Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
My stepmom had basically put a contract out on my life.
My dad …
Stop.
Walker. He was all that mattered right now.
He’d lost too much blood. Walker’s mom and Brodan tried to reassure me he’d be fine, but I was in a quiet, furious terror. We didn’t talk about anything important, only asked around the room if anyone needed coffee or a snack, and then we sat in brittle silence. Roe had gone home to pick up Nox from Lachlan and Robyn.
By some miracle, no organs had been damaged by the bullet, but there was no exit wound and it had damaged a major blood vessel. To my relief, Walker made it out of surgery with no complications … but he hadn’t woken up. It had been nearly forty-eight hours. He’d lost so much blood before the paramedics arrived. There was a possible lack of oxygen to the brain. They said his brain function seemed fine, but they wouldn’t know until he woke up.
There was something utterly crushing about seeing him in that hospital bed.
Brodan had gone home to shower, and so Walker’s mom and I sat vigil.
Until the police arrived to talk to me again.
“Ms. Harrow …” The plainclothes officer ducked his head to pull my attention back to him.
“Sorry,” I muttered, pushing my greasy hair off my forehead. I needed a shower. But I needed Walker to wake up more. “You were saying?”
“The suspect, Mr. Kyle Brixton, is talking. In exchange for his confession, he’s provided us with evidence against Perry Harrow. Your stepmother.”
I nodded, every nerve ending jangling with the need to get back to Walker. The only thing that forced me to stay put was that I knew Walker would want me to face this.
The image of him running for me, pure fear and rage etched into his features seconds before that bullet hit, played over and over in my mind.
“It’s true, then?” I murmured, feeling grief take hold. “What he said. About my father?”
The officer’s face softened with sympathy. “I’m afraid so, Ms. Harrow.”
I wouldn’t leave the hospital. Instead, I showered there and changed into clothes Monroe brought me when she, Aria, and Callie came to visit. Aria was watching over Callie, both of them protected by a small team of bodyguards that Brodan had insisted upon until we knew this was definitely over.
Callie cried when Aria took her away, and I wanted to promise my kid that the next time she visited Walker, he’d be awake. But the longer he lay in that bed, the deeper the roots of my fear grew.
His mom had returned to her hotel to meet his dad, who’d driven up from Portobello. I didn’t know how I felt about Walker’s dad’s arrival. Part of me wanted to protect him from it.
Like he’d protected me.
Always protecting me.
And because of that instinct, I might lose him.
But he was the only person I wanted to talk to about my dad.
Holding his hand, I stared at his handsome face, wan from the surgery. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and his beard needed a trim. Walker’s hand was so big. I held our palms together, and mine looked like a child’s in comparison. Desperate fear clawed at me at the thought of never feeling his fingers curl around mine again.
“You have to wake up,” I sobbed, bowing my head. “Everything you’ve been through …” I struggled for breath. “A tiny bullet won’t be the reason you leave me. It can’t be. We’re e-epic.” My gaze came up to his face. “We don’t end like this, Walker. I have a million cakes to bake you and you have a million more to convince me to overcharge for. We have a life to make. To finally live. We’ve barely even started.” I leaned into him, my wrath at the idea of losing him thrumming through me. “So you have to wake up. You have to wake up!”
Movement tickled my hands, and my heart leapt into my throat as I glanced down at his hand clasped between mine. I opened my palms.
Walker’s long fingers twitched and then flexed.
My gaze flew to his face, and his sleepy eyes met mine.
“I thought I was the bossy one,” he rasped, a wry smile curling his lips.
Forty-Three
WALKER
It had taken a moment to process the beeping of the heart monitor, the dull pain throbbing in the lower left side of my gut, and that my throat was drier than the Registan Desert.
A hospital room.
The why of it came back to me at the joy on Sloane’s face as she laughed in relief. It was nothing compared to mine at waking up to find her alive. Safe.
However, two seconds later, her laughter turned to hysterical sobbing, and when I moved to reach for her, pain in my stomach stifled the action. “Shit,” I huffed. “Sloane, baby, don’t cry.” I squeezed her hand as hard as I could.