Treasured Heart

Chapter 13

A/N: Thank you all so much for reading/reviewing last week! Of course, a huge thanks to my beta, Heather!

Off you go!

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It took fifteen minutes to get the unconscious man, who was covered in blood, over to our ship from his yacht.

As soon as the man was onboard and lying on the deck, Jasper, who had been a medic in the army, went to work. He checked the man's vitals, wincing and muttering obscenities when he discovered the man's pulse was incredibly weak, and then he pulled open the man's shirt to reveal a bloody torso beneath.

"You got him, Jasper?" Edward asked, and when Jasper nodded, Edward and Riley went back over to the yacht to check and see if there was anyone else onboard.

"Bella, can you grab a flashlight and the first aid kit?" Jasper asked, drawing my attention away from the yacht, and I rushed to do as he asked. Setting down the spear gun, I went and grabbed the first aid kit, some bottled water, a thermal blanket, and a flashlight, and rushed back onto the deck and dropped the items next to Jasper.

"Shine that flashlight right here," Jasper said, and I did as he instructed, shining the light onto the man's torso.

Grabbing one of the bottles of water I'd brought out, he poured it over the man's chest and stomach, cleaning the blood off as he went.

"Fuck," Jasper hissed just as Edward and Riley climbed back on our ship, tossing a duffel bag that looked like it had clothes in it, on the deck.

"How bad is it?" Edward asked, and Jas shook his head.

"It's bad. He's got three gunshots to the torso. He's going to bleed out before help arrives unless we can stop the bleeding."

Immediately, Edward knelt beside Jasper and began to apply pressure to one of the wounds.

"Bella, come press down hard on this wound here," Edward said, and I moved over to where he was and knelt down.

I hated blood, and I fought to stay conscious. It wasn't the sight of blood that bothered me but rather the smell. It was metallic and tangy, and it made my stomach curl.

Breathing slowly, I pressed my hand down on the gauze that Jasper had handed me and did my best to staunch the blood flow.

"He's gonna need a blood transfusion," Jasper said before calling out to Omar and asking how far out the Cabo Verdean Armed Forces were.

"At least thirty more minutes," Omar hollered back, and Jasper let out a string of curses.

"He might not have that long, but we'll do what we can to save him," Jasper told us, and we did just that.

We pressed down on the man's wounds, and at one point, Jasper had to perform CPR because the man had stopped breathing. Once Jasper got him breathing again, we went back to trying to stop his wounds from bleeding, and it was as the sun was rising over the ocean that I got a look at the man's face, and I almost stopped breathing.

"Oh, my fucking God!" I snarled as I looked down at the face of the man who had killed my father, and I yanked my hands away from his body.

"Bella?" Edward asked.

"This—" I had to take a moment to reign in my temper. "This man is Marcus Caius."

Edward's head snapped up, and he stared long and hard at the man's face, and his face darkened.