I Can't Own You? (BOOK 1)

57 (NEW)

JAMES

Flashback

I finally stretch my legs for the first time in three days. Today is my free day...and a day for revenge. My legs step slowly, wobbling a bit, as if in need of physical therapy. Fuck. Nerves jump around in the veins of my legs, causing me to lean against a wall for balance. Those assholes have demeaned my strength! Oh, what I'm gonna do to them will be sweet and bloody. Wait until I get out, Dons...just wait!!

The door of my hospital room opens. "Doctor Larson, if you've forgotten." A male doctor waves, the same one Luther pulled a joke on. "I'm here to brief you on your forwarding functionality and treatment."

"Functionality?" A scared chill marks my voice. "Don't tell me what I'm experiencing is permanent?"

"That all depends on if the medical staff countered the poison in a matterly fashion. "Please sit." He closes the door and takes a seat in a chair opposite the window. It's as if he read my mind because my legs began shaking intensely and descend the wall I'm propped against. Larson gets up to help me. "Crutches will be needed."

"For how long?" I feel like a bitch as he walks me to the bed...like a dog. "Remember where your leash ends." Don Xavier's taunting echoes my head.

Doctor Larson sits me down, with a look of pity. "If a poisoned patient survives an acute toxic exposure, that doesn't mean that they are home free. Most will develop some degree of nerve damage to the peripheral nerves, the sensory, and motor disturbances. Many survivors may have cardiac, liver, renal, and skin conditions; the prognosis is fair to poor. Since your toxicity wasn't as chronic, you may not experience these conditions for the long term."

I stare at the floor, unblinking, horrified, and for the first time in a long time, lost. "What will I be prescribed?" I ask calculatedly.

"Dimercaprol, a drug that selectively binds and effectively inactivates substances, you have been receiving the oil form for the past few days and now will begin the pills. This drug will flush the arsenic out through the urine."

Zeke is the one that escorts me home. He's mostly a spare driver and could stay put in a car for hours since he's homeless. The guy has curly, orange looking hair...I believe he's half Scottish, that could explain the off American accent he has. "Time to return home." He states in a congratulatory tone, pronouncing his sentence in a choppy manner.

"Right." I step to a black two-door, using crutches, my clothes not fasten on correctly. Zeke gets out of the car.

"Don't."

"You need assistance..." He pauses in between the driver's door.

"I said DON'T!!" I make my way to the passenger side, almost dropping the crutches but beating myself to not fall, to not be a sad case. No, be a man! I lean one crutch on the car and open the door with a jittery arm. The nerves of my arm tighten and heat up. My body manages to slop into the seat, like a worm...like a spineless little boy. "Wake up, little boy." Don Siciliano's belittling sneer enters my head. "Just get me home!" I snarl.

As the car nears a white stone castle-esque place, secluded and manicured. I feel my muscles wiggle like noodles. Pull it together...I need my wits to do what I'm about to do.

I stubbornly wobble from the car and crutch to the entrance of the mansion, challenging myself in a tug of war with masculinity and weakness.

Anna's voice yell an illuminating shriek. "DADDY!!!" She swings open the door, which is way bigger than she is, but her fierce face gives her the power to wield it.