Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Leo
C ome on, baby, wake up…
It feels like I can’t breathe in or out all the way, like the fear is smothering me.
It’s felt like this ever since I got Em’s frantic phone call. The one that stopped my heart and turned my head to shit.
Sadie’s unconscious in the hospital bed. The doctor told me they gave her something to help her sleep, and that she’ll wake up soon. I tried to make them promise me that, and they just kept saying the same thing: it’s not a coma, she’s just resting, she needs to rest.
Even so, my legs won’t stop shaking, and I think they’re going to carry on like this until she opens her eyes again.
I only have the vaguest flashes since my mobile rang, interrupting our ring hunt. Em’s shaking voice, telling me what happened and that she’d been trying to call me for ages. Eli shouting a long way behind me. My car. Horns blaring as my car careened all over the road in my hurry to get to them both. Racing through the hospital, asking random faces where Sadie was, hoping someone, anyone, knew.
Some guy led me to a seat that I collapsed into. He had a lanyard that said he was a nurse, and he was wearing blue scrubs. I focused on his face as best I could, and his mouth was moving, and my brain took a moment to catch up with the words he was saying.
Stitches in the side of her abdomen…wound wasn’t too deep…contractions…fortunately no placental abruption -
“Is she OK?” I plead with him.
His eyes are sympathetic. “She’s going to be fine.”
I let out half a breath. “And the baby?”
“From what we can tell, the baby is unharmed.”
I exhale the rest of the way, such a long way past relieved that my head swims and I see sparkles, and I have to put my head between my knees.
“We’re monitoring them both, and we’ll keep her in overnight just to be sure, but I’d say she had a lucky escape.” He puts a hand on my back. “Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. You’re fine.”
After a few steady breaths, the world seems to level out, and I look up again. “Where is she?”
“This way.” He leads me down a couple of corridors to a room with a bed curtained off. When I pull the green fabric aside, she’s there, banged up with a drip in her arm, her eyes closed. Em is sitting with her, and lifts her finger to her lips to keep me quiet.
“She’s OK,” she whispers, and then quietly walks to me and wraps her arms around my waist. “The police are here, and they’ll want to talk to you. They’ve had a quick talk with her already, but then the doctor needed to…to finish looking her over, and…” Her voice cracks.
I hug her absently, unable to take my eyes off Sadie. Her hair is spread over the pillow, her face resting to one side. She has a drip in, and her hands are still cradling her stomach protectively, her new maternal instincts undiminished in the face of sedation.
“Tell me everything,” I say in a low voice, slow fury twisting through me now that I’ve seen with my own eyes that she’s safe.
Pulling me further from the bed so we don’t disturb her, she tells me the whole story. Walking out to a scene from a nightmare. My crazy fucking valkyrie doing martial arts on her attacker. The fall. Gary charging in, our little winged avenger, who is definitely getting extra treats for the rest of his life. The plant pot. The police, and the ambulance.
I hear footsteps running down the corridor, and then Dean and Eli are in the room as well, catching their breath and looking everyone over, trying to figure out what happened and if everyone is OK. Giving me one look, Em decides to usher them both out for explanations and leave me with Sadie.
My life.
My entire universe.
I don’t know if I’ve sat here for minutes or days, but it’s fraying me. Just watching, holding her hand and kissing her knuckles as gently as I can, waiting for her to wake up.
Finally, her eyes slowly open, and it takes a couple of moments for her to register me sitting on the bed before she gives me a weak smile. “Hey.”
With just that one word, spoken in a croaky voice, it all just hits me. I could have lost her. I might never have heard her speak again. And our little compadre in her womb…I may never have gotten to hold our child. They were so nearly snatched from me on some random, unremarkable Saturday out of nowhere, everything I’ve ever wanted stolen at the last moment.
“Fuck, Sades,” I whisper, before gently scooping her into my arms and breathing her in. Taking time to truly appreciate the smell of her hair, the feel of her tucked under my chin. It’s all so much more precious now than ever before, even when I longed for her the most back in the day.
“I was so scared,” she whimpers, rigid as she forces herself not to cry. I kiss her face cupped between my hands, torn between my adoration for her and her bravery and rage for the motherfucker who dared to threaten my family for nothing more than just some cash.
I can’t find any words. I can’t find anything coherent in me except bone deep relief that steals my ability to do anything else except hold them close and figure out a way to keep them both there permanently. I’m sure I can get used to living my life with one arm occupied by clutching them to me twenty four hours a day.
I’m not sure how long we silently hold each other, drawing peace and calm from each other’s arms, but after a while, there’s a cough behind me. I turn, and there’s a uniformed policeman next to a woman in a grey suit with a white shirt, her hair tied back in a tight no-nonsense ponytail. She unfolds her ID to show us both. “Sorry for interrupting. I’m Detective Antoniou. I’m guessing you’re the Leo she was asking for?” There’s a faint hint of Australian in her voice.
I look back at Sadie, my heart cracking once again at the thought of her asking for me. “Yeah, that’s me.” I hold out a hand for her to shake, and although she’s firm rather than brutal, I can tell she could break my hand if she wanted to. It’s reassuring.
She turns to Sadie. “You spoke to my colleague earlier. How are you feeling?”
I look back at her, keen to hear the answer myself. “Tired, mostly. And relieved that…” She looks down at her stomach and runs a loving hand over it.
Detective Antoniou nods with understanding. “From what I hear, you did a great job fighting him off.”
Sadie shrugs. “The krav maga lessons paid off when it counted.”
“They certainly did.” She sighs. “I’ll cut to the chase, because lord knows you could both use some more rest. Does the name Peter Lang mean anything to you?”
I frown, and Sadie stares. “Yes, he’s my ex. Why?”
The detective gives us both an even look, and that, more than anything else, lets me know I need to brace myself for what she’s about to say. “Your assailant has been, as they say, singing like a canary since we started questioning him. It seems Mr Lang was the one who employed him to try to rob you.”
If Antoniou had told us that Peter was the tooth fairy, I don’t think I could be any more shocked. Sadie’s mouth drops open, my feelings mirrored in her face. “But…why?!” she splutters. “There has to be a mistake, Peter wouldn’t - ”
“Your ex has built some sizeable debts, by all accounts. Jayden Ross, the one who attacked you, is one of his students. Lang convinced him to do it in exchange for straight firsts in all his coursework and a cut of anything he stole.” She looks grim. “We’re bringing Lang in for questioning, but if what Ross has told us is true, Lang has not only conspired to commit armed robbery, he’s also committed fraud using cloned credit cards to fund his lifestyle supplied by Ross’s associates, and we believe he may have been behind your recent problems with your bank account. And your credit rating tanking.”
“I…” Sadie looks like she’s been smacked around the face with a sack of wet cement. “But he…” She struggles, and then exhales and gives up.
My whole body feels both cold and hot at the same time. My vision throbs. My hands shake with rage.
I have never, ever been this angry in all my life. Not once.
I am going to find Peter Fuckface Lang, and I am going to end his life, slowly, using pliers, a blowtorch, and my bare hands. I am going to make Sadie’s beloved Art the Clown look tame .
“Were you aware of any financial troubles he may have had?” Antoniou asks Sadie, but she can only shake her head. “No large purchases, no gambling problems?”
“No - wait…” Sadie’s eyes wander all over her blanket as she casts her mind back. “I mean…he did have a lot of fancy things, but I mean, he’s a lecturer. Of economics . I just put it down to a decent wage and financial nous. Savings, and dividends, and…that kind of thing…” Her face is white. “He stole from me?”
“It would appear so.” Antoniou wears the face of someone who sees this sort of thing every day, not unsympathetic, but unsurprised and matter of fact.
I cannot share her calm.
“Where is he?” I manage to sound relatively cool, though my temper is burning hot and my jaw is clenched.
“As I said, we’re bringing him in for questioning.”
“And if I asked you for five minutes alone with him?”
The detective smiles wanly. “I’d say that, while I personally wouldn’t have a problem with that if it was up to me, it’s way more than my job is worth.”
Sadie’s hand slips over mine and squeezes, and it’s only then that I realise I’m shaking like buildings do during an earthquake. “I should have been there with you,” I murmur to her, anger and guilt tying my guts up in knots.
“You couldn’t have known,” she tells me sensibly, though her voice still quavers, “and you can’t watch over me every second of every day.”
I rub a hand over my face, trying hard to calm down. “I know that, I know, but I never even dreamed …”
“Why would you?” Sadie rests her forehead against my jaw, and I try to keep in mind what’s important: that Peter’s plan failed, and that Sadie and our baby are safe.
But the urge to wrap my hands around Peter’s throat and squeeze until his neck crumbles and collapses will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. I’ll always feel cheated that I couldn’t do it.
Eventually, a long, slow deep breath settles me enough to be able to turn to Antoniou, who is waiting so patiently, and ask, “So, what happens now?”
“Now, I go and question Lang, who will be under caution. We need more than just Jayden Ross’s word as proof, but I imagine a look at Lang’s laptop by our colleagues in forensics will shed further light on the matter.” She gives me a don’t-fuck-with-me look. “And in the event he is granted bail, you are not to go looking for him, or I will come looking for you and make you regret risking jail when you have a beautiful family to take care of.”
Point taken. I look at Sadie, and then bump, and then give Antoniou a lopsided smile. “You make a good point,” I admit.
“Always. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Lang’s got some explaining to do, and I’m the lucky one who gets to pry it all out of him.” Her gruff smile almost meets her eyes, and then she and her constable have left.
“Leo?”
“Yes, my love,” I say, running a hand over her hair.
“I’d rather you didn’t leave me tonight.” She rubs her hands over her face. “I know there’s probably visiting hours and regulations, but…”
I smile, climbing next to her on the hospital bed. “Woman, they would have to knock me out with a mallet if they wanted to drag me out of here. It ain’t gonna happen.”
Eli
Watching them both through the door window, the last little piece of me that was still knotted with worry loosens up.
I’ve never seen anyone with an expression like Leo’s when he answered his phone. The way he looked both murderous and terrified in a single instance…I can’t describe it, and I hope I never see anything like it on his face or anyone else’s again.
After he ran off, my wife called me, and once I’d established that she was OK, Dean and I got to the hospital via cab. We ran fit to bust a lung through this massive fucking labyrinth of a hospital before we found everyone, and when I got the full story, I thought my head might explode.
If Leo wants to go after Peter, I’ll be going with him. I owe that rat bastard for putting Em in danger, too. A guy with a knife, who actually cut a pregnant woman? How the fuck did Peter find someone like that among his student body, and what was he thinking?! And I imagine Dean would jump on board the vengeance train, too. But it sounds like Leo’s going to do the smart thing and just focus on himself and Sadie. And the baby.
I feel sick when I think of a knife anywhere near that little one while it sleeps inside my friend. I wonder if it was just a coincidence that all three of us were out of the parlour, leaving the women on their own. But this guy with a knife, and Peter, took on the wrong ladies. Sadie has always been a force to be reckoned with. A fighter, a survivor, a no-fooling lioness. Peter can’t have been in his right mind, to think what he planned was a good and viable idea. I’m in awe of what she did, physically fighting him off like that. I’m just sad and angry that she had to go through that ordeal.
My arm goes around Em’s shoulders, and I kiss the top of her head. Dean’s sitting in the waiting area texting like fury, I imagine filling Liaden in on events, and I just take a few moments to hold my Chere . My brave darling girl, who took on an armed lunatic with nothing more than a plant pot at her disposal. My spine shivers when I think about her being in the same room as anyone as violent and dangerous as that, again . But I couldn’t be more proud of the way she handled herself.
Thank fuck they took up krav maga.
Thank fuck she’s OK, no broken bones or burn marks this time.
And thank fuck Sadie and our niece or nephew are both safe.
She and Leo are locked in each other’s orbit right now, lying forehead to forehead, and all they need is to breathe in the other’s presence. So I think the rest of us can go home. We can rally around them both later. But right now, we’re not needed.
They have each other, as it should always have been, and everything is right with the world, at long last.