Chapter 40

CHAPTER

FORTY

EDMUND

Pacing the hallway, I try Samuel again. I need them all here because they need to know.

This is the end.

Voicemail, again.

“Pick up the phone, kid. It’s Harper. Michales has gone too far. He’s a fucking dead man.”

“Sir,” an older nurse approaches me , “We should really take care of you, too.”

“I said I’m fucking fine,” I seethe.

“With all due respect,” she gestures to my legs and the faint bloody footprints I’m leaving along the corridor, “you aren’t.”

Begrudgingly, I follow behind her as she leads me to an exam room. Pulling shut the curtain, she directs me to the bed before cutting up the legs of my pants with a pair of shears. My legs are pocked with blood, small shards of glass protruding from my skin along the length of my shins to my knees.

“I’m fine,” I repeat, “I can take care of this on my own.”

“You’re a stubborn fucker, aren’t you?” She places her hand on my chest and shoves me back onto the bed. “You can’t do anything for her right this minute. Just let me get you cleaned up.”

“How is she?” I ask, having not heard anything since they swept her gurney down the hall over an hour ago.

“She’s in surgery,” she pulls out her phone and types across the screen, “but I’ll see what I can find out for you.”

“Thank you.” I nod as she puts on a fresh pair of gloves. She meticulously plucks each piece of glass from my legs, dropping them into a small stainless-steel pan. “Are you supposed to talk to patients like that?”

“No.” She removes a large shard that causes me to grit my teeth. “But I made an exception for you.”

By the time Grant and Abigail arrive, the nurse has finished cleaning my wounds. Abigail is carrying a pair of my shoes and set of hangers, with a pair of my pants and one of my dress shirts. She puts them at the edge of the bed and asks, “Any word?”

“Nothing yet.” I stand and strip from my ruined pants and blood-stained shirt. Stepping on the pedal for the biohazard container, the lid opens, and I drop everything into it. I grab my blood-sodden shoes and toss them in as well, wincing when I bend down. Lifting the new clothes from the bed, I quickly pull them on and got to find the nurse for an update on Harper.

Seeing me approach, she steps from behind the nurses’ station. “She’s still in surgery, but they are in the process of finishing up. She should be getting moved to recovery within the next thirty minutes.”

The nurse leads the three of us toward a private waiting room so that we can have some privacy while I wait to see Harper. A disheveled Samuel and Cora join us shortly after we take seats. Their girls have quickly become part of our dysfunctional family, and the five of us call Will and Liz, who are currently on a short trip to Condado.

“He’s gone too far this time.” I speak over everyone.

“We’re not arguing that.” Liz’s voice comes through the speakerphone. “He’s still a fucking cop, Eddie.”

“He’s a dirty fucking cop who’s been meddling in our lives for too long,” I rebut. “But this isn’t meddling anymore.”

I turn my attention to Grant. “Would you stand by if he laid a hand on Abigail?”

Then, to Samuel. “Or Cora? No. He’d be fucking six feet under already.”

“I’m not saying you can’t,” Grant replies, “because I know you’re right. I’d probably have my hands around his throat by now. But this can’t be rash.”

“We have to be smart,” Will chimes in. “It can’t look like we killed him.”

“That’s your expertise, isn’t it?” Inadvertently, I divulge Will’s secret past to the group. “Fucking help me make it happen.”

“We’re pulling into the airfield now. We should be there in about four hours. I’ll get a plan together during our flight. Get things in motion. It can happen tonight.”

“He needs to pay, Will.” I place my palms on the table flanked the phone. “Death isn’t punishment enough. He needs to suffer for what he did to her. For trying to take her from me.”

The things I plan to do to him…

Death will be a welcomed ending.

One he’s fucking begging for.

“Understood,” he replies before ending the call.