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“That’s because Nikki’s been here since she was fourteen, living in this boy’s granny’s house. She came down here looking for her family just like her daddy told her to. But she got afeared ’bout somethin’ and ended up on the Shelby side with him.” Mama-Pete drops that atom bomb like it’s nothing.
“What?” she asks me with a cheeky wink. “Did you think one of my grand-babies would be in the same state, let alone town, without me knowing about it? I was just about to have one of her cousins swoop her up and bring her to me when you picked her up. Then you got her in that fancy school, so I had my baby Nebraska look after her up there. And…” She pauses, looking at the rest of the grandchildren sternly. “T’weren’t none of y’all business. Plus, everything ended up as it should’ve, except a few licks.”
All mouths, including mine, clamp shut. No one is going to go against the stern matriarch. I again open my mouth to speak, but she cuts me off.
“Plus, if he proved foul, like his ol’ daddy, we would’ve laid him down.”
“Ha,” I exclaim, laughter pouring out of me, knowing the tiny little woman means exactly every word she’s saying. The rest join in laughing, knowing it too, especially the men who would have done exactly as she asked, even Angel if I proved unworthy by hurting one of the precious women this family holds so dear.
In short order they all leave, save for Dr. Everything. “You should go and get some sleep,” she tells me. “Plus you stink.”
“How about you let me go get a change of clothes out of my truck and come back up here to shower, then slip me some extra blankets so I can be here when she wakes up? You know I’m not going to be able to rest anywhere but by her side.” It sounds like I’m pleading because I am. Mimi holds all the power here. She’s the primary on Nik’s case which normally would be against policy but Shelby-Love only has this medical center serving our and several other rural communities. I can’t go around her; I already tried.
The ICU is very protected, and there are checks after checks to get to this wing. Everyone on our team and the family needed special badges to get on this floor. So there was no mistaking who was cleared to see the senator’s wife and a prominent member of the Love family. Joi’s security was even tighter because she had actual police personnel outside her room, and none of us could see her but Mimi, because she was also her primary-care doctor, Mama-Pete, and Pa-Pete.
The rest us were deemed to hold too much resentment to keep her safe until she faces the consequences of her actions.
“Okay.” She sighs, looking at my forlorn expression and giving me another key card. “Here, use the shower on the second floor in the doctors’ lounge. This is the key card to get you inside. There is another code—KMGB0925—that you need to put in to get access after you swipe this one so that you don’t have to do a fingerprint scan. Then take the stairs using this same card and code, go to her room, and don’t come back out. I’m going put some warm blankets and a pillow in there for you now.”
She pats me on my shoulder like it’s goodbye for the charge nurses, RNs, and other ICU staff. Then she heads back down the hallway to Nik’s room.
Hurrying, I go down to my diamond black crystal pearl coated Maybach, which I decided to drive because it still holds Nikki’s scent from the last time we rode in it.
After retrieving my suit from the back seat, I close the door. An eerie feeling slides up my spine. I snap the door closed, then think about getting my Sig out of my glove compartment, but I stop myself. If the cops see it, they will naturally assume I’m carrying it for Joi. There has been no small amount of speculation about what I want to do to the little witch.
I head up to the second-floor doctors’ lounge just as Dr. Mimi instructed. After letting myself in, I hang the bag LL packed for me the first night. Natalie offered, but I declined, knowing Nik wouldn’t want her in our home, let alone a place as sacred as our bedroom. Nat continued to offer, asking if there were particular things Nik wanted to wear or things that would bring her comfort. Nat’s face was crestfallen when I told her the cousins and Nik’s sister had already seen to those needs.
While washing my body with sure strokes, I pause, touching my scars, remembering the way she kissed each and every one like she was bestowing a blessing. She was healing me in ways neither of us recognized. Our bodies finally came together in the ties our souls had long ago forged. This woman was made for me. Her humanity, her soul, all mine.
A ragged sob escapes me before I can stop it. There, under the fall of the shower in a hospital where I stood helpless as the woman I love with all my being fought for her life just days ago, I give myself to the emotions I’ve never allowed myself to embrace, not even as a boy.
Dressedin a blue-black hoodie and jeans, make my way to the fifth-floor intensive care unit. I slide the key card and hit the code. The door opens onto the hallway that houses the suites of the most critical patients. Down the hall I see the sheriff’s deputies still guarding Joi’s room, but that isn’t what interests me. Nik’s room is on this end of the hall. In fact it’s a few steps away.
I go to turn the knob, but the door’s locked. Knowing these doors are built to withstand everything, I hurry down to the nurses’ station.
“Senator, h-how did you get on this floor?” the charge nurse asks, her face a mask of shocked outrage.
“My wife’s door is locked. I need the key.” Holding out my hands, I wait the precious seconds it takes her to make a decision.
“Patient’s privacy is a priority—”
“Are you daft, woman? She was in a coma, and her spine is bruised. She can’t fucking walk because someone tried to kill her. Now give me the fucking key before I put you in the fucking ground.” Unleashing all the wrath and ferocity in my body, I snatch the keys from her hands, ignoring her calling security.
Just as I silently slip the key in, I see three figures coming out of the private stairs—Padre, Rocco, and Snake. I knew Angel had men stationed here, but they were like ghosts. I press my hand to my mouth, then quietly open the door. They stand sentinel outside.
My mouth falls open at the scene before me.
Nikki and Nat are struggling, over what, I can’t make out for a second. Then I see the needle in Nat’s hand flash. Rushing forward, I body slam into her, making her crash against the wall. She falls into a heap in the corner, seemingly unconscious.
Nik is heaving, struggling for breath. “It’s okay,” I say, coming to sit beside her, smoothing her damp curls back from obscuring her face. Grabbing the thermos on her bedside, I place the straw beneath her mouth for her to sip.
“Not too fast,” I admonish, watching her eyes, tracking every movement of her face, every flutter of her lashes. Her eyes close as she savors the refreshing wash of liquid down her sore and parched throat.
“It—it was her,” she croaks. “Sh-she tried to kill Joi and me. Poor Joi,” she sobs, covering her mouth, shaking her head at the horror she must have discovered. “Is—is she okay? Please tell me she’s okay?” she pleads. Her whole face is awash with anxious hope.
“She’s fine. She’s down the hall. Babe, we thought she did this to you. Are you saying she had nothing to do with it?”
She’s already nodding, taking a fortifying sip. “No. It was that evil bitch.” Cocking her in the direction of an incapacitated Natalie. “She’s had some kind of fixation on me and thought she would be a better senator than you. She’s been planning this for like ten years. Used Joi, started messing with her when she was really young, and has been mentally and physically abusing her ever since. All those stories about my family, about me and you—” She takes in the shocked disbelief on my face and touches me with trembling hands. “It was her, Mathias. All of it. There’s no telling what she did. Joi was her creature. Totally ensnared by her until Natalie tried to get her to steal my birth certificate. When that didn’t work, she tried to make her kill me. Then she set the barn on fire. Something is really wrong with her.” She casts furious eyes over to Natalie. “You should have seen the way she was abusing Joi.” Her voice cracks then as she breaks down in heart-wrenching sobs.
