Chapter 339
Graham’s Point Of View
Lillian didn’t leave right away, of course she didn’t. She lingered by the door for three more agonizing minutes, shifting her weight from foot to foot while the baby began to wail against her chest.
Finally, my father’s voice cut through the tension, sharp and dismissive, ordering her to go. When she shuffled away at last, her slippers clicking softly against the cold marble floor, she glanced back once… a fleeting look of sorrow that pierced through my anger. The silence that crashed down in the living room felt heavier than a block of lead.
Two of our private security guards practically carried me up the grand staircase, my feet dragging uselessly against the plush velvet runner. I wanted to tell them I could walk on my own, that I didn’t need their help, but pride seemed like a luxury I couldn’t afford. Every step sent waves of agony radiating through my leg, as if someone was driving a rusty nail straight up into my kneecaps.
The guards’ faces remained impassive, professional masks they’d perfected over years of witnessing our family’s dysfunction. They deposited me onto the edge of my mattress with all the gentleness of men moving furniture, and a few minutes later, Dr. Phillips hurried in, his leather medical bag rattling frantically in his grip.
He didn’t ask questions. He knew better than that… years of treating this family had taught him when to speak and when to simply do his job. Phillips had witnessed too many unexplained injuries, too many convenient accidents. He unrolled the gauze, his old, wrinkled hands smelling of antiseptic and mint lozenges as he set to work cleaning the deep punctures Jaxx had left in my flesh.
I watched him work, noticing how his fingers trembled slightly, whether from age or the sight of my injuries, I couldn’t tell. The fluorescent light from my bedside lamp cast harsh shadows across his lined face, making him look older than his sixty-some years.
“You’re lucky, Graham,” the old man muttered, his voice barely above a whisper as he snipped a piece of medical tape with practiced precision. His glasses had slipped down his nose, and he pushed them up with the back of his wrist. “The blade missed the femoral artery by less than half an inch. Whoever did this… they knew exactly where to stop.” He paused, meeting my eyes with an expression that mingled concern and something darker… perhaps fear, perhaps resignation. “They wanted you to feel every single millimeter of it, but they didn’t want you to bleed out on the dirt p>
The words hung in the air between us, heavy with implication. Jaxx had been surgical in his cruelty, and we both knew it. The precision spoke of experience, of someone who understood human anatomy well enough to inflict maximum pain while avoiding fatal damage. It was a message, carefully carved into my flesh.
“Just finish the tape, Phillips,” I growled through clenched teeth, my knuckles white as I gripped the edge of the silk bedsheets. The pain was making me irritable, though part of me recognized that wasn’t fair to the doctor. He’d always been kind to me, one of the few people in my orbit who seemed to care whether I lived or died. “I don’t need a lecture on anatomy from you p>
“I’m just saying,” he sighed, carefully packing his bottles back into the leather case. Each item found its designated slot with the efficiency of long habit… antiseptic, gauze rolls, surgical tape. He clicked the brass latch shut with a finality that seemed to echo in the quiet room. “You need to stay off this leg for at least two weeks. No walking, no driving. Let the tissue heal properly, or you’ll risk permanent damage.” His eyes held mine, imploring me to take this seriously. “I’ve seen what happens when young men like you think they’re invincible. The body has limits, Graham, even yours p>
“Yeah, whatever. Leave.” The words came out harsher than I intended, but I was too exhausted to care about courtesy. My head was pounding, my leg throbbed with each heartbeat, and the last thing I needed was a lecture about my mortality. Phillips hesitated for just a moment, his hand on the doorframe, as if he wanted to say something more. Then he thought better of it and disappeared into the hallway, leaving me alone with my pain and my thoughts.
The heavy mahogany door clicked shut behind him, leaving me utterly alone in the massive, suffocating silence of my bedroom. The afternoon sun dipped lower on the horizon, casting long, bloody orange stripes across the cream-colored carpet. Dust motes drifted through those slashes of dying light, indifferent to my suffering.
I stared down at the crisp white bandages wrapped tightly around my thigh, my shoulder, and my forearm. The gauze already bore tiny, round spots of dark red where blood stubbornly seeped through the layers. Each stain felt like a badge of humiliation rather than injury.
“That bastard,” I whispered, the words tasting like dry ash in my throat.
I ground my back teeth together until my ears rang with the pressure. The wounds themselves… the burning heat in my shoulder, the dull, throbbing ache in my leg, weren’t even the painful part. Physical pain I could handle. I’d survived corporate takeovers, weathered board members attempting to throat-cut me from behind, endured hostile negotiations that would have broken lesser men. But what was tearing my ribs apart, what was turning my stomach into a hot pool of pure, boiling acid, was the image of Elena seared into my mind.
Elena. My wife. The woman who had slept on the left side of this exact mattress for years, who knew how I took my coffee, who could finish my sentences before I’d even formed the words. Seeing her huddled against his bare chest, seeing her look at that illegitimate piece of trash with those wide, trusting eyes… eyes that once looked at me that way was driving me completely insane. The betrayal cut deeper than any blade ever could.
“He’s exactly who I want him to be,” her voice kept echoing in my head, loud and mocking, a relentless loop of rejection. “Your perspective of him is entirely your own business p>
The dismissiveness in those words made my blood run cold and hot simultaneously.
“No,” I snarled into the empty room.
I slammed my fist down against the mattress with every ounce of strength I had left. The sudden movement pulled violently at the stitches in my shoulder, a sharp flash of white-hot agony making my head snap back, but I welcomed it. I craved the pain. It was cleaner, more honest than the humiliation gnawing at my insides like a cancer.
“That son of a bitch,” I hissed, my breathing turning ragged and shallow as I stared at the wall, vision blurring at the edges. “She is mine. She is a Sinclair. We built that entire life together from scratch, brick by brick, year by year. Nobody gets to just walk into my house and take what belongs to me p>
My eyes slowly drifted to the mahogany nightstand, drawn by some masochistic impulse I couldn’t resist.
There, sitting beside the brass lamp, was a small, silver-framed photograph. It was from our trip to Cabo two summers ago, back when things were still good, still salvageable. Elena was laughing in the image, her hair blowing wildly across her face, her eyes squinting against the bright Mexican sun while she held a glass of white wine. She looked so safe in that frozen moment. She looked so completely mine. So happy to be mine.
I reached out with a trembling, bandaged hand, my fingers clumsily grabbing the silver frame and pulling it closer across the polished wood. The metal felt cool against my fevered skin. I stared into her frozen, smiling face, my thumb slowly rising to rub against the glass, tracing the curve of her cheekbone over and over again, as if I could somehow reach through time and touch her real skin, remind her of what we’d had.
“You’re mine, Elena,” I muttered, a strange, breathless laugh escaping my lips as I squeezed the edges of the frame until the metal dug into my palm, leaving indentations. “Do you hear me? Jaxx can never take you away from me. He thinks because he has a few docks and some thugs in leather jackets that he owns this city? He’s nothing. He’s a ghost. A temporary mistake that I will erase p>
I leaned my head back against the pillows, the silver frame held tight against my ribs, and I started to laugh. It began as a low, dry chuckle in the back of my throat before transforming into a loud, echoing sound that bounced off the high ceiling. The sound was foreign to my own ears – unhinged, dangerous, liberated.
“I’m done playing these stupid, polite games,” I said to the empty room, my eyes widening as the chaos in my brain finally settled into one single, crystal-clear point of focus. The clarity was almost euphoric. “I’ve been trying to do this the legal way. I’ve been trying to use the courts, the papers, the family name, all the civilized tools at my disposal… but Jaxx doesn’t play by those rules. So why should I p>
I tilted my head, looking back down at the picture in my hand, my smirk turning cold, sharp, and totally unhinged. Elena’s photographed smile seemed to mock me now, to challenge me.
“If I want her back… if I want my life back… then I have to clear the obvious block on the road,” I whispered, the words coming out smooth and steady now, no longer clouded by pain or emotion but driven by pure, cold logic. “I have to take him out. Completely. A permanent solution for a permanent problem. And once he’s out of the picture… once he’s lying under six feet of concrete where he belongs… Elena will realize she has nowhere else to go. No one else to turn to. She will come back to me, and she will belong to me forever p>