Chapter 56
Alexander
Monday Afternoon
Hospital Parking Lot
I barely got the door open before she was on me. Sammy. Sunglasses on. Arms crossed. Jaw set like she was carved from fury itself. The only woman on earth who didn’t flinch when she saw me coming.
She marched across the asphalt like the pavement belonged to her. “What the hell did you do to her, Alexander?”
I stopped walking. Not because I was guilty. Because I needed the two seconds of restraint it took to swallow the instinct to level anything that stood between Evelyn and me.
Sammy wasn’t an obstacle. She was Evelyn’s heart, wrapped in heels and a bad temper. “Where is she?” I asked.
“Not until you talk.” Her voice cracked like a whip. “She’s in there, pale as a ghost, throwing up blood, shaking with panic, and whispering your name like it hurts. So again—what the fuck did you do?”
My jaw locked. “She went somewhere she shouldn’t have—”
“Oh, bullshit.” She stabbed a finger into my chest. Brave. Suicidal. Loyal. “You don’t get to blame her for your secrets,” she snapped. “You’re supposed to be her home. Her protector. And she ended up in a damn ER because of whatever the hell you brought into her life.”
My fists curled. Not out of anger. Shame. A cold, unfamiliar burn. “You broke her, Hunt.” Her voice shook now. Not with fear. With conviction. “And if you love her half as much as she stupidly loves you, you’re going to fix it.”
She stepped closer until we were nearly breathing the same air.
Her next words weren’t loud; they were lethal.
“She is fragile. More than she’ll ever admit.
She trusts too fast, forgives too deeply, and she’s been through more hell than you even know.
So, listen very carefully to me: if you walk into that room with anything less than full honesty, full vulnerability, and full fucking commitment?
I will destroy you in ways your enemies couldn’t even dream of. ”
Silence cracked open between us. No threat. No bluff. A promise. I stared down at her, then past her, toward the hospital doors—toward the woman who carried my twins inside her body and my entire existence inside her chest.
My voice came out low, scraped raw from everything I hadn’t said. “I’m not going in there to fight,” I told her. I felt the truth of it settle into my bones like gravity. “I’m going in there to bleed.”