18. Kavanaugh

18

KAVANAUGH

I dropped Fox off and kept going. I should be at home with Isla right now, but I was still too pissed about the way things ended at Reed Security. Not to mention all the crap that happened in the past couple of months. Nothing in my life was going the way I wanted. I needed to get away from it all for just a fucking night and relieve the tension in my body.

And I knew just what to do.

I pulled up to the hospital after hours and headed inside. The key to slipping inside anywhere was to look like you belonged. So, that’s what I did. I grabbed a spare white coat hanging in the lounge and checked the nurse’s station for his room number when no one was around. I slid on a pair of readers I found and then grabbed a chart and strode down the hall to the fucker’s room.

With visiting hours over, the halls were quiet, which would make it more difficult for me to do what I came to do without causing a commotion. I slipped through the door and stared at the fucker in the bed. On the counter were at least a dozen vases of flowers, all for the man who tried to kill Isla. They didn’t know what a piece of shit he was. And if they did, they were just as fucking dirty as he was.

He laid peacefully slumbering in his bed, drugged up on whatever medication they were giving him to ease the pain. Fox had done a number on him, making sure he would be out of commission for a while, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make a phone call. I wasn’t sure why, but something about this fucker didn’t sit right with me. Why would he go after Isla all because of a divorce? It didn’t make any sense. I believed her when she said they were in love, but things changed. Isla had a good head on her shoulders. She wouldn’t be that blind to the man’s faults. So what made him change?

The truth was, it didn’t matter at this moment what made him change. All I saw was the man who tried to kill the woman I loved. He’d almost taken her from me several times, and I hadn’t been there to stop it. I didn’t know how to reconcile the man I was trying to be with the man standing in front of this fucker, wanting nothing more than to pull the plug or shove a pillow over his face until he suffocated.

I clenched my fists, praying for the ability to walk away instead of doing what I really wanted to. I stepped forward and followed the line of his IV to a pole holding his pain medication. All I had to do was unhook it and he would be writhing in pain.

My eyes flicked to his face, but instead of the fucker sleeping, his eyes were open and staring at me. “Do it,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Do you know who I am?”

He didn’t answer, but his eyes said it all. He recognized me. Hell, he wanted me dead for taking his wife. But the longer I looked at him and saw the evil in his eyes, I knew he shouldn’t live. Whatever they were doing to make him comfortable was too good for him.

“You’ll never get her back,” I said, my voice low. I bent over, getting in his face. “You fucked up, and I have no clue why. Frankly, I don’t give a shit. What you had is over, and soon, there will be nothing left tying you to her.”

“I’ll always…be with her,” he chuckled, then started coughing.

He was fucking laughing. After nearly killing her with a bomb and terrorizing her for over a month, he thought he could just laugh it off. There wasn’t a single person alive who would blame me for taking out this asshole. Anger rose up inside me until it was too much to take. With every second that I stared at him, I knew what I had to do.

I gripped the IV line, ready to yank it out, when I heard the door open. I lost my chance. I couldn’t kill the fucker now that someone had seen me. Not even ripping out his line was an option. “If you come near her again, I will take great pleasure in dismembering you piece by piece while you’re still alive and able to feel every second of it,” I whispered.

Slowly, I stood and patted him on the shoulder. “Feel better, Mr. Yates.”

I smiled at the nurse as I walked out. She returned a smile, but I saw the hesitation in her eyes. She knew I didn’t belong here. As soon as I was out of the room, I headed for the stairs, stripping myself of the lab coat and glasses and then shoving them in the nearest trash bin. I ruffled my hair, letting it flop to the sides instead of the slicked-back look I had entered with. Minutes later, I was out the door and striding to my truck, ready to leave that fucker behind.

As soon as I was twenty miles from the hospital, I pulled over and took a deep breath. Fuck, I had almost killed him. The second I grabbed that IV line, I knew I could do it. Yeah, it would have pissed off Isla, but it would be worth it to know that fucker was out of her life. But fate had intervened and allowed him to live another day.

Maybe he was meant to live to regret what he had done. Or maybe it was just shitty timing. Either way, he would never get to her again.