SWNOVELS Chapter 8
Donatello shakes his head as Bunny leads the group to the west wing of my mansion.
“We’ve tested it on them already. I don’t think this will work,” he says.
I turn to the gloved doctor in a crisp white lab coat. He nods, sharing Donatello’s sentiments.
“To see the full efficacy of the drugs, I think it’s best we use a subject that’s clean,” he says.
Bunny scoffs. “And where exactly do we find a ‘clean’ subject? Even Mr. Goody Two Shoes over there enjoys a little fun now and then,” he says, taking a jab at Donatello.
Donatello chuckles. “Speak for yourself. I haven’t used in years,” he replies.
“Oh, I’ll speak for myself. If you’re looking for a clean subject, it’s not me.”
I ignore my idiot brothers and turn to the doctor. “You’re saying that we need to get a clean subject to try these out on?” I ask to reaffirm. The doctor nods.
I look at the boxes of the new miracle drug we just had shipped straight from Colombia. This shipment cost four million dollars and came with promises that America had seen nothing like this.
Coke is a good business. The cops and the FBI get in the way of our business so much that we end up losing profit because we always need to grease the wheels.
With this new drug, it’ll take them some time to catch up. Hopefully, in that time, we will have dusted off our hands and moved on to the next new miracle drug concocted by some other crazy scientist in a nameless lab.
It’s these new drugs that push the market forward and keep our territory strong. We get the good stuff before others do.
But the downside is that to make sure the drugs aren’t an instant death sentence and we have to run certain tests. We have a person ingest or inject the drug, and our doctor monitors them for side effects.
We have had a few cases where things went south, but it doesn’t matter, because the people I test our drugs on are men facing a death sentence anyway.
They are men I have locked up in my basement because I have no further use for them. They are typically traitors or bastards who’ve abused their women. Some of them might have stolen from me, and others are losers who have been sent to spy on me and were dumb enough to get caught.
I look at the doctor, deep in thought.
“I don’t have access to the kind of people that you claim you need to test on,” I admit.
“Oh!” Bunny says suddenly. “What about the girl in the basement?”
“We don’t hurt women, Bunny. Teach them lessons, sure. But we don’t hurt them,” I say.
“We aren’t hurting her, are we? The drug is probably harmless,” Donatello says. “Well, more or less,” he adds.
I inhale sharply. “No,” I reply.
“Why not? You’ve got to have a good reason for refusing. We have to get this drug out there before the competition gets their hands on it,” he presses.
“Donny has a point, man. You did say you’d figure out a way to use it for her. Well, we have one now,” Bunny says.
I sigh. “It’s still a no from me,” I say firmly. “I married her, after all.” I don’t want to explain to them that she gave me one of the most shatteringly amazing orgasms I’ve ever experienced in my club. I don’t want to tell them that she makes me feel protective of her and that I don’t want her to be harmed. I don’t want to examine why any of these things is true.
Donatello turns to me with interest in his eyes. “Why do you still have that wedding ring on? You know that whole thing was a farce.”
Bunny chuckles to himself, but he falls silent as I glare at him.
“We can’t sit by and do nothing, Antonio. The doctor is here to take care of her if anything goes wrong. I don’t see why we’re arguing about this,” Donatello says.
I know I have no excuse for saying no. I’ve barely seen her over the past few days. She isn’t proving to be willing to compromise, and she hasn’t softened toward me at all. While I admire her spirit, I’m getting annoyed by her lack of compliance.
But I still don’t want to pull her out of the basement just to have a random drug injected into her. I can’t allow that.
“She’ll be fine. Just let us run the tests, please,” Donatello says.
I realize that I’m in a situation where I can’t say no. I oblige, but I have the maids clean her up first. If she is going to be drugged, the least I can do for her is to let her have her humanity back for a moment or two.
I don’t know why I’m being so soft with her. My brothers aren’t fooled by my, “we don’t hurt women”, mantra, and neither am I, honestly. I just don’t want to hurt this woman, for reasons that escape me. I even feel bad for having slapped her the other day, despite the fact that she deserved it.
I watch with eagle eyes as she is led into the study by the maid. She looks thin. Her cheeks are hollow, and her arms are bonier than ever.
“The guards say she refuses to eat any of the food that is given to her,” the maid says, as if she’s reading my mind.
“You’re going to wish you had chosen to eat,” Bunny says to her. She doesn’t move a single facial muscle. She allows the maid to lead her to a chair, and she sits quietly, staring into space. I notice how bloodshot her eyes are. She clearly hasn’t been getting any sleep either.
“Finally,” Donatello says as the doctor prepares his syringe.
“Do we need to hold her down?” Bunny asks.
Donatello shakes his head. “I don’t think there will be any need for that,” he says.
He’s right. She is so lifeless-looking that she doesn’t look like she would resist even if a gun was placed against her head. Something in my heart twists at the sight of her in this state. I realize I feel a little sick.
The doctor fills up the syringe with the drug and walks up to her. He looks at her hands and then aims the needle at the vein above her elbow. I watch while holding my breath.
Just as the needle is about to break into her skin, her eyes roll back in her head, and she tips out of the chair to sprawl on the ground. The doctor raises the syringe to show that he hasn’t injected her yet.
I look down at her, feeling a whirl of emotions, the uppermost of which is the desire to protect her from harm.
Donatello sighs impatiently. “Can’t we just inject her with it anyway?” he asks.
I ignore him, and I place two fingers underneath her chin to check her pulse. It’s barely there. I slide my hand under her neck and the other hand under her knees, scooping her up from the floor.
“Where are you going?” Donatello asks me.
I ignore him and turn to the doctor. “Follow me. We have to try to revive her,” I say to the doctor. He follows behind me, forming a wall against the verbal protests from my brothers as I carry Alyssa to the opposite wing of the mansion and into my master suite.
Her skin is starting to feel cold under my hands, but I shake off my fear. She is a strong woman. She will be fine, I tell myself.
The doctor checks her pulse again as she lies on my bed, and he requests some supplies from the testing room in the basement. The maids hurry off to get the things that he asked for while Donatello and Bunny deafen me with their protests.
“Do we need to remind you that she is Giovanni’s spy?” Donatello asks.
“If you were going to get rid of her, you can just do it this way,” Bunny says.
They say a lot more, but none of that matters because she stirs suddenly. I look at her and then at the doctor.
He turns to me. “She’ll be all right. She’s just exhausted. She needs rest and fluids. Aside from that, she’s fine,” he says. He starts the work of hanging fluids and puncturing her skin with an IV. I look away from the sight of the needle slipping into her arm. It makes me feel dizzy thinking about what we almost did to her downstairs.
“Thank you, doctor,” I say when he’s done setting her up with fluids. “You may all go.”
“He can’t leave yet. We still haven’t tested the drugs,” Bunny says.
“We can do that another time,” I reply.
“We don’t have time, Antonio,” Donatello says.
I turn to them with a calm, but stern look. It’s a look that they both immediately understand. “You may all go. I won’t repeat myself,” I say.
“I can’t believe this,” Donatello scoffs before he walks out with Bunny following behind him.
The room empties out, and then it’s just Alyssa and I left in the space. I walk over to the bed and stroke her long hair tenderly. Her lips are chapped, and her face is deadly pale.
What am I doing? This woman is twisting me up inside. But then again, I always knew she would. I roll up my sleeves and dip a cloth into a bowl of water that the maids brought, pressing it down on her forehead gently.
My feelings for her are confusing and probably all wrong, but I’ll puzzle them out later. For now, she just has to open her eyes. It’s the only way that this painful lump in my throat will go away.
“C’mon, Alyssa,” I mutter. “Please be okay.”