Chapter 30
HARPER-RAYN
The stars sparkle in the clear night sky as I sit on the back deck, wrapped in Knight’s warm arms with a blanket thrown over us. We’re enjoying our Sunday night before the rush of work starts back tomorrow.
It’s been a chaotic few days. Ever since the morgue was opened after Elias’s attack, we have been scrambling to keep up.
I had no choice but to take charge, and while I fully expected the day to be a mess of mishaps due to being understaffed and overworked, what I wasn’t prepared for was the overwhelming emotion the interns, assistants, and admin staff brought in with them.
It was a sob fest as everyone grieved for Dr. McKullan, and I barely managed to hold it together as one by one, they would break into tears.
Although their grief certainly is not something to laugh at, I couldn’t help but smirk at the awkwardness on Ace’s face every time one of them would fall to pieces.
Apparently, crying girls isn’t his thing.
Though it makes me wonder how he’d react if those tears belonged to Izzy.
I sip my drink, my eyes growing heavy, and while I know I should probably head to bed, I can’t bring myself to move.
It’s too perfect right here. It’s peaceful.
There’s nobody trying to kill me. Nobody wearing a fucked-up mask.
No work to think about. Nothing, just me and Knight enjoying the starry sky.
I could stay like this forever, but I know at some point, my bladder is going to ruin it for me. It’s abnormally small. I swear, nobody on earth needs to pee as regularly as I do. It was a huge issue during my surgical intern years, and I’m not too ashamed to admit that I had some very close calls.
“Come on,” Knight says as I start to drift off on his shoulder. “Let me get you to bed.”
“No,” I grumble just as a yawn rips right through me. “I wanna stay here with you.”
“I’m not going anywhere, doll, but you’re getting cold, and if you don’t head to bed soon, you’re going to end up mistaking brain matter for your ramen noodles, and I don’t want to be the one holding your hair back when that lapse in judgment starts coming back up.”
I can’t help but laugh. “You’re seriously disturbed, you know that, right?”
“Oh, I am well aware,” he says with a grin as he shifts around and slips his arms beneath me, one under my back while the other slides perfectly under my knees.
Then with one clean swoop, he lifts me straight off the small deck lounge and into the warmth of his strong arms, bringing the blanket along with him.
My head rests against his chest as he strides through the back door. Somehow, without dropping me, he manages to pull the sliding door closed behind us and flick the lock in place.
Knight makes his way through the house, and as I snuggle against him, I reach out and flip every last switch off that we pass, like some oddly romantic bedtime routine.
Once the final light goes out and our home plunges into darkness, Knight turns on his heel and heads for our bedroom.
A loud knock sounds through the house just as he hits the hallway, and he pauses.
I freeze in his arms, practically becoming paralyzed as Knight seems to clutch me even tighter, responding to the knock as though it’s the greatest threat to ever come our way.
“It’s after one in the morning,” I whisper as he hastily places me on the ground. “Who the hell would be knocking on our door?”
Knight barely allows me a moment to finish my question before he rushes to the hallway cupboard, dragging me along with him and refusing to let me out of his sight.
He reaches into the cupboard, and within a flash, he’s holding a gun firmly in his hand.
My eyes widen, realizing far too slowly that this could be something much more than a random house call in the middle of the night.
Another knock sounds at the door, but instead of filling me with concern, it stirs nothing but uneasiness in my chest. A strange whimpering sound immediately follows, and I swallow over the fear in my throat.
Could this be Elias, finally coming to finish what he started? Come to even the score with his brother?
Fuck.
“Check the cameras,” Knight murmurs, digging into his pocket and pressing his phone into my hand as he pulls me along, his arm braced across my body like a human shield while somehow managing to keep me directly behind him.
I scramble for the phone, quickly finding the right app before opening it up and hating how damn long it takes to load, but before I know it, the perfect visual of our front porch appears on the screen, and right there, on her hands and knees, is my mother, covered head to toe in blood.
“MOM!” I cry, racing past Knight and lunging for the door, only he grips my arm and yanks me back.
“Don’t,” he growls. “Could be a trap.”
Fuck.
My whole body shakes, desperate to get out there and figure out what the fuck is going down when Knight fixes me with the kind of stare that keeps me pinned to the floor.
“Stay,” he commands as he slowly reaches for the door and twists the handle.
He opens it just a fraction, his gun taking the lead as he skillfully sweeps the front porch and surrounding areas, ignoring my bleeding mother at his feet.
The moment he decides the coast is clear, he opens the door wider before reaching down and scooping Mom into his arms, just like I had wanted to only a moment ago. He kicks the door shut with a loud thud a second later.
“Lock it,” he tells me, and I don’t hesitate to dive in behind him to lock the door before going for the deadbolt as well.
Knight gets her down on the ground, and I rush through the house, searching for my medical kit.
Once I find it, I hurry back and fall to my knees before her, assessing the damage.
My gaze roams over her body as her chest heaves with uneven, shaky breaths.
Knight’s already calling for an ambulance, and despite knowing they’re on their way, I get started, doing what little I can from the bag at my feet.
“She’s gotta have a collapsed lung,” I tell Knight as I take in the bruising and the way her chest rises unevenly as she gasps for air.
But what gets me the most is the blood dripping down her thighs, seeping through the thin fabric of her pants.
Everything inside me breaks. Over these past few days, I’d only just started getting comfortable with the idea of having a baby sister and potentially being able to care for her.
Knight sees what I see, but neither of us mentions it, unsure if Mom has realized it when she reaches for me, gripping my hand. “You were right.” She gasps sharply, her chest struggling to take a proper breath. “He’s back.”
Fuck.
The paramedics arrive within six minutes, kicking Ace’s record of seven minutes and fifty-three seconds. As they tirelessly work to stabilize my mom, I stand back with Knight in absolute shock.
I have so many questions.
Did he beat her? Was it because he found out about the pregnancy, or did she finally get the nerve to ask him about his involvement with me?
Did she push him on the double homicide in the morgue or my accusation of sexual assault?
Or was he just fucking bored and looking for something to pass the time?
Tears fall from my eyes while Knight holds me, guilt tearing through my chest so violently it almost drops me to my knees. I should have tried harder to protect her. I shouldn’t have taken no for an answer. Now there’s a possibility that she’s lost my baby sister, and she might even lose her life.
The paramedics get her stable enough to transport, and the moment she’s put on the stretcher and wheeled out to the ambulance, I hurry out after her with Knight on my tail, both of us climbing into his truck.
We follow the ambulance, and as Mom is taken into surgery, I’m left with Knight in the waiting room with nothing to do but wait.
I hear him on the phone, giving orders to Diesel as he gets the team together to go find Elias, but I doubt he stuck around to wait for the fallout.
The moment he left Mom to fend for herself, he would have taken off.
Hell, he would have been miles away before she’d even found the strength to drag herself into her car and drive her ass to me.
It’s a miracle she’s alive, having gone so long with a collapsed lung, but why the fuck didn’t she call for help? Why waste her time coming to me when she could have headed straight for the hospital? Why not crawl to the neighbor’s place and ask for help? I don’t understand it.
The night ticks by painfully slowly, and when Mom is out of surgery, we’re allowed into her recovery room to sit with her until she wakes.
Knight comes in and out, giving me updates on the raid at Elias’s home, and I’m not surprised when he comes in looking ashen, telling me that there was no sign of the bastard.
Had he gone home with the intention to hurt my mother?
I don’t know. All that matters to me is the baby growing in her womb.
Is it cruel to believe that she brought this on herself?
That in not believing me and choosing wealth over her own safety, she had this coming?
She stepped directly into the lion’s den, dressed as a vulnerable little lamb, and batted her eyelashes, thinking that’d be enough to save her.
I begin pacing the hallway outside her room as the sun peeks through the hospital windows.
It’ll be shift change soon, and so far, her surgeon still hasn’t come to speak with us.
But it’s been one of those nights, patients have been coming in by the truckload, and while I’m desperate to find out the state of the baby, I also know how it can be during night shift.
Knight watches me as I make my way up and down the hall when I hear the slight shift in Mom’s heart rate monitor and pause at the door, looking in. She lies in her bed, attached to all kinds of machines, panic in her eyes as she tries to piece together how the hell she got there.
“Mom,” I say, walking into the room and automatically checking her vitals on the screen before taking the seat at her bedside. “You’re okay. You’re in Blackstone Hospital.”
“Harper?” she croaks, fear in her eyes.
“You’re alive. You made it in time,” I tell her. “How’re you feeling?”
She shakes her head as though unable to believe the night she’s had. “I really thought he loved me,” she murmurs, tears welling in her eyes. “I thought that would be enough.”
“I’m sorry he did this to you, Mom, but I tried to warn you what he was like,” I say, realizing too late that I just gave her the extended version of an I told you so, only I can’t seem to keep the words from falling out of my mouth.
“You wouldn’t listen to me. You just called me a liar instead of hearing me, and now you’re here.
He’s killed two men in cold blood, almost killed me twice, and sexually assaulted me.
And I just . . . I can’t understand why you would choose that over wanting to have a relationship with me.
Are you that hungry for his wealth that you would willingly risk your life to wear designer labels? ”
Mom glances away, unable to handle the judgment in my eyes. “I’ve worked too hard to get here,” she tells me. “I’m not about to throw it all away because a man had a tantrum. The law will catch up to him sooner or later, and I will be the one left standing.”
“So that’s your grand plan?” I ask, absolutely disgusted with her. “Hope like fuck that Knight’s men are able to take him down before he manages to kill you, and then what? You’ll live the rest of your life reaping the rewards?”
“Judge me all you like, Harper-Rayn, but at least I know what I want and am not afraid or ashamed to go after it.”
I shake my head, unable to believe this woman. “He literally beat you until your lung collapsed, by the way,” I tell her. “And your face? You’re going to have to get plastic surgery if you intend to retain membership in the rich wives’ club.”
She sucks in a breath, her fingers coming to her face, only to wince at the pain. “Scars will heal,” she says. “That’s what makeup is for.”
Knight shifts by the open door, and I have to be honest, I hadn’t realized he was here listening. I thought he was still out in the hallway. “What happened, Mae? Did he return home and attack you unprovoked?”
She presses her lips into a hard line, guilt flashing in her eyes, and I see the exact moment her shoulders slump, deciding to be honest for a change.
“You have to understand,” she starts. “I had assumed he wasn’t returning.
I thought I had to find a plan B, so I was entertaining a male friend.
You know, Julie’s husband. You would have met them at my anniversary dinner—”
“The guy who knocked you up, I assume?”
“Yes,” she says, coldly. Though it doesn’t go unnoticed how she fails to ask about the well-being of the baby inside her womb, while also admitting to sleeping with a friend’s husband.
“I believe Elias must have been watching me through our home security system because he returned home in a fit of rage. My . . . company was able to slip out the back door while Elias came for me.”
“You understand how insane this is, right? You have to leave him.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” she tells me. “He just needs some time to calm down, and then it’ll be fine. Everything can go back to normal.”
“And the baby?” I ask.
“What about it?” she says, glancing away.
“I assume I miscarried, and in that case, so be it. Considering Elias’s vasectomy, it’s for the best. This way, there’s not a constant reminder of my infidelity, nor a screaming child for me to deal with.
It should help keep Elias calm, at least until the law catches up with him. ”
She’s fucking sick.
I see red, and suddenly, there is no question about whether I’m ready to raise a child, because if that baby still lives, I will never let my mother get her hands on her. On the off chance that this baby somehow survives, the second she’s born, she’s mine.
I shake my head, getting to my feet as rage burns through my veins.
“For what it’s worth,” I spit, my hands balling into fists at my sides as I try not to cry.
“We don’t know if the baby still has a viable heartbeat, but if she does and she miraculously survives nine months in your womb, I’m taking her far away from you. ”
And with that, I storm out of the room, collecting Knight as I pass him. As far as my mother is concerned, she’s dead to me. Elias can have her.