Chapter 8:Alone
857 Words
The cab driver kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror.
“You okay, miss?” he asked. “You look pale.”
I forced a nod. “Hospital. St. Mercy. Fast.”
He didn’t ask again.
My phone buzzed once in my pocket. I didn’t check it. If it was Damian, I couldn’t answer. If it was Serena, I couldn’t think. Twenty minutes. That’s all I had before those men decided Kemi was worth more broken than whole.
St. Mercy came into view seven minutes later.
Too fast.
Not fast enough.
I paid the driver with shaking hands and ran for the entrance. The private wing was on the fourth floor. Room 412. I’d memorized it.
The elevator felt like it took forever.
When the doors opened, the hallway was quiet. Too quiet. No nurses, no beeping machines. Just the hum of fluorescent lights and the faint smell of antiseptic.
Room 412 was at the end.
The door was slightly ajar.
“Kemi?” My voice came out barely above a whisper.
No answer.
I pushed the door open.
He was in the bed. Awake. Bandages still around his chest, an IV dangling unused at his side. But he was alive.
The two men were there too. One by the window, one leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Neither looked surprised to see me.
“Took you long enough,” the one by the window said. “Sit.”
I didn’t move. “Where’s Serena?”
“Not here,” he said. “She sends her regards. She said you’d come alone.”
I glanced at Kemi. His eyes met mine. He looked scared, but he shook his head once. Don’t do it.
Too late.
“I’m here,” I said. “Let him go.”
The man by the wall smiled. “That’s not how this works, Mrs. Blackwood.”
Mrs. Blackwood. Everyone loved saying it like it meant something.
“What do you want?” I asked.
The man by the window pulled out his phone. “A message for your husband.”
He hit play.
Damian’s voice filled the room, low and furious.
“If you touch her, I’ll burn everything your family owns to the ground.”
It was the voicemail I’d missed when I ran out of the boardroom.
The man pocketed the phone. “Cute. But we don’t work for Damian.”
“Then who do you work for?”
“Her father,” the other man said. “And he wants Blackwood Industries. All of it. And he wants you to tell Damian to sign it over.”
I laughed, but it sounded hollow. “You think I have that kind of power?”
“You have his ear,” the first man said. “And right now, that’s enough.”
Kemi shifted in the bed, wincing. “Amina, don’t—”
“Shut up,” the man by the wall snapped, stepping forward.
I moved before I thought about it, stepping between them.
“Touch him and I walk out. And then you have nothing.”
For a second, neither of them moved.
Then the door slammed open.
Damian stood there, breathing hard, two security guards behind him. His eyes found me first, then Kemi, then the two men.
“You have ten seconds to leave,” he said, voice like ice. “Or I call the police and tell them exactly who paid you to kidnap a patient.”
The men exchanged a look.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
“Serena’s father will hear about this,” the one by the window said.
“Tell him I’m waiting,” Damian replied.
They left. Fast.
The room went silent.
Damian crossed to Kemi’s bed, checking the IV, the monitors, like he was making sure they hadn’t hurt him while I wasn’t looking.
“You’re okay,” he said quietly.
Kemi nodded, exhausted. “She came alone.”
Damian’s jaw tightened. When he turned to me, his expression was unreadable.
“I told you not to come alone.”
“I know.”
“Why did you?”
Because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have known if you meant it when you said you’d protect him.
Because I was tired of being protected like I couldn’t choose.
“Because you would’ve done the same,” I said.
Damian stared at me for a long moment. Then he stepped forward and pulled me into him. Not gentle. Not careful. Like he was making sure I was real.
“Don’t do that again,” he muttered against my hair.
I should’ve pushed him away.
I didn’t.
Behind us, Kemi cleared his throat. “Uh. Room?”
Damian let me go, but didn’t step back far.
“We’re leaving,” he said. “All of us.”
As we walked out, my phone buzzed again.
Unknown number: You’re predictable, Mrs. Blackwood. Let’s see how predictable he is when the board sees the video.
Attached: a 5-second clip.
Me and Damian in the hallway earlier. His hand on my arm. My face up close to his.
It looked like a kiss.
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- Writer
