Chapter Three #2
“His loyalty,” she clarified. “Once he commits to something, it’s absolute.”
I nodded, remembering that about him. It was what had made his rejection after his sentencing so crushing. His loyalty had shifted, excluding me.
Knight finally broke the silence with Brynn. “Look, I know this is weird and shitty. You’re sick and some strange-looking guy is in your private space. You don’t know me. You probably hate me. That’s fine. But right now, all that matters is getting you better.”
“And then what?” Brynn asked, and I heard the vulnerability beneath the hostility. “You give me a kidney and disappear for another eleven years?”
Knight’s expression softened almost imperceptibly. “That’s up to you and your mom. But I’m not planning on disappearing. Not this time.”
Brynn looked away, her fingers picking at the edge of her blanket. “Whatever. Do what you want. Not like I have a choice anyway.”
Knight glanced at me, a question in his eyes.
I nodded slightly, giving him permission to continue.
“I’ve already called the transplant coordinator,” he said.
“They’re expecting me downstairs in twenty minutes to start the testing.
It’ll take a few days to know if I’m a match, but they’re expediting everything. ”
“How’d you manage that?” I asked, genuinely curious.
The corner of his mouth curved up slightly. “Let’s just say I know people who know people. Having a benefactor who specializes in getting things done quickly helps.”
I digested this information. I felt like I should be hesitant about Knight’s connections being used on our behalf.
But honestly, if it helped Brynn, I couldn’t object.
Rhys might’ve stolen or cheated or whatever they’d convicted him of, but he’d always had a moral code.
It might not align with the law all the time, but he’d always had a line he wouldn’t cross.
“I should probably head down there soon,” Knight continued. “But I wanted to see you first.” He looked directly at Brynn. “Both of you.”
Our daughter shrugged, trying to look indifferent, but I caught the way her eyes kept returning to Knight’s face, studying him when she thought he wasn’t looking.
“Fine,” she said. “Go get stabbed with needles or whatever. Maybe when they stick me next time I’ll be a Voodoo doll. Every time they stick me, it sticks you.”
Knight actually smiled at that, a quick flash that transformed his face, momentarily revealing the younger man I’d once known beneath the hardened exterior. “Yes, ma’am.”
He stood, and I found myself taking a step toward him, as if pulled by some invisible force.
Our eyes met across the room, and despite everything -- the years, the hurt, the strangers we’d become, I felt a flutter of something familiar in my chest. Something I thought had died the day he told me to get out of his life.
“Thank you,” I said, the words inadequate for what I was feeling. “For coming. For doing this.”
He held my gaze steadily. “Don’t thank me for doing what I should have been doing all along.” The raw honesty in his voice caught me off guard. This wasn’t the man I’d expected. This was something else entirely, and I didn’t know what to make of it.
Ada touched her brother’s arm. “We should go. Don’t want to keep the doctors waiting.”
Knight nodded, his eyes still on mine. “I’ll come back up when I’m done.”
“We’ll be here,” I said unnecessarily.
As Knight turned to leave, Brynn’s voice stopped him. “Hey.” He looked back. “If… if you’re a match,” she said, her voice smaller than before, “does it hurt? Giving up a kidney?”
Knight’s expression softened. “From what I understand, yeah, it hurts like hell for a while. But you heal. And maybe that can be the start of me making up for missing a lifetime of memories with you.”
Brynn nodded once, then looked away again, but not before I caught the flicker of something in her eyes.
Not quite trust, not even close. But maybe the beginning of understanding.
I hadn’t been lying when I told Rhys about Brynn’s intelligence.
I could tell she was trying to size Rhys up, to decide if she believed him or thought he was full of shit.
Then she shrugged and turned her head to gaze out the window.
Knight and Ada left, the door closing quietly behind them. I sank back into the chair beside Brynn’s bed, suddenly exhausted.
“You OK?” I asked her after a moment.
She shrugged. “Whatever. He seems like an asshole.”
I smiled despite myself. “He can be. But he’s here. He didn’t have to be.”
She didn’t answer, just stared at the door where Knight had disappeared. Finally, she said, “His sister seems nice.”
“She is,” I agreed. “She always was.”
“And those other guys? With the motorcycle vests?”
“His club brothers, I guess.” I tried to keep my voice neutral. “I don’t know them.”
Brynn fiddled with her IV line. “They looked scary.”
“Yeah.”
“But they came with him. For him.” She said this like she was working something out. “Like they’ve got his back or whatever.”
I nodded, understanding what she was getting at. “I think they do. I think that’s his family now.”
She fell silent again, and I let her process. After a while, she looked at me, those piercing blue eyes so like her father’s fixing me with a gaze too old for her eleven years.
“Mom?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Did you make the right choice? Bringing him back?”
I stared at the closed door, thinking of the man who had just left. It was hard to think of him as anything other than the man I’d known eleven years ago. Not quite a stranger. Something in between.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I hope so.”
As I sat beside my daughter’s bed, listening to the steady beep of the monitors, I wondered if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life or scored our only salvation.
With Rhys back, nothing would ever be the same again.
I had to wonder if his return would be a blessing or the second biggest heartache I’d ever experienced.