Acceptance (Club X Book 5) (11 page)

Before I got the chance to try to explain how different the two circumstances were, I heard someone outside yell, “Thorne! I told you last time if you cheated me again I’d be coming for my due. Time to pay up!”

Sebastian slammed the door and locked it. “It’s been great talking to you, dude, but I’d suggest you get the hell out of here. Use the window.”

“What?”

He began to explain something about the guy outside being a former partner in his little heist scheme, but the banging on the door made it hard to get the whole story. Not that it mattered. I had a feeling what I’d been warning Sebastian about a few seconds ago was about to come true right in front of me.

I looked over at the window and knew I should go out that way and leave him to his just desserts. The problem was I had just told him I was his brother, and what kind of brother would I be if I left him there to get his ass kicked?

Even if he deserved it.

“Just open the door. I’m sure we can talk this out, but on the off chance we can’t, don’t talk too much so you don’t piss the guy off.”

He did as I told him to and his former partner marched into his living room demanding the money he was owed. Ignoring everything I told him, Sebastian began rambling on with a boatload of bullshit even I knew was lies. The guy, a skinny blond kid who hadn’t even grown to six foot and had wild eyes, shook his head rapidly, obviously unhappy with every word he was hearing.

“Shut the fuck up, Sebastian! You owe me, and I’m going to get my money now!”

“It’s not like that, Rick. We weren’t cheating you out of anything. It just takes time to cash in the goods. We have to be careful. And the reason we didn’t include you in on the other night was because we thought you were busy with your girlfriend. We didn’t want to cause you any more hassles.”

For a moment, it looked like Rick wanted to believe what was coming out of Sebastian’s mouth, but after the words filtered through his brain, it was clear he wasn’t buying the bullshit line he was being fed.

He pulled a gun from behind his back and pointed it straight at Sebastian’s head. “The money. Now.”

Terrified, Sebastian put his hands up in front of him and backed away toward me. “Whoa, whoa! Rick! Dude, I don’t have it. I can get it for you, but I don’t have it right now. Just give me a couple days.”

His begging had no effect on Rick, who continued to point the gun at his head. “Now. The whole amount or the last thing you steal is a look at me shooting you.”

Sebastian looked over at me and silently asked for help, so I calmly asked, “How much does he owe you, Rick? Maybe I have it so we can settle all this right now.”

He stared at me in confusion like he hadn’t noticed I was in the room until that very moment. “Two grand.”

I knew I didn’t have that kind of money on me, but maybe the five hundred or so I had in my wallet would pacify him enough to make him put the gun away. Hoping it would, I reached into my back pocket to get my money and then in a flash the gun went off.

Abbi

N
o matter how fast I
drove, I felt like I wasn’t going to reach the hospital in time. Over and over, the words the man said echoed in my head.

“Mrs. Jackson, there’s been an accident. Your husband is en route to Lakeland General. He’s been shot.”

My heart raced as my brain fixed on the last word the officer had said.
Shot
. Kane had been shot.

I hadn’t waited for him to tell me anything else. Nothing he could say would make me feel any better, so I hung up and quickly put Liam into the car as I called the one person I knew could help no matter what. I didn’t know what else to do. I had to get to Kane before it was too late.

Tears rolled down my face as I tore up the road. What if I didn’t get to him in time? The last words I’d said to him that morning were so meaningless. Have a good day. It’s what I said to him every morning when he left the house for work. Worthless words I’d gotten so used to mindlessly repeating, like asking someone how they are when you don’t really care.

I didn’t want those to be the last words I ever said to the man who’d given me nearly seven of the happiest years of my life. I needed to tell him how much I loved him. I needed him to know that no matter what, I loved him more every day. That just the thought of him gone from my life made my chest ache from emptiness.

That I didn’t know how I’d go on without him.

My phone rang, and I answered it, barely able to speak through my sobs. Alexandria’s sweet voice said, “Abbi, I’ll be at the hospital in just a few minutes. I’ll take care of Liam and get Annalea from school so I can take them back to my house. I called Stefan and Cassian, and they’re on their way too. Honey, I want you to stay positive, okay? Kane is strong and he’s not going to give up on you and those two babies.”

As tears blurred my eyes, I turned right into the hospital parking lot. “What if he’s not strong enough, Alexandria? I don’t know what I’m going to do if he…”

I couldn’t finish that sentence.

“He is. Of all my sons, he’s the strongest. He’s had to be.”

The memory of all Kane had gone through growing up and how much he’d suffered made me even sadder. After all that, to be taken now that he’d found real happiness as a father was unfair. I couldn’t bear to think of it.

“I’m here now,” I said as I jammed the car into park and jumped out to get Liam from his car seat.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes, honey. Don’t give up on him yet, Abbi. Don’t.”

The emergency room doctor’s words
hit my ears but got lost in the haze of sorrow that had taken over my brain. I held Liam tightly to me, desperate for some piece of Kane to stay with me as the man in front of me said things about gunshot wounds and surgery to remove the bullet from his chest.

Gently, he touched my shoulder and gave me a sad smile. “As soon as he’s out of surgery, we’ll let you know, Mrs. Jackson.”

I took a step back and felt the plastic seat of a waiting room chair hit the back of my knees. Sitting down, I tried to understand how any of this had happened. Where had Kane been at one o’clock in the afternoon? I had just gotten a text from him a few hours earlier telling me he’d be busy all day but he couldn’t wait to see me when he got home. What had he been busy doing that got him shot?

Liam cooed in my arms and tugged at the bottom of my hair, so I looked down and pressed a smile onto my face. He had no idea of the nightmare we’d been thrust into.

“What’s Mommy’s little guy want? Grandma’s coming any minute, honey, and you’re going to take a little ride with her back to her house with Annalea. I promise Mommy will come just as soon as she can.”

I stared into my son’s dark blue eyes so similar to his father’s and struggled to hold back the tears. The spitting image of Kane, he seemed to sense I needed him to be an angel and simply smiled up at me, nearly breaking my heart. What if Kane never had the chance to see his son grow up? What if he never saw that precious smile again?

Alexandria arrived and sat down, wrapping her arms around me. The fear of losing Kane was written all over her face. “Oh, honey. Did you talk to the doctors? What did they say?”

Holding back the tears as best as I could, I told her what the doctor had told me. “We won’t know anything until he’s out of surgery. He was shot in the chest, Alexandria. What if it got his heart?”

Just saying those words made my tears come, and they began rolling down my cheeks. Burying my face in Liam’s shoulder, I sobbed, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“No more talking like that, Abbi. I told you. Kane is strong. A single bullet isn’t going to take him from you and those beautiful babies.”

Liam’s tiny fingers gripped my neck, holding me to him, and I remembered the first time he clutched Kane’s hand as a newborn. He’d joked about him having a tough grip, and I’d reminded him that he was only three weeks old. Kane had fallen in love with him the moment the nurse placed him in his arms minutes after he was born. Unlike with Annalea, he was full term and healthy as a horse, crying like he had the lungs of a grown man as he lay in his father’s arms for the first time. I’d never forget how happy Kane had been at that moment.

I wanted the chance to see him that happy again.

And now he lay on an operating table with a bullet in his chest, fighting for his life, but why? What had happened?

I lifted my head and saw Alexandria’s eyes full of sadness. “Why would anyone do this? Why wasn’t he at work?”

She shook her head like she didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know, honey. I’m hoping maybe Cassian will be able to tell us something when he gets here.”

“Did he know why Kane wasn’t at the restaurant?”

“No. He was as shocked as I was when he heard what happened.”

I sat there as Liam played with my hair and thought about how sure Kane had been that this kind of thing was behind us once he left Club X. “We’re boring married people with kids now, angel. All that is in the past,” he’d say when I worried about him leaving CK late at night.

How could I know the danger wouldn’t be in the dark as he walked to his car but in broad daylight on a sunny fall afternoon?

Cassian walked down the hallway toward us with the saddest look I’d ever seen. He stopped in front of me, and Alexandria stood to hug her oldest son. “Cassian, I’m so glad you got here. Do you know anything about what happened?”

Frowning, he shook his head. “No, Mom. He told me he had some errands to run after we talked first thing this morning. I think he mentioned going to see someone at the produce company we use because we’ve been having problems with the deliveries for the past few weeks. Do they know where this happened?”

I looked up at him and answered for her. “The police told me when I got here that it happened in Dade City and that they had some guy in custody. They said something about a witness too, but I don’t think I was paying close enough attention.”

Cassian leaned down and kissed me softly on the top of the head. “Let me go find someone and see what’s going on. We need to find out what happened. What about Kane? Is he in surgery?”

Nodding, I pulled Liam closer as I answered, “He’s still in surgery. They said they’d come find me when he got out.”

“Well, then let me find out what’s going on with the police.”

I reached out and squeezed his hand as my tears threatened to overwhelm me again. “Thank you.”

“I’ll be back. Stay positive. He’s tough, Abbi. Kane’s going to be fine.”

As Cassian walked away and Alexandria repeated what he said, I prayed to God they were right. I didn’t know what I’d do if they weren’t.

Cassian returned with the news
that Kane had been shot with a .38 at close range by a man named Rick Branton. The police didn’t have any more details, but they suspected it might be a drug deal gone bad.

“That’s crazy, Cassian,” I said. Alexandria took the baby from my arms, and I began to pace back and forth across the tile floor in the waiting room. “Kane wouldn’t be involved with anything like that. No way.”

He shook his head angrily. “I told them that. They don’t know what happened, but they told me it happened on Chestnut Street in Dade City.”

I stopped dead and spun around to face him. “Chestnut Street? Where?”

“I don’t know. Why? Does he know someone there?”

Stefan joined us and hugged me to him before answering his brother’s question. “Sebastian Thorne lives on Chestnut Street in Dade City. That’s where we were the other night. Did he have something to do with this?”

Cassian seemed confused. “I don’t understand. What would Kane be doing at Sebastian’s house in the middle of the day and why would someone there with him have a gun?”

Nobody said anything to answer his questions, so finally I said, “He wanted to tell him the truth. I know that. I know he wanted Sebastian to know he had brothers in you guys.”

A sheepish look came over Stefan’s face, and Cassian snapped at him. “Do you see what’s happened because of all of this digging up the past? You couldn’t just leave well enough alone? Why couldn’t you and Kane just leave it be?”

Quickly, Alexandria jumped in and stopped him. “Your brothers had good intentions, Cassian. I know why Kane would want to let Sebastian know about you three.”

“He didn’t want him to not know where he came from,” I said quietly. “I think he saw a lot of himself in Sebastian.”

“Well, I don’t,” Cassian said angrily. “All I see is trouble and that’s all I’ve ever seen from the minute Kane and Stefan brought it up. But if Sebastian was there, I want to know if he was shot too.”

He stormed away, and Stefan took me in his arms again to hug me tightly to him. “I’m so sorry, Abbi. I never dreamed anything like this would happen. I just wanted to find out about this guy. That’s all.”

I let myself cry again and said through the tears, “I don’t blame you, Stefan. Kane was going to find out about him whether you or Cassian wanted to. He’d already made up his mind.”

“I swear we didn’t think anything like this would happen, Abbi.” Stefan pulled away and looked into my eyes. “Kane would never put himself in danger of being taken away from you and the kids, even for a brother.”

“Yes, he would,” I said with a smile, knowing what family meant to Kane. “He just wouldn’t think he’d get hurt.”

I returned to pacing until I saw Cash walking towards us a few minutes later with a look of rage on his face. Unsure I wanted to know the cause, fearing he’d found out that something had happened to Kane, I still needed to ask what was wrong.

“Did something happen? Did you hear something about Kane?”

My heart sank in the millisecond between my asking and his answering. My head began to swim as the horrifying thought of Kane gone from the world sunk in. My legs started to give out as I collapsed into one of the waiting room chairs.

Cash rushed to my side and quickly explained, “No, I heard nothing. That’s not what I went to find out about.”

I listened to his words and slowly realized he hadn’t just told me the worst news I could ever hear. “I saw your face and you looked so furious. I just thought…”