Chapter 32
KNIGHT
Isit with her for almost an hour when her eyes spring open, and a terrified gasp sails out of her mouth. “Woah, woah, woah,” I rush out, diving for her hand. “You’re safe, doll. You’re okay. Nobody can hurt you now.”
Her gaze shifts to mine, and she clutches my hand as though terrified I might let go. Her eyes are big, filled with fear as though reliving everything that just happened to her, scared that she’s still there in that alley.
“I’ve got you,” I tell her, reaching over and cupping the side of her face. “I’m not leaving. You’re safe now.”
Harper lets out a breath, closing her eyes as she leans into my touch. Her eyes immediately fill with tears and I gently wipe them away. “How bad is it?” she croaks, her throat hoarse, and I can only assume it’s from having to scream for freedom.
“It’s bad, doll,” I tell her, not wanting to sugarcoat it, knowing she can handle it.
“You had emergency surgery and had repairs to your liver and spleen, but you’re in the clear.
The surgeon was able to stop the bleeding.
As for everything else, you’re going to be sore for a while.
There’s lots of bruising and swelling, and I’m sure the police will want to take a statement. ”
She visibly swallows, and I reach for the bottled water on the bedside table, pausing to put a straw in it before lifting it to her swollen lips. “Take a sip.”
She cringes as the water makes its way down.
“Do you remember what happened?”
Her bottom lip quivers, and as she starts to cry, I get up from the chair and carefully climb in beside her, knowing this is exactly what she needs.
She grunts and gasps as she’s moved around, but the amount of morphine going through her body more than helps.
Then the moment I’m beside her, she curls into my chest and cries, her hand still clutching mine.
“I’ve got you, doll,” I soothe, my hand making soft circles on her back as the tears run their course.
She attempts to tell me what happened when the doctor comes in, and judging by the scowl on his face, he doesn’t approve of me being in bed with her, but there’s not a damn thing he can do or say that’s going to pull me away from her now.
She needs this more than I do, and as her tears continue to flow, I will stay here and be the rock she needs me to be.
The doctor grabs her chart off the end of the bed, making sure she’s up to date on painkillers, and as he strides around the edge of the bed, he looks over her injuries.
Only something has him pausing, his gaze flicking between me and Harper.
“Uncle, right?” he questions, his gaze specifically dropping to the way her hand is clutched in mine.
I cringe. “Step-uncle,” I say as though that’s supposed to make it any better.
I can only imagine the look on Harper’s face, but right now, I’m too focused on the doctor. He looks at me with a deep suspicion, like I’ve somehow done something wrong, but when Harper shifts next to me, his gaze falls back to her.
“How are you feeling, Dr. Madden?” he asks, clearly already knowing her. “Anything I should be concerned about?”
She shakes her head. “No. The morphine has kicked in. I’m feeling pretty good, though I’m not going to say no to more. Feel free to crank it up.”
He smirks at her, shaking his head in exasperation. “Watch it, Harper. Don’t make me put Celia on your case.”
Her eyes widen in horror. “You wouldn’t.”
“I absolutely would if you’re not behaving yourself,” he tells her.
“Now, I’m sure by now you’re aware that you had internal bleeding.
We had to go in and fix up that liver and spleen of yours, but everything was standard.
There’s some slight swelling to your organs, but nothing that wouldn’t be expected in your . . . situation.”
“You can say it,” she murmurs, her face falling. “I got jumped.”
He gives her a tight smile. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t sure how much you recalled of the incident.”
She nods. “All of it.”
He arches a brow, and I meet the doctor’s stare. “The, uhh . . . The guy who brought her in. He mentioned that she was going in and out, saying a bunch of weird things. Is it possible that she has a concussion?”
The doctor steps in closer, his brows furrowed as he looks over her chart again.
“There’s nothing here stating any significant injuries to her head, apart from the superficial injuries to her face,” he mutters, placing the chart down on the end of the bed before moving right into her and giving a quick examination of her head.
“I’m not seeing anything to be concerned about, however we’ll keep an eye on it over the coming days, and if anything alarms us, we’ll get her in for a CT. ”
I nod and sense Harper’s gaze upon me, and as I glance down at her, I find a quizzical stare in her eyes.
“What?” I say. “You can never be too careful. You went through hell today. It couldn’t hurt to ask the questions.”
“He’s right,” the doctor agrees. “Better to be safe than sorry. But either way, I’m going to make a note to keep an eye on it.
” He walks back to the end of the bed and scoops up the chart before scribbling something down, only to drop it back into place for the next person to come along.
“Okay, if you have any questions, just let me know. Otherwise, I’ll leave you to get some rest.”
“Thanks, Dr. Hart,” she says. “I suppose I’ll be seeing a lot more of you.”
He laughs. “Careful, you might just find you like it better up here than in that creepy basement.”
“Hey, that creepy basement is my jam.”
“Okay, now we both know you’re lying.” He chuckles before fixing her with a hard stare. “You know the routine. The nurses will be in to check on you soon, so try not to give them a hard time.”
“I make no promises,” she says as the doctor smirks and strides out of the room.
The moment he’s gone, Harper’s body relaxes against me, and she lets out a breath. I can’t help but wonder if she was putting on a brave face for the doctor and downplaying her pain. She’s always wanted to appear strong, and I suppose that’s not about to change just because she’s in the hospital.
“Do you really remember it all?” I ask.
She nods against my chest. “It took me a second, but once it was there, it wasn’t going away.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
She shakes her head. “Not really, but I also don’t want this asshole to get away with it.
He needs to be punished. I know this is Blackstone and crime is just a given around here, but he can’t just be going around hurting people like that.
What if there wasn’t someone there to call for help?
What if I didn’t get here in time? I would have bled until—”
She cuts herself off, not ready to say what would have happened, but I hear the words loud and clear.
Died. She would have died, and I never would have survived it.
“Start from the beginning,” I tell her, holding her tight.
She nods again and I notice how her tears have finally started to dry up, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s because there’s simply no more tears left to cry or because there’s nothing left to feel. Is she hollow inside? Empty?
“I had gotten another tattoo—”
“What?” I grunt, my head whipping down toward her, scanning over her body. Surely I would have noticed if she’d just gotten a tattoo. “Where?”
She lifts her hand to the space behind her ear, furthest away from me. “I got a cute little voodoo doll,” she says. “She’s gorgeous. A total badass.”
“A voodoo doll?” I ask.
Nervousness flickers through her gaze, and when she lifts her chin to meet my stare, I see nothing but love shining through those big green eyes.
“I got it for you,” she tells me, glancing away, not able to handle the heaviness of my stare.
“Because you call me doll, and every time that you do . . . I like it.”
Her cheeks flush as a shy smile stretches across her lips, but when it pulls at her stitches, she cringes. “No shit, huh?” I ask, grinning right back at her. Gob-fucking-smacked.
“If you tell anybody, I’ll deny it and say it’s because you’re obviously obsessed with me,” she teases. “But it couldn’t just be a cute little kids’ doll. It had to be cool. Hence the voodoo part of it.”
“Of course,” I say, the breath completely knocked out of my chest at the fact that she was willing to put something permanent on her body that symbolizes our relationship. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
Harper rolls her eyes. “Anyway, I was coming out of the tattoo parlor, you know the one that’s owned by Harlow?
” I nod, knowing it well as that’s where I’ve gotten most of mine, and she continues.
“I was parked right out front on the curb when this group of guys came up to me. There were five of them, and one of them, the one who started all this shit, I know him from work. He’s the new night shift janitor.
He’s a complete ass and always makes me feel uncomfortable, but if there’s a body on the table, he gets queasy and leaves. ”
Why the hell didn’t she tell me about this guy?
“Do you know his name?”
She shakes her head, and everything plummets inside of me, but what’s one more hoop to jump through on my way to evening the score?
“He was the one calling the shots?”
She nods. “Yes. But they hurt me too. He tried to grab me so I dropped him, and then everything just blew up in my face. It all happened so quickly. They dragged me into the alley and beat me while I screamed for them to stop. They weren’t going to.
They would have kept going until I was dead, but someone yelled at them, and they ran. ”
“Shit, doll,” I murmur, my heart aching for her.
She glances away. “They stole my car.”
“Don’t worry about your car. I’ll handle that.”
She arches a brow and glances back up at me. “You’re gonna get it back?”
“If that’s what you want?” I ask. “I’m more than happy to get you a brand-new car, but if you specifically want that one, I’ll find it.”
She nods. “I don’t want a new car. I want my car.”
“Then I’ll get it, doll.”
A soft smile pulls at her lips and she reaches for her drink again, but I beat her to it, not wanting her to move too much and pull any of her internal stitches.
After having a quick sip, she holds the bottle in her hands, falling into a deep silence, and I can practically hear the thoughts storming through her head.
“What is it?” I ask, meeting her broken stare.
“Earlier you said that the guy who brought me here had spoken to you. Did you, umm . . . Did you happen to see him?”
I shake my head, my brows furrowed. “No, he called me to let me know you were here. He said he was a friend of yours, but he didn’t give a name.”
Her shoulders slump. “It was him,” she says.
“I was all over the place in the car. My head was pounding and I was in agony, but it was him. The stalker. He still had the mask on and everything, but there was something familiar about him. I was just . . . I was too out of it to try and put it all together or figure out how I knew him, but there was something about his voice and that car. I think I’ve been in that car before. ”
“Fuck, doll. Are you sure?”
She nods. “Positive.”
“He brought you here to save your life,” I muse. “Then called me so you’d have someone here when you woke up. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would he do that? It’s not consistent with anything we know about him. Are you sure? You saw his face . . . or that mask he wears?”
“I’m sure. He was calling me kitten, demanding to know who hurt me.”
I sit back against the mattress, my mind spinning a million miles an hour, and after a minute, Harper glances up at me, her brows creasing with concern. “What is it?”
“It’s just messing with my head,” I tell her. “None of it makes sense.”
“What doesn’t?”
“This stalker,” I tell her. “The first body in the morgue going missing and none of the detectives knowing shit about the case is unheard of, but I was willing to put it down to this guy playing the game. But for that to happen three more times, it’s not possible.”
“What are you saying?” she questions, her back stiffening.
I shake my head, not really knowing. “There have been four bodies, two of them being a double homicide. There would have been 911 calls, cops arriving on scene, reports made. The case would have been assigned to a detective before the body was taken to the morgue, and yet no one knows a damn thing. I could have put it down to coincidence one time, maybe even called it suspicious, but four separate times within weeks of each other. That doesn’t happen, doll. ”
She takes a breath and stares up at me as though I’m some kind of stranger, her brows furrowed. “Oh my God. You don’t believe me. You think I’m making it all up.”
“No, doll. That’s not what I’m saying at all,” I tell her, hating the pain that radiates from her broken stare. “I think your mind might be playing tricks on you. I think you believe it to be real, but there’s no evidence to suggest that any of these things are actually happening.”
Tears roll down her cheeks, and she just stares at me, the betrayal thick in her eyes, and I know without a doubt that I’ve just shattered her heart.
“You need to leave,” she whispers, her voice breaking.
“Doll, you have to believe that I’m not trying to hurt you,” I tell her, almost begging for her to hear me out. “You know me better than that. I just want to get to the bottom of this. I want to help you. I want to help this go away.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head and looking away as though she can’t even stand the sight of me. “Please, Knight. Just go.”
“Doll.”
“Please.”
I watch her for a moment, and as she refuses to look back at me, I climb off the bed, going as gentle as possible so as to not jostle her around. “I’ll go, but I don’t want you to be alone, not after everything you’ve been through today. Can I at least call Izzy and let her know?”
She shakes her head. “I’ll be fine, Knight. I can handle myself.”
Harper looks away again, and as I watch her, I realize there’s no changing her mind. Not now, and with nothing more that I can do, I walk out of her room, leaving my heart right there in the palm of her hand.