The sound of the glass slicing through flesh was sickeningly loud in the quiet hallway.
Blood erupted instantly. A deep, jagged line tore across Jane's left cheek, exposing the raw muscle underneath.
The bloody shard of glass slipped from her fingers and shattered against the floor tiles. Jane's eyes rolled back. Like a puppet with its strings cut, she collapsed forward.
Carson's pupils blew wide open. His heart violently seized in his chest, skipping a full beat.
His body moved before his brain did. He took a half-step forward, his hand reaching out to catch her. But his conscious mind slammed the brakes. He froze, his hand hovering in the empty air.
Jane hit the ground hard. A pool of dark red blood quickly spread across the white tiles around her face. She was completely unconscious.
Meredith let out a piercing scream. She covered her mouth and stumbled backward against the wall.
The nurses at the end of the hall finally saw the blood. The shrill sound of a medical emergency alarm blared through the floor.
Freeman Morales, the hospital's top trauma surgeon and Carson's closest friend, sprinted out of the stairwell with a crash cart team.
Freeman saw the blood. He shot a look of pure shock at Carson before dropping to his knees beside Jane. He pressed a thick gauze pad hard against her face to stop the bleeding.
"Get her on the gurney! Move!" Freeman yelled.
The medical team hoisted Jane up and rushed her down the hall toward the emergency surgical suite.
Carson stood frozen in the middle of the hallway. He stared at the puddle of blood on the floor. His fingers twitched slightly. His chest felt tight.
He clenched his jaw, forcing the physical reaction down. It's a trick, he told himself. She did this to escape punishment. She deserves this.
The red light above the surgical suite clicked on. Carson ripped his tie loose. He walked down to the private smoking lounge and lit a cigarette.
Two hours later, the red light turned off. Freeman walked into the lounge. He pulled off his bloody surgical mask.
Carson crushed his cigarette into the ashtray. "Is she dead?" he asked, his voice deliberately harsh.
Freeman didn't answer right away. He looked at Carson with a heavy, complicated expression. It looked a lot like pity.
Freeman let out a long breath. "Twenty-eight stitches on her face. She'll live, but the scar is permanent."
Carson let out a cold scoff. "She asked for it. It's what she owes Blaire."
Freeman shook his head slowly. He stepped closer. "The cut on her face is nothing, Carson. It's the old scars that shocked me."
Carson frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"When we cut her clothes off, I saw her ribs," Freeman said, his voice dropping low. "She has multiple old fractures that healed wrong. Her back and arms are covered in overlapping cigarette burns. And the deep tissue bruising... it's permanent."
Freeman stared directly into Carson's eyes. "That wasn't a few prison fights. That was years of systematic, brutal torture."
The hand Carson used to hold his cigarette jerked. Ash fell onto his expensive leather shoes.
Five years ago, Carson had paid off the prison warden. He told them to give Jane "special attention." He wanted her to be miserable.
But he never ordered them to permanently cripple her.
For a split second, panic flared in Carson's chest. But he immediately buried it under a thick layer of ice. He refused to feel sympathy for a murderer.
"Women like her make enemies easily," Carson said coldly. "She got what she deserved for running her mouth in a cage."
"Carson," Freeman warned. "Don't do this. She is severely malnourished. Her body is shutting down from physical trauma."
Carson refused to take the medical file Freeman held out.
"Wake her up," Carson ordered, turning his back to his friend. "We aren't done settling our accounts."
Freeman watched Carson walk away, easily spotting the frantic tension in his friend's rigid shoulders.
Inside the recovery room, the anesthesia began to wear off. Jane's eyebrows twitched. A weak groan slipped past her lips.
She slowly opened her eyes. A burning, tearing pain radiated from the left side of her face. Thick bandages covered her skin.
She stared at the white ceiling. She was alive. And being alive meant the hell was going to continue.
