Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
We all exited the elevator, and Germaine kept his arm exactly where it was, keeping me close to his side.
I fell into step with him, and he completely avoided the nurses’ station and went to the crowded area in the back.
“Excuse me,” Germaine said quietly.
Everyone moved except for a couple of nurses and doctors that were clogging up the doorway.
I could hear someone speaking to Gable from inside, but I couldn’t see him.
Quincy, tired of being separated from his brother when he was hurt, pushed through them all and greeted his brother.
“You can only have two visitors right now, Mr. Carter. Choose them,” a frazzled sounding doctor said. “This room isn’t big enough for all these officers.”
I fully expected him to say me.
Truly, I did.
But that wasn’t what he said at all.
“Can you bring Callena in here?” Gable rasped. “I need her.”
The feeling of my stomach falling into my toes followed his words.
“What?” I heard Quincy say.
No, not say.
Balk.
“Callena,” he repeated. “I need her.”
He didn’t want me there.
He wanted some woman who he worked with, pretend dated, and had been the cause of me being angry the other day when he let her into his home while I was still in his bed?
I mean, he’d said it was innocent… but was it really?
Was I just stupid?
Was I seeing more in it than…
No.
He’d said he loved me.
I’d told it to him.
Gable wasn’t the kind of person to tell someone he loved them when he had feelings for someone else.
He was a good man, unlike my previous boyfriend.
There was a reason he didn’t want me in there and wanted her.
I knew that.
Logically, I knew that.
That didn’t stop the grief and sadness from welling up inside me, and damn those tears were back.
“You don’t want Athena in here?” I heard Garrett ask.
Gable said something that made Garrett mad, and I knew it wasn’t complimentary to me.
He was mad that I’d done this.
I understood that.
It wasn’t every day that someone else’s stupidity got them stabbed.
I pulled away from Germaine, but he tightened his hold, forcing me to stay in place.
Really, I would’ve stayed, but then Callena came barreling around the corner looking frantic, and I got an irrational urge to throat punch her on her way in there.
“I’m going back up to Maven,” I said softly. “Keep me updated on things here, please?”
Germaine studied my face before turning to look over the tall heads of his children in front of him.
He could see what I couldn’t.
And maybe I didn’t want to see.
Especially when Callena managed to push herself through the throng of Carters into the room.
Another deep voice I didn’t recognize came from the room, but I didn’t stay long enough to contemplate who that was.
Instead, I tried to appear as if I wasn’t rushing on my way back to the maternity ward.
I’d watch Maven have her baby.
Then I’d decide what to do about Gable Carter later.
Well, well, well, if it isn’t me crying because I put on a sad song on purpose.
—Athena’s secret thoughts
ATHENA
Ten minutes later I was sitting at Maven’s bedside explaining what happened as she breathed her way through a contraction.
“So who was the guy at your brother’s place?” she asked in confusion.
I shook my head. “I have no idea. Maybe some rando, or maybe someone somehow related to Madman.”
“Fuck.” Maven said. “That’s not good.”
“No,” I agreed. “I didn’t think it was.”
We stayed silent for a few seconds as the next contraction rolled through.
“He’s hurt, your Gable.” Maven whispered as she squeezed my hand, not because she was trying to comfort me, but because I’d somehow become her birthing partner since her husband kept slipping out to take phone calls from his father and brothers. “He doesn’t understand what he’s asking.”
I didn’t believe her words any more than Maven did.
“Oh, shit.” Maven moaned. “Go get that asshole before I break your hand.”
“I’m right here,” Auden said as he hurried back into the room. “I’m sorry. Apparently, shit went down other than my brother getting stabbed.”
My head whipped around toward him. “Like what?”
Auden sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “The man that y’all shot at Athena’s brother’s place wasn’t Darryl Horton, obviously. He’s the one who attacked Athena down the road. You’ve gotten all that, right?”
Both Maven and I nodded, though Maven hadn’t let up on my hand.
“Well, apparently before the stabbing happened, he said a few choice words about Garrett,” he said.
“Garrett?” Maven hissed out.
Why wasn’t her stupid epidural working?
“Yes,” Auden moved toward the other side of Maven’s bed and pushed her hair out of her face. It was such a sweet gesture that it made my heart ache. “What do y’all know about when Garrett was hurt years ago?”
“When he was undercover?” Maven asked. “Not all that much.”
“Garrett was undercover trying to gain some information on the gangs in Dallas. He’d been undercover for about four months when shit went down that got him stabbed,” he explained. “Some baby doc—whose now family—from the hospital saved him after another gang member stabbed the ER doc trying to help them. Turns out the ER dude stabbed was the baby doc’s fiancé. She saved Garrett’s life despite him having just played a part in getting her fiancé stabbed.”