that his doctors can’t fix him up right now instead of waiting on him to heal a little. He
has it in his head that all his money from his dad’s estate should put him on the top of
some list. I don’t know what that might be, but he wants—demands—that he be as
handsome as before. He’s unable to speak, so he’s writing everything in capital letters
in that notebook that they gave him like he was in charge of the whole fucking staff
there. They finally had to take it from him in order to take care of other patients. Oh,
and Bart has been going through some pain meds too, the doc told me. More than they
deem necessary for the extent of his injuries.” Dalton called him a moron, and Kenton
had to agree. “Anyway, I went by to see him yesterday, just to ask him about sister
dear, and he’s been burnt pretty badly. Lost an eye and an ear. Major damage done to
his whole body, I was told. If infection doesn’t kill him, he’s in for some pretty extensive
plastic surgery before this is all done. They’re saying that he was pretty close to the
blast site when it went off.”
Closing the door to the recovery room, Kenton went to his desk and brought up the
article about the fire and explosion again. For whatever reason this woman left the
building, he was sure that it had a lot to do with her brother. Just what, he had no idea.
“Her name is Emma Gentry. Middle name is Anderson, like her mother. Her
grandda is Baldwin Frank. You might have heard of him too.” Kenton said that he had
but was not sure where. “He’s the guy who just bought up all the buildings around the
outskirts of town. He and his family have been, in some form or another, linked to the
mob as much as Gentry had been years ago, and then again recently. It’s rumored too
that they were forming a partnership when Frank’s daughter was killed. Nothing much
we’ve been able to find on that either. Why are you asking? I mean, just curious or is
there something I should know?”
“She’s here. Emma is here. But I can’t tell anyone right now.” Dalton told him that
he’d figured that out already. “You knew she was here? How…? You know what, it
doesn’t matter. But I am worried for her safety. She’s hurt too, but I have that under
control as well.”
“I’ll come by later and see her. Not to talk to her…I don’t want to know whatever
she does. Not yet at any rate. But I won’t say a word either. I think you might be right.
She needs to be safe.” Kenton told him of her injuries. “Call me if you need anything or
see anything out of the norm. I’ll come by tonight and look around too. Be safe.”
After getting as much as he could from Dalton, they hung up. Kenton wondered
what would make someone like her run. Would she have known about the money that
was hers now and ran so she’d not have to share with her brother? Was she afraid of
her brother, and that was why she ran? There were all sorts of unanswered questions
running in his head, but he knew that he’d not get any answers until Emma woke up.
To fill his time, he did some research on the Gentry family as well as the Frank family.
Neither of them, mostly Bart on the Gentry side, were in good standing with anyone it
seemed. And Kenton was just a little more afraid of having her there with his family.
~~~
Bart was in so much pain that he was sick with it. He couldn’t see well enough to
know who was in the room with him, but he knew that he’d better fucking get some
answers soon. Like where the hell was Emma and why had she run?
“We’ve been looking since it came out that she survived. There is some talk about
who she is, but no one has figured out yet that she is your sister.” And Bart wanted to
keep it that way. The less people knew about her the better it would be for him.
Someone would take her and expect him to pay to get her back. Not that he would, but
he didn’t need the press right now. No way was he going to be standing in front of a
camera looking like this. “I’ve got every doctor and nurse in the area keeping an eye out
for her too. Even called in a few vets in the event she tries that angle.”
Bart knew that his sister had not blown the building up around them. He’d done
that. Only he’d set the timer wrong or something, so instead of it going off at ten at
night when he knew his father and maybe Emma would be the only ones in the
building, it had gone off at ten in the morning, catching him and the entire staff there
off guard. Even his sister should have been killed, as he knew she worked until all
hours of the night to just to keep up with the demands he put on her. Bart picked up the
pencil that had been given to him when he woke up.
It took him forever to write a single word, and no matter how much he wrote it out,
no one was giving him anything for the pain. He pressed the pencil to the paper again
and wrote what he wanted to know. Mark, his only friend, leaned over the paper and
read it aloud. Money? it said.
Mark had come out a winner in the building. Just a few burns and a broken arm.
Bart was still trying to figure out how he’d been hurt so very little, but there was
nothing forthcoming about that either. People were going to have to straighten up
about shit when he got out of there. He was in charge now and they were going to
know it. His daddy being dead left him in charge, and he was fucking excited about
that.
“No. There is no getting to the money in the bank accounts that your father had.
Not that I can figure out yet anyway. I can’t find anything about wills either, or when
someone might be reading it. It’s like it’s some big secret. He said that he didn’t write it
for your dad and so he had no way of telling me what was in it. I made sure he knew
that if he did know, things were going to go badly for him and his family if I found out
differently. Other than that, he said that someone would contact you if there was one. If
not, then there would be a hearing and shit to determine who got what. I’m guessing he
knew about Emma too. That’s some fucked up stuff if you ask me.” Bart wanted to
scream, but could only close his eye against the injustice of it all. He was the oldest and
the son; it was all his. “Hey, Bart, you think I can get some cash from your house? I’m
running low, and you do owe me about ten grand right now.”
Bart only stared at the man. He wished that someone would give him a gun,
because right now he’d use it on this bastard. Asking for money from him at a time like
this was about as callus as it got. Besides, Bart never paid people back…it was
something that he prided himself on. If you were stupid enough to give him money,
then you might as well kiss it goodbye. It was his now. But Mark was nodding like he’d
answered him.
“Okay then, I’m going to take that as a yes.” Bart picked up the pencil again, but
Mark was backing out of his sight. “No worries about telling me where the key is. I got
it. And thanks, man. I can’t tell you enough how much I appreciate you paying up right
now.”
When he heard the door close, Bart threw the pencil across the room and wished
that it had hit the man in the heart. This was really fucked up. Taking money from him
was about as low as it got as far as Bart was concerned. Bart added Mark’s name to the
list of people that were going to be taught a lesson when he was in charge.
Bart had other things he had to deal with right now, and one of them was that he
going to be deformed, they’d told him. Well, they’d not said it like that, but he’d lost an
ear and his eye in the blast. Plus, there had been extensive damage done to his left arm
as well as his left leg. Bart had been told that he’d walk again, but not without a cane.
His arm would be just about useless too, as the fire had damaged all the muscle tissue
there. Also, it was still up in the air whether he’d be able to speak. He wanted to look
down at his broken body, but could barely move his head with all the things they had
on his face. He’d been told that he was lucky to be alive. Bart wasn’t sure that was right.
He’d been a handsome man, he knew this. Women had fallen all over him since
he’d been old enough to fuck. Which he thought was younger than most men had. And
he did whenever he got the chance. As he got older and pickier about his sex partners,
he realized that he was really good at it. Fucking women had never been a sport in the
Olympics, but he knew he’d be taking gold every time if it ever were. Maybe he’d rate
in all three categories and make a sweep of it. He knew he was that good.
“It’s time for your medication, Mr. Gentry.” He wanted to tell her to double his
meds, but his pencil was gone. “I wanted to let you know that the doctor will be in to
see you in the morning, and if you have any questions for him, that would be the time
to ask them. Oh, that’s right, you can’t speak yet.” Her giggle had him jerking his arm
from her. “You don’t want the pain meds? Well, all right then.” When she started to
move away him without giving him the buzz he had come to crave, Bart grunted and
begged for her to return. When she was standing in front of him, he memorized her
face, because she was going to be the first person he killed when he was out of there.
“Don’t fuck with me, mister. I’ve got more important things to do than to care for a
thug like you.”
He was going to make her suffer. And he knew in that moment that she was
keeping his drugs from him too. The doctor would have prescribed him much more
than this bitch was giving him. Bart also knew that she was making a good bit of money
off the shit she was keeping from him. Yes sir, he thought, he was going to make her
suffer in ways she’d never seen before, and he was going to enjoy every minute of it.
As soon as the drugs started to kick in, he let his mind wander over the events that
had brought him to this point. His father had cut him off a week ago. Told him that he
was no longer going to support his gambling debts, nor was he going to be bailing him
out anymore. And the drug money, the money that Bart had been collecting on his own,
was going to stop as well. He was not that type of businessman.
“Why the fuck not?” His dad had only sat back in his chair and said nothing to his
question. “You’ll do this or I tell the world what sort of person you are. And you know
that I know every little part of your life.”
“And what sort of person am I, Bart? A mobster? I used to be, but I’m pretty sure
that the world knows all about that. Or at least they think they do. And it matters little
now anyway. I’ve been running a clean ship for years now, and all that is mostly behind
me. It’s you that is trying to make a name for himself on the most wanted list, aren’t
you?” He asked him what he meant. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you, Bart, and what
you’ve been doing. As of this morning, all that is going to stop. Or at least where I’m
concerned it is. And you’ll not be hurting Emma any more. You lied to me about her
too, saying that she had dropped off the face of the earth. When all this time you’ve had
her hidden away, hiding her like an animal in the sublevels of this place. I more than
likely am to blame a little on that, but I never dreamed you’d do that to myself and your
own sister. Why did you do that? I’ll tell you right now, had I known that was what you
were doing I would have stepped in sooner.”
“So what? Why do you care what’s going on with her? She’s nothing to us.
Especially to me. Why do you even care what happens to her? She’s about useless to
you as a business man; not as good as I am anyway.” His father told him that he’d been
wrong about that too. “And now you think you’re going to bring her into the family
and what? Tell her how sorry you were for what’s happened to her? Won’t work. I’ve
fixed that too. She thinks you hate her, and I’m sure she hates you too.”
“I know.” Bart was almost afraid that he did know what he’d been up to. “I’ve
plans to explain everything to her. And once this entire thing with you is put to bed,
then yes, I will ask her to forgive me. If she doesn’t, then that will be on me. But you are
no longer welcome here as my son. And I plan to look into your mother’s death too.
There has always been something that that seemed so wrong. I’m going to ask Baldwin
to help me find her killer.”
Bart had left the office about an hour later. No matter what he’d tried to get out of
his father about what was wrong with the death of his mom, he wouldn’t say. Nor
would he tell him what he was planning to do with Emma. The fucking bitch had done
this to him, he knew it.
He was still nervous about what he might have been thinking about his mom’s
death. Bart had been careful in that, making sure that nothing that had happened that
night would ever come back on him. He wasn’t even in the state when he’d had her
murdered, and more than that, he’d made sure that the man who had killed her was