Page 202 of Stand: Part One

Scanning every feature of her face, I searched for any additional symptoms aside from her dizziness. Her pupils were slightly dilated, which could be due to the overload of dopamine I just gave her a few moments ago.

“Does your head hurt at all?” I asked, hoping for the negative.

She lightly shook her head. “No.”

I released a subtle sigh of relief, then stood to rearrange my pants before gathering her in my arms and carrying her to the nearby couch. Gently laying her down, I placed her head against the throw pillow and then took her small wrist in my hand to feel her pulse. It was racing.

“When did you last eat?” I asked, trying not to sound too angry.

She licked at her dry lips, her breaths finally slowing but not enough for my liking.

“This morning,” she answered. “Oatmeal, toast, and a bowl of fruit.”

Crouching beside her, I felt her forehead, satisfied that she wasn’t overheating.

“Did you go outside today?”

She shrugged as she closed her eyes for a moment. “I went for a jog earlier.”

Exhaling a slow breath, I pushed my own unruly hair out of my eyes. “It’s ninety-five degrees outside today. You might just be dehydrated.”

I stood back up and strode over to the mini fridge near the bar. After retrieving one of the water bottles, I unscrewed the cap and crouched down again to hold it to Jaden’s lips. She took the bottle in her hand and held it steady as she took a few tentative sips.

For the next five minutes, I forced her to continue sipping the water until half of it was gone, and her breathing was finally back to a normal rate. Taking her wrist again, I was satisfied when her pulse finally slowed.

“Feeling better?” I asked, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear.

Jaden nodded slightly. “Yeah, the dizziness is mostly gone. I’m just a little cold now.”

She tried to sit up, but I just pushed her back down and shook my head.

“I want you to rest for a little while,” I said as I grabbed the throw blanket folded over the back of the couch and draped it over her naked body.

She gripped the ends of the blanket in her hands and tucked them under her chin. After smoothing her hair down on the side of her head, I watched as Jaden closed her eyes, releasing a quiet breath as she burrowed deeper into the pillow.

Pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead, I inhaled deeply, relishing in her soft scent before standing to my full height and heading for the door to my office.

Opening it, I blew out a soft whistle and waited for Camaro to hustle past me, moving straight to Jaden. She sniffed her sleeping form for a few seconds before she was content enough to yawn and lay down on the floor beside the couch.

Quietly closing the door, I strolled back over to stand in front of the couch, remarking on the scene before me. Safely tucked away in my office, Jaden’s small frame was swallowed up by the blanket as she slept while Camaro stood watch.

It was like everything was suddenly right with the world, like everything was exactly as it should be. And very soon, it would be even better.

I’d already deduced that Jaden’s dizziness could have come from the hormone fluctuations I was secretly putting her through, which could also be a sign of ovulation. Only time would tell.

Returning to my desk, I focused on work, busying myself to avoid lingering too long on the fact that Jaden was still naked under that blanket. I still needed to look into the latest tips that had come in on Matt’s whereabouts. The fucker seemed to just disappear from the face of the earth.

Given the latest stain on his reputation and the fact he had about a dozen mercenaries on his back, he had nowhere else to go but to ground. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t still influencing things on the surface.

Three of my safe-houses had been breached in the past week at the same time, my underground vaults emptied and my artillery stolen. The whole operation cost me about thirty-six million dollars, a worthy pursuit for those brave enough to try.

But this group didn’t just try. They succeeded, most likely thanks to Matt. The fucker had more intel on me than I realized.

Someone had also tipped off some of the Mexican cartels about my secret little warehouse in Tijuana. Another five-million-dollar loss of weapons and drugs. I’d have to find a different port and warehouse to store those shipments if I wanted to continue easily distributing into Mexico.

There was still so much work to be done, and it didn’t help that my brother was not only completely useless, he was causing me more headaches than I had time for. He’d been discharged weeks ago from Sid’s care, but he was still far from fit to fight in my opinion. Unsurprisingly, Daniel didn’t give a shit about what I thought.

I knew his behavior was going to be an adjustment as he learned to navigate life with his brain injury. He’d assembled his own efforts to locate Matt, but so far, he’d come up with just as much nothing as me. He was still determined to beat the mercs I had hunting Matt down.