Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir by Ryker Helios

40. Who’s pissed?

It takes only one more hour for the police to contact Gerald and me. They swing by the hospital and get the statements. It’s the same detectives from before, and they look much paler this time around, the creases on their foreheads seemingly permanently etched. They mutter about suspects and urge us to notify them if we see any sort of suspicious activity. There are still no leads from the last case.

It is only after they leave the premises after taking our statements that I realize that I forgot to ask them if they had paid Aiden a visit.

When Coraline’s parents arrive, the time is around 03:00 AM in the morning. They see me in the hallway in front of the emergency unit and come to a stop. I have a good idea of what I look like, my eyes bloodshot and half-closed from sleepiness, my hair barely held down by running my hand through it a couple of times, still dressed in that wrinkled, blood-stained suit that is starting to smell.

Coraline’s parents take one look at me and demand that I leave the hospital that instant to go home and get some sleep because I look dead on my feet

I put out the obligatory protests until they threaten to not let me into the hospital room to see Coraline when she woke up (“Don’t make us pull the family-only card. I swear to god, Jace, you can barely function! We’re here now, she’s safe. You can take a break now “Says her mother with her hand caressing my cheek, and I lean into it in my addled mind, because it’s been such a long time since I had a mother take such tender interest in me) Gerald, who had been sitting next to me, takes this as his permission to drag me home. He tells me that he will spend the night at my father’s place so we can visit her first thing in the morning. But I know that he is staying with me because he can sense the fear I was trying to tamp down

оп.

I mean, my best friend was shot right in front of me. Forgive me for being a bit jittery and jumpy.

I take a shower while falling asleep on my feet, and stumble onto the bed, with just my towel around my hips. So of course, when I wake up the next morning after a nightmare of Coraline bleeding in front of me, I am naked as the day I was born. The sun shines cheerfully outside the window, and there is a raging headache playing ping-pong in my skull. All my joints hurt as if I am seventy years of age, and I am still so very tired.

and grumbling, I drag myself out of the bed and take another shower to wake

I peek over his shoulder to see him stirring oatmeal in a

and proper first thing in the morning. I grunt a greeting and plop myself on the counter, grimacing

hell designed

a pot filled with life-giving darkness,

move, my

well-rested come morning.” Gerald muses as he carefully fills a cup with coffee and dissolves a cube of sugar in it. Then he tops it with my favorite creamer, “but

mistaken”

he offers me the coffee, and I

my tongue.

complete with a dollop of peanut butter and various crushed nuts and dried berries in mine and takes a

like death warmed over,” he notes, “so much so that I think you should just return to your room and sleep for a couple more hours. Coraline

we’re going

that you feel like you’re responsible

him off. And of course, I feel responsible for Coraline, she got shot

what? Did the director ask you to meet