by AM Cosgrove
Jack
Jack stood in the shower, letting the hot water pour down his body. It stung everywhere it landed. He had so many cuts and bruises that there wasn’t a place that didn’t hurt anymore. He was pretty sure there was nothing broken, except maybe a rib or two on his left side, but he wasn’t about to go to the infirmary for that. Wasn’t much that they were going to be able to do about it except give him pain medications and ask a lot of questions—questions even he didn’t have answers for.
He looked down and watched the dried blood slowly swirl down the drain. His mind working back trying to remember anything that he could about the hours before. Any word or a voice. The attackers had moved swiftly. They were, at the very least, professionals. Jack couldn’t bring himself to think that this was some random act—a robbery gone wrong. No, it had to be more than that. It was meant to send a message to him.
The thing that he didn’t quite understand was why they had attacked Mirabelle. There was an unwritten code amongst people like him that if you had a problem with someone, you took that problem directly to them. You didn’t involve the wife or kids. Not that Mirabelle was his wife or anything like that, but she certainly had been a long-time companion of his and was certainly within the realm of do not touch. Unless, of course, she had been the intended target. What could she have possibly done that would have warranted that sort of message? There wasn’t anything that he could think of that carried that sentence.
No, there was no question about it; the message had been for him and him alone. She was simply used to carry out that message.
Rage boiled in his blood. And for a moment between the hot water and the surge of blood rushing to his brain, he almost passed out again, having to steady himself on the walls of the shower.
Who? His mind raced. Who would have the balls and the lack of spine to go after her like they had to send a message to him?
He clenched his fist and wailed it into the ceramic tiles. They cracked under the sudden impact and he had to shake the shot of pain out of his hand.
He was going to find the son of a bitch that did this. He had to. They were going to pay for the things that they had done. This was not something that went unanswered. There were a lot of things Jack would put up with, but this was not going to be one of them.
And there wasn’t a damned thing his brothers were going to be able to do to stop him.
“They best get that into their brains right from the get-go,” he muttered, rinsing off before stepping out of the shower and grabbing a towel. He gingerly patted his body dry as he walked across the bathroom. The cool air washed over him as he turned on the fan to pull away from the now humid air, following him out after his shower.
Grabbing a hand towel off the rack beside the counter, he cleared some of the mirror off so he could see his reflection through the haze. What he saw was nowhere near as bad as what had been done to Mirabelle. Scrapes and bruises made up the majority of his injuries. A black eye and split lip, the only ones he wouldn’t be able to easily hide.
Mirabelle, on the other hand…The thought of how bad she had looked when his brother’s men had carried her out of his flat. She had not been able to manage more than a few steps on her own before collapsing, and he was pretty sure that her right arm had been broken as it had been resting at an odd angle.
Both her eyes were black and completely swollen shut, and she was missing a few of her front teeth.
The only good thing was that she was still alive, despite all that had been done to her.
Jack wished that he had been able to call the ambulance himself and ensure timely attention to all of her injuries, but John had been the one to calm him down and make him aware of the repercussions of that line of thinking.
If she had been picked up from his flat the next people to walk through his door would have been the local coppers and having to explain to them the reason, the entire place looked like a murder scene would have lead to too many unnecessary questions. Not to mention the biggest of which being where the rest of the bleeders had gone.
None of these questions he wanted to be answering, and he didn’t want coppers getting in the middle of what they needed to do to find the people responsible and make sure someone answered for it.
Dressed in a clean collared shirt and linen pants, he stepped out of the bathroom. While he was in the shower, the flat had been thoroughly cleaned. There seemed to be no trace of blood anywhere. There seemed to be no trace of blood anywhere. To the naked eye, there would be nothing amiss. No trace of the night before the bloodshed. He was impressed, to say the least.
“You look almost as bad as what you did when I told you to go wash up,” John commented. He was sitting in one of the white leather armchairs in the living room, sipping a coffee.
“I see you have made yourself at home while I was busy.” Jack shot his brother a look and walked into the kitchen to pour himself a cup since it was already made.
The last of the cleaners were packing up their things and leaving. They spoke not a word and did not meet anyone’s eyes.
“I have to say your staff is excellent. I didn’t know what I was going to find when I came out.”
“Well, it would have been far easier to clean up if you didn’t insist on everything in your home being stark white,” John grumbled.
“I like nice clean lines and surfaces. What can I say?” Jack said, taking a seat in the other chair across from his brother, wincing as he sat down.
His ribs were definitely cracked, at the very least. It made sitting and breathing difficult.
Nothing to be done about it, no sense paying it any more attention.
“So, tell me again what you remember. What happened here?” John asked, taking the final mouthful and placing his cup down on the coffee table.
“All I remember is what I have already told you. There was a crash and then the door to my room flew open and they started shooting.”
“And no one said anything to you?”
“The only thing I remember is just before they smashed me in the head was someone saying something about, I should learn how to count. So, there must have been four of them here.” He took another long swallow of coffee.
The caffeine was starting to take the edge off his pounding headache. If nothing else, it was making it easier for him to think straight.
“Two of them you managed to take out?”
“Yeah, I am pretty sure the one that I dropped in the bedroom was either dead or damned near close to it. The one in the hallway near Mirabelle’s room was definitely done in.”
“Well, they were nothing but professionals as they took their bodies with them. They left no trace that any of my people were able to find.”
“I am not sure if that makes it easier or harder for us to find the person or persons responsible for this.”
Silence. The two brothers locked eyes for a moment.
“So, you intend to find the ones responsible then? And what do you intend on doing when you find them?”
“What we always do.” Jack felt his jaw tighten. He didn’t want to get into a row with his brother over this, but he could sense that this was going to be the direction that this was going in.
“To what end, Brother?”
“You don’t think that someone blasting through my flat and almost killing Mirabelle is something that we need to have someone answer for? You don’t think that is important enough?” Jack spat through gritted teeth. The blood pulsed in his temples making his head hurt, but he was too mad to care.
“You are alive, and relatively unharmed. This is clearly in retaliation for something that you have done that someone wanted to have your answer for. What more is there to do?”
“Mirabelle is—”
“Alive. Mirabelle is alive. Be thankful that she is, if that is what you are concerned about. Although, I can’t for the life of
me, figure out why on earth you care so much for the whore.”
“She is not a whore.” Jack stood up to lunge at his brother, but his body screamed in return, forcing him to sit back down.
“So, you would have me take this family to war for some trifle you bought and paid for? That would be like me going to war because someone rear-ended my corvette.”
“She is worth more than a fucking car, John.”
“Is she now? You feed her, keep her clothed, and paid for her boob job? I fail to see how she is anything more than a pet to you.”
Jack said nothing but stared at his brother. There was so much more that he wanted to say to him; Mirabelle was so much more to him than a pet.
“There is simply nothing more to discuss,” John said, rising to his feet before picking up his coffee cup from the table and walking it over to the sink in the kitchen.
“I can’t believe you, John. Why would just walk away and leave this unanswered for?”
“Jack, there are far more things afoot than you realize, and if I keep digging in and cleaning up your messes, it will be all that I’m doing for the rest of my life. There will be no end to it because you simply cannot stop getting yourself into shit every time I turn around.”
Jack said nothing.
“So no I will not be sparing any resources to handle this mess. If you want to deal with it you can have it. You will be on your own and I will make dammed sure that everyone knows that your actions are not reflective of the Rann family and our future business.”
John motioned to his bodyguards who had been silently standing by and headed for the door.
“You are turning a once-great family into a family of pussies John. There was once a time when our name struck fear into the hearts of those that would oppose us. Now, all we are is business men who pitch fits when we don’t get our way.”
“If that is how you think then so be it. Far be it for me to tell someone how to think, but for now, you are a Rann. And as the head of the Rann family, I will conduct myself and the family as I see fit to ensure the longevity of our lineage. Should the day come that I am no longer able to do so that mantel shall fall to my heirs. At least they will be bread with the presence of mind to not allow our family to become nothing more than a family of common street thugs.”
And with that John walked out the front door leaving Jack sitting there seething mad.
He was more than a common street thug, just as Mirabelle was more than just a common street whore.
CHAPTER FIVE
Mirabelle
She opened her eyes as much as they would allow. For a brief moment, she had forgotten where she was. The steady hum of a machine interspersed with an occasional beep of the monitors, reminded her that she was in the hospital.
The last day had become a blur for her. Somewhere in it, she remembered waking up and not being able to see anything at all—every ounce of her body screaming in pain. She remembered trying to move and not being able to do anything more than breathe before an explosion of pain overtook her. She believed that she was going to die, the pain had been so bad at times.
At one point, she had called out for Jack, and he had come to her. It seemed like it had taken a lifetime as she had floated in and out of consciousness before some men came to her rescue. She didn’t think they were EMS or anything like that. They hadn’t been gentle but rougher than normal and carried her out in their arms when they had found that she could not walk on her own.
Once they managed to get her to the car, she blacked out completely and the next time she awoke, she remembered the flurry of doctors and nurses all talking over her. She had faded in and out of consciousness from then on in. Each time she had awakened, she found herself in a different room with a different doctor or nurse fluttering around.
There was no one in her room that she could tell for the moment. They had left her in the room to recuperate. She tried to move to sit up, but the spinning in her head drove her to lay back down on the pillow.
The machine next to her wailed, and within seconds, a nurse came rushing into the room and straight over to the monitor.
“Oh, you poor dear, you must have knocked one of the leads off trying to sit up. Let me get that reattached properly and see if we can’t find a way to set you up a wee bit.”
“W- w-ater,” Mirabelle gasped as her voice cracked. Her throat was incredibly dry.
“Oh yes, I will see if I can get you some of that, too. You just lay there a moment and I’ll get something to prop you up nice and comfy, then you can have some water.”
Mirabelle laid there, feeling a tear slip from her eye. Everything hurt. She was still trying to get the swirling in her head to settle back down when the nurse reappeared, accompanied by an orderly. Before she knew what was happening and her body had time to react to the sudden movements, the two of them deftly set her up straighter and propped up her arm, which she hadn’t noticed was covered by a thick plaster cast and was sitting on a pillow on her lap.
“There now.” The nurse nodded to the orderly that his assistance was no longer needed, and he left the room just as she brought in a Styrofoam cup with a straw. The nurse stuck in it up to Mirabelle’s lips, “Drink this.”
Mirabelle leaned forward and grasped the straw with her cracked lips, taking a sip of the ice-cold water.
She could taste the acrid tang of blood mixing with the cool liquid, no doubt from the sockets where her teeth used to be. Another tear slipped from her eyes.
“Now, now. I know this is hard, sweetheart, but you’re going to get through this. You are going to get better.” The nurse swiped away the tear and brushed her hair back behind her ear.
“Th- thank you,” Mirabelle whispered. It hurt even trying to talk.
“I know, sweetheart, don’t try to talk right now. Rest. You’ve been through hell, and it’s going to be okay from here on out, I promise.” The older woman smiled sweetly at her.
Mirabelle leaned back into the pillows after taking another sip of water. Her throat didn’t feel quite as parched as it had moments before. She took a deep breath and willed the tears from her eyes.
The nurse pulled the blanket and covered her up to her neck. “You just lay there and rest up some. I’ll come back and check on you in a little bit; maybe we can see about finding you some soup if you are up to it? They make a really nice chicken noodle soup in the cafeteria here. I quite enjoy it.” She smiled as she busied herself checking the monitor and making notes on the clipboard at the end of the bed. “That sounds nice, doesn’t it? Some hot fresh chicken noodle soup?”
Mirabelle nodded. It did sound comforting after everything that had happened. Something her mother had often done when she was younger and had been sick.
“Alright then. That’s what I will do. When I come back to check on you, I will bring some of their delicious soup and we can see if we can get something into you. Make you feel right as rain again.” The nurse patted her feet and smiled before walking out of the room, closing the door behind her.
From her hospital bed, she could see out the window. For once it was a sunny day without a cloud in the sky. Any other day she would have been out wandering the streets of London, enjoying the little shops, picking up fresh foods for dinner, or buying a new dress.
Instead, she laid in the bed, broken and hurting, unaware of what extent Jack’s injuries were or if he had lived beyond the few moments, she had seen him after the attack. She hoped that he was alive.
He had always been good to her ever since the day he had met her all those years ago. She had been a waitress in a local strip joint. Not pretty enough to be up on stage, but enough to be bringing drinks to the patrons. She had been assigned to Jack’s table a few nights in a row before she realized that he was requesting her to be his waitress. She hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary or gone out of her way to grab his attention, but for som
e reason, he had found her interesting, anyway.
He tried to strike up several conversations with her while she served him, and she politely declined his advances. She’d been told by her bosses that when one of the customers got too chatty, it was time to move on. They were only after one thing, and that was not something her boss wanted to get into at his establishment.
But try as she might, Jack was insistent, and soon they were able to piece together a conversation over the course of an evening. He seemed genuinely interested in her past and the way that she grew up, despite her childhood being remarkably boring in comparison to his life. He never made her feel less because of her past.
One day, he had come into the bar and immediately went to speak with her boss. She had his usual drink ready and was waiting for him, but he had brushed her off, and went right in to see Billy.
When he came out, he took her by the hand and asked the question that would change the rest of her life.
“I would like you to come and stay with me.”
She laughed, thinking that he was joking. After all, he wasn’t the first man that tried to whisk her off her feet. But he had been his usual insistent self and would not take no for an answer. She soon found herself living in the same beautiful flat he did, with her own space, and money like she had never seen.
It wasn’t until much later, into whatever their relationship was, that she realized who and what he was. By that time, however, she had become accustomed to the life she was living, and she enjoyed it too much to feel like there was any need to change it.
Until yesterday, nothing had ever given her reason to worry about her safety. Jack had always made sure that she had the best of everything and she had always been safe.
Now everything had changed, and it brought fresh tears to her eyes to think of what that meant for the future. Would she be able to stay with Jack after this? Or would she simply be seen as a liability and discarded?
The nurse came back a few hours later and woke Mirabelle up when she entered the room. “Ahh, there’s the pretty girl. Awake now, are you?” The nurse smiled, and Mirabelle was finally able to make out the name on her nametag. Mabel. It seemed like a lovely nurse like name.
