“Jesus,” Sebastian whispers as he arrives with Lucie, who immediately covers her mouth in horror. “Is that all…?” He wipes a hand across his jaw, gesturing at me.
I look down at the red stain all over my shirt and pants. On my hands, between my fingers and around the wedding band.As awful as I look, Grace looked far worse at the bottom of the Webbers’ stairs, a sheet of crimson spreading around her. I picked her up, felt the hot blood soaking me, each fresh drip sending terror through me until my knees shook.
Mick opened and closed his mouth; Karie just stared. Before they could offer some bullshit excuse, I left with my wife.Have to take care of her and the baby. I stiffened my legs and spine, taking long strides and placing her in my Bugatti.Have to stay strong for my family.
“Fuck.” Noah thrusts his fingers into his hair. “Let’s get you a change of clothes.”
I shake my head. “Can’t. I have to wait for Grace.”
“Then how about we just clean you up a little? You don’t want to scare her when she wakes up,” Molly says gently, then brings several wet towels.
“Thanks.” I take the towels, but merely hold them. Cleaning up seems so frivolous. What if Grace doesn’t wake up? She lost so much blood. I wish I hadn’t studied law. If I’d studied medicine, I could be more use to her now.
“What happened?” Sierra asks.
“I think her mom died.” I manage to push the words out through my numb mouth.
“Oh no.” Bobbi’s face softens with sympathy.
“It gets worse. It looks like her mother died about a year ago, and Nelson and Karie kept it from her.” Karie and Mick didn’t say anything, but I could piece together that much based on what Earl told me and what Grace murmured while half-conscious. She cried out, “Mom, Mom… I’m so sorry,” while tears fell from her eyes.
When confronted, instead of doing the right thing, they undoubtedly dug in their heels. Mick thinks he’s slick, but I saw him hit her at the top of the stairs.
Suddenly my terror morphs into sheer rage. Do they think what I did to Nelson was brutal? Wait until I get my hands on Mick. I’m going to kill that motherfucker.
“What the fuck?” Nicholas mutters in disgust. “What kind of assholes do that?”
I shake my head, incapable of any sort of clarity on that point. As the seconds tick by, even more dread and self-recrimination pulse through me until I want to rip my hair out and bury my face in my hands. I should’ve known she wouldn’t be able to just sit tight while I confirmed the details. After Earl dropped his bombshell, it didn’t seem right to tell her about her mom until I had all the facts. I would have waited until my investigators had looked into the matter before telling her about Winona if she hadn’t asked me to go see her mother in Baltimore. Lying to her face, saying that I’d love to, would have been an appalling betrayal when I already knew that she would never see her mother again.
Earl said he found out that her mother’s body was given to a couple who claimed to be her family. The hospital believed them, since they were the people paying her bills every month. They said the body had been cremated, but beyond that, they didn’t know.
Mother arrives with Grandmother. The former looks terrible, her red mouth set in a tight line, her eyes flashing with murderous fury. Grandmother shakes, not from age—the old bat is healthier than most people thirty years younger—but with barely suppressed rage. Uncle Prescott and his wife join us. My cousins show up, too. They don’t show any reaction to the blood on me except to press their lips together. Aunt Akiko turns deathly pale. She’s probably remembering her miscarriage. She lost her only baby at the end of her first trimester and never became pregnant again.
Ares gives me a light pat on the back—which to him is equivalent to a full-body hug, because he hates touching or being touched. Josh squeezes my shoulder.
Bryce lets out a rough breath. “What did the doc say?”
“Dunno yet.”
“Where is Nelson?” Grandma’s tone says he should be here.
I shake my head. “Don’t know. Don’t care.” It’s good he isn’t here, because I might kill him.
“What happened?” Mom asks.
The idea of recounting what Grace had to go through again makes me want to vomit. Seb fills them in.
“What?” Mother’s sharp voice cuts through the air. “Grace’s mother passed away a year ago, and those weasels never told her?”
“Oh, that poor child.” Aunt Akiko’s face crumbles.
Just then the doctor comes out, dark circles around his sunken eyes giving him the appearance of gloom and doom. But the small smile on his lips gives me hope.
“My wife…?” I ask hoarsely. The air around us stills as my family hold their collective breaths.
“She’s suffered a slight concussion and a hairline fracture in her left forearm, but other than that she’s fine. She just needs to rest and take things easy.”
“Thank God,” I whisper, burying my face in my hands.
