you.” He didn’t care that anyone was in the room.

And in that moment, I saw it.

Every word he couldn’t quite say, written plain in his eyes.

Pride. Love. Fear. And something else, too. Something darker. Something hotter.

Desire.

“Here, loverboy,” Millie joked as she handed him the cup.

Jaxson brought it in front of my face, tilting the straw gently toward me.

He didn’t need me to say the words back. I’d already said them—with my dying breath.

And suddenly, the vision came back, clear as day. Jaxson on his knees beside me, begging me to stay. Blood on his hands. Fear in his eyes.

The scene rewound in my mind, jagged and in slow motion. I watched him move in reverse, stepping away from me. Running backwards until he was standing in front of Bruce.

Right before he fired the shot that ended my husband’s life.

I took the straw as he pressed it to my lips and let the liquid soothe my nerves. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to fit together.

I emptied the cup, and Jaxson turned to refill it without a word.

Nurse Ruth stepped back inside, a small syringe already prepped in her hand. She moved to my side, gently lifting my wrist and turning it just enough to scan the armband.

No words. No questions. She already knew.

She gave a small nod to herself, swabbed the injection port on my IV line, and connected the syringe.

“This will help,” she murmured. “You’ll feel it kick in pretty quickly.”

The medication pushed in slow and steady, warming my arm as it moved through my veins.

She checked a couple more monitors, then grabbed her chart. “Get some rest. You’re going to need it this afternoon.”

And just like that, she turned and walked away.

I didn’t want to think about her words. I’d ignore them for as long as I could.

But it was my turn to set the room on fire.

“Tell me about Alex,” I said, looking to Jaxson.

His entire face shifted, like a kid caught in something he couldn’t explain.

“I’m not mad at you for not telling me,” I added quickly. “I probably wouldn’t have remembered.”

I definitely would have. I just wasn’t going to tell him that.

If he was going to get better at not keeping secrets, I needed to start giving him some grace for the ones he already had. Because everything he’d done since the moment I stepped into his life had been to protect me.

And now, I knew that. Even if I still didn’t fully understand why.

Ben shifted against the wall, the movement subtle but sharp. When I looked at him, his discomfort was obvious. Nervous. Stiff.

Whatever this was… it couldn’t be good.

“Alex’s real name is Aleksei Koslov. He’s head of the Russian Mafia.”

My eyebrows drew together, confused. What would the Russian Mafia have to do with my father?

But as the pieces shifted into place, the answer landed like a punch to the chest.

Bruce.

I nodded slowly, and Jaxson mirrored the motion like he’d heard the word I hadn’t said aloud.

“Bruce,” he confirmed. “As I mentioned, your father only dealt drugs. But Bruce’s ties… they went far beyond what we originally thought. We didn’t give him enough credit—despite him only being a puppet in their world.”

He glanced over at Ben, who had finally sat down, his gaze glued to Millie across the room. She still pretended he didn’t exist.

“We still don’t know what he’s up to,” Ben said quietly. “But he left a note for Jaxson. The night he attacked you.”

I tried to follow.

Tried to make sense of what they were saying.

If he left a note before I was kidnapped, why was he still a threat now?

The medicine was already wrapping around my brain like a blanket. My thoughts slowed, blurred at the edges, slipping away before I could catch them. I widened my eyes, trying to stay alert.

“I’m still not sure what it meant. It would make sense if he left it after I…” Jaxson’s voice drifted off, and for a split second, something flickered in his eyes.

Like he was adjusting the story in real time.

“After I took Bruce’s life,” he finished.

But Ben looked toward him, still and watching. Almost like he was trying to figure out what Jaxson had been about to say. And in that moment, I knew—Jaxson wasn’t saying everything he needed to. He was bleeding facts while avoiding the entire truth.

“What did the note say?” Millie asked.

“You took something from me. Now I’ll take everything from you. The war has only just begun.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” I whispered. My brain was depleted. Exhaustion was winning, and my need to know everything was fading fast into blackness.

“I know,” Jaxson said gently. “That’s why we’re trying to figure it out.”

He moved closer, leaning in until I could feel the warmth of his breath against my cheek.

“Sleep, baby. We’ll still be here when you wake up. And hopefully, by then, we’ll have some answers. I won’t let anything happen to you again.”

And while I believed those final words…

One last thought drifted through my mind before the dark took me:

He won’t have to protect me. When I get out of this bed, I’m ending this war myself.