27. Killian
KILLIAN
“ N o—” I yell as Lilah falls into my arms, and the woman on the other side of the kitchen screams.
“You!” she shrieks and raises her gun. “You did this. That should have been you.”
She aims the gun at Lilah, and I cover her with my body.
Everything happens all at once.
Glass shatters around us, and the woman with the gun falls to the floor as pain rips through my shoulder. Xander rushes in, barking orders into a phone and drops to his knees next to me.
“She shot her. She needs an ambulance.” My voice is hoarse, and my ears won’t stop ringing. “Lilah.” I lift her in my arms and cradle her head. Begging. “Baby, please open your eyes. Lilah... LILAH —” I scream when she doesn’t move and refuse to let her go when Xander tries to take her from me. “Get a fucking ambulance.”
Her lashes flutter, but her eyes don’t open.
“Lilah... baby. Open your eyes. You’re going to be okay. Please, baby. Please.” I press my lips to hers, then pull back and see a trickle of blood slip past her lips. “Lilah...”
I have no idea how much time goes by before the paramedics rush in and try to force me away from her.
“Killian, you’ve got to let them take her,” Xander tells me, but I refuse to.
“I’m going with her,” I tell anyone who comes near her until Xander pulls me away from Lilah.
“You’ve got to let them help her. I’ll get you there right behind her. But you gotta let them help her first.” He has to physically hold me back as the two men and one woman in uniform go to work, and a cop walks toward me.
“Can you tell me what just happened?” the officer in blue asks.
“I don’t have a fucking clue.” I refuse to take my eyes off Lilah, and when I swear I hear my name on her lips, I shove my way through everyone to get to her. I take her hand in mine and wince. Her hand is fucking freezing. “She’s freezing,” I yell at whoever the hell will listen.
“It’s the blood loss.” A different officer moves next to me. “Has anyone checked you out yet, son?”
They cut my hoodie off her body and have a pile of white gauze, which is now bright fucking red, pressed against her abdomen.
“I’m fine.” I try to ignore him and move with the medics as they get ready to take her from me. “Just fix her.”
I refuse to let go.
“Son, you’ve got to let them go.” He looks around, blocking me. “Do we have anyone who can take a look at him?”
“I’m not staying here.” I shove my way past him and grab Xander, staring at my hands that are soaked with Lilah’s blood, gripping Xander’s gray shirt. Fuck. “I need to get to the hospital.”
He turns to the cops and tells them something, but I don’t hear it.
I don’t hear anything over the roaring in my ears.
Once we’re in the car, the world starts coming back into focus.
“What—what the fuck just happened?” I ask, unsure if I’m asking Xander or myself. “Was that the publicist?”
“Zoe,” Xander agrees and hits CarPlay. “Call Noah Ryan.”
The phone rings before Noah answers, and I don’t give Xander a chance to talk. “Get to the hospital, Noah. It’s bad, man. I tried to stop it, but I was too late.”
I run my hands over my face and look at them again.
They’re wet.
I’m wet.
Fuck. I’m crying. I didn’t even realize I was crying.
Noah asks a million questions all at once, none of them registering with me.
“Call your parents. Tell them the publicist shot Lilah. Tell them I’m sorry. I tried to stop it, but I was too late. They’re taking her to the hospital now?—”
“What hospital?” he screams, and the sound is something, like you’d hear from a broken fucking animal, being ripped from his throat.
Shit. I didn’t even think to ask.
“They’re taking her to UPenn. They have a better trauma center than Kroydon Hills,” Xander tells him. “Call your parents, Noah. Then call Killian’s. I’ll call if we hear anything before you get there.”
“Where’s Zoe?” Noah asks, his voice at an unnatural decibel.
“Dead,” Xander answers, and I turn to look at him.
“How?” I’m not sure if I’m asking how it happened or how I missed it.
“I killed her.”
“ P lease let a doctor look at your shoulder,” my mother pleads for the millionth time in the past four hours, like I’m going to give her a different answer now than I did then.
“I’m fine. It’s a graze. Brynlee looked at it, Mom.” I look down at her from the place on the wall I claimed after the last time the nurse came out and updated us.
“Brynlee is a physical therapist, Killian. You might need stitches.”
“Give him some space, Mom,” Brynn saves me. “He’s okay.” She slides in next to me, taking up her own space on the wall, and waits for Mom to sit back down with Dad. “She’s just worried about you, and you know she can’t stand it when she can’t control everything in her world. It’s her love language.”
“Yeah...” I look down at my blood-stained shirt that I refuse to change and squeeze the hoodie they cut off Lilah earlier between my hands.
“She’s going to be okay, Killian.”
She’s going for comfort, but it misses its mark. “You can’t know that, Brynn.” I breathe in and out, trying to control— fuck —trying to control anything I can. Clinging to the idea that this is all a bad fucking dream. That we’re going to wake up, and she’s going to be sleepy and soft in my arms where she’s supposed to be.
“I can... Big sisters know these kinds of things.” Brynn leans her head on my shoulder and sighs. “Does she make you happy, little brother?”
“I know what you’re doing,” I tell her.
“Do you?” she asks quietly. “Do you remember my answer when you asked me that?”
I think back to that day in Brynn’s condo when I found out she was seeing her now-husband and how pissed I was. “You said he was everything.”
She nods slowly. “And you told me he wasn’t everything, I was. Well guess what?” She waits me out then nudges me. “No guesses?”
“Brynn... I’m covered in the love of my life’s blood. I’m not in the mood for guessing games,” I grunt.
“Here’s the thing, Killer. You were wrong. We both were. Because when you love someone the way I love Deacon and you love Lilah, one of you isn’t everything. It’s the two of you together that are everything. And there’s no way you’d be given that for it to be taken away so quickly. I have faith.”
“Wish I did,” I utter, still wishing it was just a dream.
“Well, I believe enough for the both of us.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Ryan?” When I look up, it’s not the nurse calling us to her this time, it’s a doctor. And I don’t give a shit that I’m not Mr. and Mrs. Ryan when I approach. The doctor looks from Lilah’s parents to me, waiting for the okay to continue.
“This is Lilah’s fiancé, Killian,” Brady tells the doctor as Nattie takes my hand in hers.
“The bullet caused a severe liver laceration. Too severe for non-surgical options to stop the bleeding. Once we got in, we found more damage than we hoped, but we were able to successfully repair the damage to the liver, though Lilah lost a lot of blood. I’m sorry, but we weren’t able to save the baby.”
“What?” I whisper as my knees threaten to give out.
Nattie grips me tighter, and my parents, who were trying to give us a false semblance of privacy, move to my other side.
“Lilah was in the very early stages of pregnancy. There was nothing we could do,” the doctor tells us, and my entire vision narrows down to a pin dot on the wall.
“Can I see her? Is she awake?” I ask before her parents can speak, and tears stream down my face. I don’t care that I’m in a waiting room full of people. I don’t care that her mom and dad want to see her too. I don’t care what my sister said. Lilah is everything. She’s my everything.
“She’s in recovery now. We’re going to keep her there for a few hours. I’m sorry, but only one person is allowed back.” He looks at Nattie, but Nattie looks at me with exhausted, tear-stained eyes.
“It should be you, Killian. She’ll want to see you when she wakes up.” She wraps her arms around my waist and squeezes. “But you tell our girl that her daddy and I are right here, and we can’t wait to see her, okay?”
I nod with a heavy head and an even heavier heart.
“Take me to Lilah.”
“ S he looks so pale,” I say to the doctor, who follows me into the private recovery room.
“She’s lost a lot of blood, but she’s a fighter,” he tells me, like I need a stranger to tell me this woman is a fighter. She’s been a fighter her whole damn life.
“She saved me,” I murmur, so fucking mad at her for that.
“I’m sorry we were unable to save the baby. But there was no permanent damage that would indicate any issues with her carrying to term in the future once Lilah has recovered.”
The future . . .
This morning my future was set.
I was marrying the woman I’ve loved my whole fucking life, and now, I’m staring at her, knowing when she wakes up, I’m going to have to tell her we lost our baby.
I pull a chair next to her bed and sit down. “Can I touch her?”
“Yes. Hold her hand. Talk to her. Let her hear your voice. Studies show it helps.” He checks something on one of the machines she’s attached to, then moves toward the door. “A nurse will be in shortly to check on her again, and I’ll be by again later. We normally wouldn’t let you stay for longer than an hour, but no one will be asking you to leave, Mr. St. James.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Thank you for everything,” I tell him as I pick up Lilah’s hand.
She’s still cold, and I hate it.
She should be warm and smiling and full of life.
I should be the one in this bed.
I press my lips to her hands. “Wake up, princess. Show me those beautiful eyes. Yell at me for calling you princess, even though you really love the nickname.” I drop my head to our hands. “I can’t do this without you, Lilah. I need you. Please don’t fucking leave me again.”