Chapter 66
Chapter Sixty-Six
Alexei
I was walking down the stairs when I heard my mother’s frantic voice. “What do you mean she’s hurt? Did someone break-in? What did everything look like?”
My heart stopped beating. My body stopped moving. Everything in me ceased to exist because I knew. I knew something bad happened and it wasn’t to Carina. It was Audrey. I was moving, even though my mind was a whirl of panic. I made it to my mother in a few seconds though I didn’t remember how. My hands gripped her shoulders as I mentally willed her to look at me.
“What’s happening?”
My mother’s face was pale as she stared at me with wide, panicked eyes. “Alexei is on his way.”
“What is going on?” I shouted in the small space and it echoed around us.
“Someone attacked Audrey.”
“Where? How do you know?”
“Georgie called me. She said Audrey was home early and she hadn’t gotten there yet to start cooking. She found Audrey in a puddle of blood in the hallway. No forced entry.”
I knew then that it was my father. He’d told me he wouldn’t hurt her if I got engaged and I listened to him, but he lied. Why wasn’t I surprised?
“Is she alive?” I shook my mother’s shoulders.
She nodded. “But barely, it isn’t looking good. If Georgie hadn’t found her when she did, she would be dead.”
He probably hadn’t planned on Georgie being there. She was the only one of Ace’s staff that wasn’t employed by our father. She was employed by our mother. Our mother, who wanted to make sure we were taken care of and fed well. She’d found Georgie years ago when she assumed we weren’t eating well. Ace took her on full-time and didn’t know that our mother had the sweet cook under her thumb. It didn’t matter though.
“I won’t get to her in time.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “It’ll be hours before I get there. She might be gone by then.”
“Take Audrey’s parents with you in the helicopter.” Her eyes were dark and glassy. She knew. “They aren’t safe here. Make sure you spin it as a break-in gone wrong. Make sure they don’t know the truth.”
“If it’s his will,” I whispered. “They will die.”
“I will handle your father.”
Both of my grandmothers entered the room then. They’d been listening the whole time, based on their pale pallor. Nana grasped the side of my face. “Go!”
Money was such a funny thing. It could almost buy anyone and anything. Somehow we’d managed to get dropped off on the roof of the hospital after an hour in the helicopter. Audrey’s parents stared at me shellshocked the entire way.
“What happened again?” Her father wasn’t stupid. He’d asked all the right questions. Good for all of us that I could lie like no other and I could keep my story straight, especially under such circumstances.
“It was the wedding of the year, as the magazines have been stating. Someone probably assumed no one would be home and they were looking to steal.”
“Cameras?” He asked again as we rushed down the hall.
“My mother is handling it.”
There was no camera footage. Father had all of that wiped.
“Has anyone spoken to Carina?” Her mother wrung her hands.
“They’re probably sleeping on their flight.”
Father planned well. He just hadn’t planned on Audrey inviting Georgie to come cook for her because she was lonely and needed the company. At least that was what Georgie told my mother. She was supposed to be off until Monday. If Audrey hadn’t invited her, poor Georgie would have found her body. I was going to give Georgie a raise. I was going to make sure she was taken care of for life, if my mother didn’t first. I was going to make sure that her kids, kids knew riches.
The walls were so blindingly white I had to squint as we ran down them. When we finally got to the desk for the ICU, the nurses stopped us. There was only so much money could buy, apparently.
“Audrey Wilde.” I barked.
The robust nurse put her hands on her hips. “Are you family?”
“Yes.” We all said at once.
She raised a skeptical brow. “And you are?”
“Her future husband.”
Her mother gasped behind me. I didn’t give a fuck anymore. I wasn’t playing around. My father broke his word. There was no point in not being with the actual woman I loved. I would beg and plead. I wouldn’t give up until Audrey married me. That was all that mattered in this stupid fucked up situation. If she would have me. I would spend every waking moment for the rest of my life making it up to her if she got through this.
“Can we see her?” Her mother was on the verge of tears.
The nurse’s shoulders sagged. “She had to have a blood transfusion. She lost a lot of blood. She’s all stitched up and banged up. I warn you, it’s going to be very difficult to see her like this.”
“I don’t care, I want to see my daughter. I want to hold my daughter.” Her father’s voice broke.
The woman led us down the hallway and opened the door. Laying there under a white blanket was the woman I loved more than my life itself. I didn’t need this accident to tell me. I needed this accident to show me that it didn’t matter what my father promised, he was a heartless bastard and the man would try to ruin my life just for shits and giggles. Nothing mattered more than the woman lying broken in the hospital bed before us. Her face was bruised in multiple places and there was a line of stitches that disappeared into her hairline. Her arms were bruised and beaten up and folded over the tops of the blankets. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I fell to my knees in the doorway as her parents rushed forward with tears streaming down their faces.
I unfolded myself from the floor and walked out of the hospital room as the doctor was walking in. I clicked my mother’s number on my phone.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s sleeping and beat up pretty badly. They said she needed a blood transfusion. I didn’t push, the doctor is speaking with her parents right now. All I care about is knowing if you’ve handled this.”
“He put the hit on her.”
“And?”
Mother didn’t have much of a sway when it came to our father. She’d been at the other end of his anger more times than not. He’d yelled, abused, and restricted her in front of us our entire lives. When we were old enough to defend her, we did, but it always came with consequences. Lost wages. Alleyway muggings. Mysterious disappearances of our friends and loved ones we accrued outside of our family.
“And Grandmother handled it.”
“What does that mean?” I closed my eyes.
“It means your father will leave Audrey alone. You’re free to be happy, my son.”
“I was going to be happy no matter what you had to say.”
“That’s my boy. Go be with her, we will talk later.”