Page 3 of The Devil After Dark

three

CASSIO

The hospital lights always gave me a headache.

Maybe it was the fluorescence or maybe the flickering or maybe it was the emotional stress of being in a hospital.

Kalvin was dead. I would need to notify his family and pay out his death benefits.

The latter wasn’t a problem, the former was going to be brutal.

I liked Kalvin. He hadn’t been with me long, but he’d quickly become fast friends with Jason and me.

Jason who was lying cut open on an operating table right now.

Gods I wasn’t ready to lose both my best friends the same night.

I wasn’t ready to lose another single one of my men.

I should have been able to stop this—or I should have at least been paying attention to our surroundings.

I had been too busy watching the woman walking down the sidewalk alone.

I had been completely transfixed with her.

The way her hair swung down her back and the way her hips moved had me completely checked out.

And she’d used her own shirt to keep Jason alive while I sat there on the pavement like a complete fucking idiot and my best friends dying.

Everyone else had run in the opposite direction and this woman, who had completely distracted me, had run towards us.

She had run towards the blood and bullets and torn her shirt off to help.

I buried my face in my hands and ground my palms against my eyes.

This was not who I was. I owned this city.

I was wealthy and powerful and I did not cower or cry when someone lashed out at me or my family.

No, I hit them back harder—I was ruthless.

Unfeeling. I was not the man who was distracted by long hair and a delicious ass.

“Mr. Padovano?” the doctor asked from the doorway to the private room they had allowed me to occupy.

“Yeah,” I responded and lifted my head.

The doctor crossed the room and sat in one of the chairs across from me.

“Jason did well through surgery. He is in recovery now, where we will keep a close eye on him, but we do expect him to make a full recovery at this point. He was very lucky. There are a few things we will be monitoring, but the surgery went as well as it possibly could have. We will keep you posted and someone will come get you when you’re able to see him. ”

The doctor gave a reassuring nod and then left quickly.

She was probably sparing me from having to open my mouth and the embarrassment of my relief spilling out.

I had lost too many people in my lifetime, and the last time I sat in a room like this I learned my kid brother and father weren’t as lucky as Jason.

Zac saved me from my thoughts as he entered the room with two large paper cups of coffee.

Handing one to me, he sat down in the spot the doctor had vacated.

“Jason is expected to make a full recovery,” I said as calmly as I could and took a sip of the scalding hot coffee to mask the wave of relief I was feeling.

“Good. What’s the order, Cass?” Zac asked with a voice devoid of feeling.

It was the same answer as any time something like this happened. “We kill them.”