Aced (34 page)

He looks up for the first time and meets me with crystalline blue eyes that hold a hint of humor oddly matching the slight smirk on his lips. “Of course. I just need your autograph on this form I have to turn in, and I’ll be out of your hair,” he says as he walks forward and places the manila folder on the table beside me. And as much as he makes me uncomfortable, I glance up one more time to look at him, trying to place why he looks familiar, but his head is already back down and focused on what he’s fumbling with in his pocket.

“Sure.” Anything. Just get the hell out of here. I set Ace down in the dip between my thighs as I grab the pen he hands me.

And then I open the folder.

My mouth drops open.

My mind is shocked.

My privacy invaded.

My little bubble popped.

Everything clicks all at the same time when I see the still photo of me from the video, spread-eagled, and every part of me unmistakable.

I look back up
.
His hair’s a little longer and there’s a goatee covering his facial scar that would have given him away instantly. But there is no doubt this is the man who has turned our world upside down in the past month.

Eddie Kimball.

I think I hear a click. I’m not sure. I force my eyes from his face to the phone he’s holding up and just before the flash goes off, I bend my body over, hiding my face and exposed breast and start screaming. My finger jabbing at the call button over and over as Ace’s cries rise with my burgeoning panic.

“Help!” I scream. Ace’s wails escalate. “Help!”

“
Why so camera-shy now
? Donavan stole everything from me. Revenge is a bitch.” He runs from the room just as the nurse comes through on the intercom.

“Everything okay, Mrs. Donavan?”

“Security!” I shout into the room. I pick Ace up and hold him tightly to my chest, rocking him as my body shakes, and my mind tries to process the fear that’s clouding my judgment.

The door flings open as my nurse runs in the same exact time as a loud crash is heard in the hallway followed by a fire alarm of some sort that shrieks through the hallway of the hospital wing. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yes. We’re fine.” I keep rocking. “It’s okay,” I repeat to Ace over and over, as I try to reassure myself I am okay. But I’m not.

Far from it.

The nurse picks up the phone in the room and starts speaking words I don’t hear because my pulse is thundering in my ears. And the minute she lowers the phone the wailing alarm stops.

But the one in my head and heart screams even louder. I’m afraid it will never shut up now.

Fear like I’ve only known a few times in my life—the accidents that made me lose one man and almost another—owns my soul right now. We’re supposed to be safe. Supposed to be happy. And yet the man who has wreaked so much havoc in our lives just caused it to implode again.

“Tell me what happened,” the nurse says at the same time Colton comes barging into the room completely out of breath, his posture defensive, and eyes wild with fear as they scour over Ace and me to make sure we are okay.

“Rylee? They were shouting for security to the room.”

“
Eddie
.” It’s the only word I need to say for him to understand why I’m crying tears I didn’t even know were coursing down my cheeks, and holding Ace to me so tightly, that if it weren’t for his crying, I’d think I was smothering him.

“You’re okay?” he asks through gritted teeth. The muscle in his jaw pulses as he waits for my response. A quick nod of my head and he charges out of the room.

The old me would have yelled at him to come back. Tell him I need him more.
Which is still partially true.

But I don’t say a word.

I.
Am
. Okay.
For now
.

Eddie Kimball just fucked with my son.

I hope my husband fucks with him.

“T
HE POLICE HAVE IT UNDER control.”

“Like hell they do!” I growl into the phone at CJ and Kelly as I pace the hallway of the hospital like a caged fucking animal. “He was in HER room. ALONE. The fucking bastard was within a foot of her and Ace. Taunting her. That is a huge goddamn problem!”

“Did he get a picture?” CJ asks, prodding the sleeping dragon within.

“Do you think I fucking know?” I grit through clenched teeth. “She doesn’t know. Doesn’t think so, but isn’t sure. It all happened so quickly.” My skin crawls, thinking how fucking close he was to her. To Ace.

The heavy sigh on the connection grates even more on my nerves because I feel like I’m not being told something. “What are you not telling me?”

Anger eats at me. Ire like I’ve never known before scratching through my resolve and testing my restraint to not go take that eye for an eye right now because he’s already taken way too fucking much from me.

“Nothing,” CJ says and before I can question him further, he continues, “the hospital security—”

“Is for shit,” I finish for him. “They let a random man dressed in scrubs and a surgical cap, which he probably bought at Scrubs-R-Us or some shit, lift an I.D. off the nurses station, and waltz into her fucking room the moment Sammy helped me manage the vultures outside when I walked our family out. He had to have been hiding if Sammy didn’t see him. Probably watched and waited for me to leave.
Fucking bastard
.” My hands fist. The urge to punch a fucking wall so goddamn strong I have to stand in the middle of the hall so there’s nothing within reach I can destroy. “They’ll be lucky I don’t sue their asses for—”

“Calm down—”

“Don’t tell me to calm the fuck down!”

“I’m already filing grievances with Cedars, and Kelly has notified the police of the violation of the restraining order that—”

“It’s not going to do a fucking lick of good, but go right ahead. Just be ready to have bail money to post when I come face to face with him because you’re going to need it.” I glance over to the door of Rylee’s room, knowing I need to get this rage out before I can face her and not scare her.

“Colton. Let the legal system—”

“I’m getting Rylee out of here right now.” I don’t need to hear his pacifying bullshit that’s not going to do a damn bit of good. Not like my fist hitting Eddie’s face will. “I’ll hire a nurse if I have to, but we’re leaving within the hour. Fuck their protocol with discharge papers. I’ll have Sammy wait if need be, but I’m not putting them at risk out in the goddamn open like this.”

“Understandable,” Kelly speaks for the first time.

“Find him or you’re fired.”

I end the call. The urge to throw my phone so intense that I squat down on my haunches for a second with my head in my hands and force myself to breathe. To do exactly what I told CJ not to tell me to do: calm down and be rational. But rational went out the goddamn window the moment that bastard went after my wife.

Rational is way the fuck overrated.

God, I wish I had found him. Caught up with him somewhere in the hospital grounds and beat the shit out of him until he lost consciousness.

But nothing. He disappeared into the goddamn wind.
Fuck.

Just
like the ghosts of the nightmares that are sitting in the back of my mind laughing at this. Chiding me and telling me this is proof I can’t take care of my own wife and son. That I’m no better than my mother. That I let the same man threaten my wife and now my son as I sit on the other side of the fucking door, wrists handcuffed, unable to do a goddamn thing to stop him.

Acey, Acey. Sweet little Acey.

I scrub my hands over my face as I rise to my feet and tell myself the mixture of rage and exhaustion are playing tricks on me. I need to shut out the voices in my head. I need to tell the doubt to fuck off and die.

What I need is the crunch of his nose against my knuckles.

I sigh and head toward the hospital room. Five minutes ago I couldn’t wait to get out of the room so I wouldn’t have to look her in the eyes and see the fear there, or look at Ace and know I already let him down within the first thirty hours of his life. And yet now all I can think about is getting to them, packing our shit up, getting the fuck out of here, and going home to our own little world.

M
Y BODY BREAKS OUT IN a sweat. It’s a different kind than I’ve ever experienced before. This kind is that whole-body heat that causes your limbs to tremble, heart to race, and head to become dizzy. I swallow over the unease as Sammy drives us out from the protected cover of the hospital’s parking garage into the driveway where paparazzi swarm us instantly.

All in a shoving match to try to get their lenses to see through the dark tinted windows of the Rover and get the first picture of Ace. The coveted shot they could sell and make a year’s salary with a single frame.

Fists bang on the windows. My body jumps. I lean over the baby carrier buckled in between Colton and me. With my back to the window to block the view of Ace and my eyes closed, I fight back the threatening tears.

“Don’t, Ry. Please don’t,” Colton murmurs as he reaches out to take my hand with one hand and smooth over my hair with the other. I clear my throat and blink the tears away and stare at Ace—this sweet, innocent baby who doesn’t deserve any of this.

I chose to step into this lifestyle because I love Colton, and yet now I’ve brought this baby into it. I know it’s too late but I don’t like it. Eddie waltzed into that room to make a point and to taint this perfect moment in our lives just like he did with the video.

“We’ll never get this back,” I whisper. Hands thump the rear window as Sammy turns into the traffic and away from the vultures looking for scraps.

“What do you mean?”

“This moment. Our time in the hospital where we get to bond before everyday life gets in the way. He took that from us. He took that feeling away. We’ll never get that back.”

“Yes, we will,” Colton answers immediately. He releases my hand and frames my face so I’m forced to look up and meet his gaze filled with so much concern and guilt over what happened. “Remember that empty picture frame? This was the first memory we put in there. No one will ever be able to take that away from us, baby. It’s just you, Ace, and me. Our first memory slid into that frame without us ever doing it. Eddie was there for a split second of time. I’m so sorry I fucked up and wasn’t there. But this—this moment, this memory, this life-changing event—overshadows it by miles.”