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“If they unplug that machine, she’s gone,” he choked out. “A machine is the only thing keeping her here with us.”
My chest seized to the point I thought I was going into cardiac arrest. “She’ll breathe on her own again.”
I had to believe that.
“It’s so bad, Barn. She already looks like she’s gone. She’s so peaceful. I don’t want her to hurt.” He begged me with every syllable to make this right. To fix it.
If only I could.
“We have to focus on getting her back. That’s all that matters.”
“I feel like Alma’s choking the life out of me,” he confessed. “She’s had her hand around my throat for twenty years. I can’t take it anymore.”
I touched his cheek, somehow finding an ounce of calm. “She is irrelevant. Our family is what matters now. The one wechose.”
I couldn’t think of Alma. When I did, it angered me too much. It hurt too much.
My own sister . . .
“I need it to be legal,” he said quietly, then his eyes turned haunted. “I want to make her disappear.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t know what I felt toward Alma. It was a toxic mix of nothing good. And if she was behind the accident, no matter who her intended target, I might kill her myself.
But something in Kane’s words gave me pause. Like he actually had the power to make her go away.
“I couldn’t do it. It’s not what Penelope would want.”
A semblance of a small smile touched my lips. “No, she wouldn’t.”
“Judge Robard moved the hearing up to Monday. She understands that you won’t be there.” Patrick tossed his phone on the table.
He and Marlow looked exhausted. They’d been on the front lines with us all day.
Had it only been hours since we’d been in this hospital?
“I can conference call or video chat if necessary,” Kane said, sounding a fraction more like himself.
Patrick tapped the table. “What are you willing to concede?”
Kane’s money meant everything to him. Or at least keeping it out of Alma’s hands did.
“Everything.”
The room went silent.
“I’m not telling Judge Robard you said that.” Patrick was the first to find his voice.
My grip tightened on Kane’s hand.
He nodded. “The only thing I care about is you and Penelope. She can have it all if it means she’s out of our lives.”
“Kane.”
He’d only had his work to live for. And he’d built a legal empire with his own hands.
Yet he was willing to give it all up for our family.
I couldn’t fully grasp what that meant. To him. To me.
