Chapter Thirty-Six
It took over a week in the ICU to stabilize Alex enough to be moved to a room where she saw more than doctors and nurses and brief glimpses of Hawk and her family.
Dee had given her enough of a tranquilizer to kill her if she hadn’t been found in time. Already, her kidneys were starting to shut down.
The toxicology screening shocked everyone. Dee had been slowly poisoning Alex with arsenic.
Tasteless, odorless, and added to her daily coffee.
There was a bag of it found in Dee’s purse, and even more at her home.
The woman’s torment of Alex and constant shifting of tactics—bomb threats, bloody teddy bears, and then poison—ensured that no one in the family, or the team guarding Alex, could predict her next move.
All because of a woman’s misplaced grief over the loss of her family.
The moment Alex was placed in a normal hospital room, a reclining chair was put at one end of the room, and Hawk never left.
Through the seemingly endless rounds of dialysis needed to bring her kidneys back to health, he stood by holding her hand.
When the nightmares woke her, he was there.
And when enough of the tubes and monitors were removed, he’d climb in beside her and hold her until she fell asleep.
During the days, the rotating door of visitors made the room into a florist’s shop.
Her mother forced Chase and Max to take Hawk home to shower and rest. But he never stayed away very long.
When Alex had energy, they talked endlessly about their lives, childhood ... the dreams they had and still wanted to achieve.
As much as Hawk had tried to keep Alex from seeing the aftermath of Dee’s assault, it wasn’t a vision she’d ever forget. Death in the woman’s stare, blood everywhere.
The night before her discharge from the hospital, her family sat around her room, talking about everything and nothing at the same time.
“How is the investigation going?” Alex asked for the first time.
Nick stood up with a whoop and placed the palm of his hand facing up in the air. “Pay up, suckers. I won!”
One by one, her family pulled wallets and purses out, and hundred-dollar bills filled her best friend’s palm.
Alex looked at Hawk.
“Don’t look at me. I wasn’t in on their bet.”
Nick counted his winnings. “The bet was how soon before you ask about the office and the investigation.”
“I was the first to lose,” Chase said.
Piper nudged her husband. “He didn’t think you’d make it out of the ICU.”
“I gave you three days after the ICU,” Piper said.
“Max said a week, and I thought you’d wait until you got home,” Sarah said while Max shrugged.
Alex glanced at her mother and Gaylord.
Vivian shook her head with her hands in the air.
“Well?”
Chase sat forward, his arms on his knees. “They should be wrapping things up in the next month or so. We’ll have a monetary number soon on what the company is owed by Dad’s estate.”
“And a substantial retainer will be held in reserve for pending civil suits,” Piper added.
“Nothing you need to worry about, little filly,” Gaylord said. “You have one job.”
“Get better,” Vivian said.
Alex looked around the room. “What about ... the office. My ... office?”
Hawk placed a hand on her leg. “It’s all taken care of.”
“You know how my staff was only using half of the third floor?” Chase asked.
“Yeah.”
“We moved all the executives down there,” Max told her. “I’ve had a lot of fun helping the demo team beat the shit out of those walls.”
Alex found a laugh. How many times as a kid had she wanted to take a baseball bat to her father’s precious office to get the man’s attention?
“Your remodel plans are underway. You won’t recognize the place when we move back in,” Chase told her.
“Floyd?”
“He won’t go without an accessory charge.
Though no one is convinced it will stick.
There is too much evidence suggesting Aaron was setting Floyd up for a fall,” Hawk explained.
“The Bakshais denied any involvement. And without a body or even the identity of the woman Floyd claims was murdered, the feds can’t pin anything on them. ”
“What about the companies associated with the CIMs? The bribes that put those properties in Bakshai’s hands?”
Hawk lifted his shoulders to his ears. “If the feds have anything solid on that, they’re not sharing.”
“You’ve worked with the government, what do you think will happen?” Max asked.
“I think the accusations against Bakshai are the tip of a very big iceberg. If Floyd’s testimony is true, Aaron wasn’t the only one stuck in a vicious cycle of doing the man’s bidding.
And since the companies associated with the CIMs don’t all point in the same direction, my guess is Bakshai is also a pawn. ”
“More like a rook,” Gaylord said. “Aaron was the pawn. And anyone like him.”
“If Bakshai is ever eliminated from the chessboard, we’ll know the threat is deeper.
Deep enough that your father didn’t know who the real boss was and couldn’t point a finger if he wanted to.
I don’t think the world has heard the last of the Bakshais.
But they won’t be bothering you,” Hawk assured Alex.
“How can you be so sure?” Chase asked.
Alex wanted that answer, too.
“Because you hold nothing incriminating. Nothing to testify if the man was charged with a crime. All you have is what Aaron put in a safe that was turned over to the feds. And only an idiot would violate the FBI’s strong suggestion that he keep his distance.
Bakshai is many things, but he is not an idiot,” Hawk said.
“In my experience, whoever is pulling Bakshai’s strings would see the man dead if he did something to shed light on their operation.
Trust me, he won’t so much as send a Christmas card. ”
Hawk’s affirmation was helpful to hear.
Alex put a hand over her mouth to hide her yawn.
Her mother patted Alex’s hand. “That’s our cue to leave.”
The room echoed with the sound of her family gathering their belongings.
“You sure you don’t want to come back to the estate?” Max asked.
Alex looked at Hawk, shook her head. “I have my own babysitter.”
Max kissed her cheek and shook Hawk’s hand.
Sarah slipped around Max. “Nick has agreed to help with the wedding planning. Let me know when you’re up for us crashing your place and stealing your expertise.”
“Give the meal planning to someone else,” Hawk suggested.
“Hey!” Alex chided playfully.
“Cooking was never her strong point,” Vivian whispered to Sarah.
“I’m being ganged up on here. Gaylord, help me out.”
He tilted his hat and winked. “I’ll hire a chef. Problem solved.”
Chase kissed her next.
“I’ll be back in the office—”
“When the doctors say and when everyone in this room agrees,” Chase said.
“Those are two vastly different things.”
Piper placed a hand on Alex’s leg. “We have you covered. No one deserves time off more than you.”
She knew everything was running without her. Which put a calm in her that hadn’t been there before. Not even in Colorado. Stone Enterprises had survived the storm with the captain passed out in a stateroom. Which meant the crew members were doing their jobs.
Gaylord pinched her cheek. “I’ll bring your mother back next week, unless you need us sooner.”
Alex captured his hand, looked him in the eye. “Thanks ... Dad.”
Gaylord froze.
Vivian sucked in a breath.
“Is it okay if I call you that? We didn’t really ever have one, and you’ve been more of a father for me than Aaron ever was.”
Gaylord was never at a loss for words. Yet he stood there staring at her with moisture building behind his eyes.
The room grew silent.
“It would be an honor to be your daddy.”
Alex felt emotion clog in her throat.
Gaylord took his hat off, leaned down, and folded her in his arms. There was nothing like the big Texan’s hug.
She heard him sniffle before letting her go. “Soon as you’re up for it, you’re coming to Texas to pick out your horse.”
Alex wiped at her own tears. “Oh?”
“We’ll find the feistiest mare you can handle.”
“If you insist, Dad.”
Gaylord put a hand to his chest and his Stetson back on his head. He reached a hand to Hawk. “I’m counting on you to keep her safe, son.”
“That’s my plan.”
Nick was the last to say good night.
And he did it in the way only Nick could. He glanced over his shoulder to the open door of the room. “Do you know if our nephrologist is single?”
“Nick!”
“What? He’s employed, definitely a team player ... I didn’t see a ring. You’re always telling me to pick better men.”
Alex shook her head. “I always tell you to pick one man.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh well. My mother would approve of a doctor.”
Alex giggled.
Nick brushed a kiss on both sides of her face. “I’ll call you tomorrow. And make sure I’m available to take you to your follow-up appointments.”
“Get out of here.” She pushed him away with a smile.
Hawk placed a hand on her leg and stood. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked with her family out of the room, and she found herself alone.
Alone with the flowers.
And to think, on Valentine’s Day, the sight of flowers had annoyed her.
Even Dee had flowers on her desk.
The memory of the mousy woman took center stage in Alex’s vision. Dee taking down the schedule, calling her Ms. Stone and hiding her eyes, bringing her coffee.
Alex’s breath caught, and heart rate started to soar.
“ Tick. Tock. ”
The gunshot.
The blood.
Alex closed her eyes and tried to get ahold of her breath.
“Sweetie?”
Without opening her eyes, she reached for him.
Hawk was there in an instant.
“Deep breaths. You got this. You’re here, you’re alive. I’m with you.”
She swallowed.
“Come on. Deep breath, one, two, three, four, five. Exhale, one, two, three, four, five, six.”
Her eyes fluttered open.
Hawk stared directly into her soul. He repeated his counting, and she forced herself to follow his directions.
Alex was back in the hospital room.
Hawk lowered the rail on the bed and lay down beside her. His hand stroked her arm, her head resting on his shoulder. “I’m right here,” he whispered.
“I’m okay.”
“What was it this time?” he softly asked.
What was it this time that set her off?
Even though her body had healed, her head was still a giant work in progress.
A coffee cup.
The shy nurse.
The way one of her doctors had called her Ms. Stone after she told him not to.
A phone ringing.
The most random shit set her pulse racing and had her gasping for air.
“The flowers,” she told him.
He waited.
“She sent herself flowers from her husband on Valentine’s Day.”
“I’ll send you chocolate,” Hawk said, kissing the top of her head. “I love you,” he whispered.
She closed her eyes and soaked in his words.
Words he hadn’t stopped saying from the moment she opened her eyes in the ICU.
Life had proved too fragile to wait even a moment without sharing how she felt. And she loved Hawk, with every fiber of her soul.
“I love you, too.”