The UN Series Complete Box Set (130 page)

“Slade?” Parker asks more with concern than hatred as he places his hands on my shoulders.

What do I do? One of my best friends just told me he saved my wife’s life when I wasn’t there for her. And what do I do?

I hit him. I hit him with all the anger I have. I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve him as a friend.

I reach out and stabilize him before he falls to the floor. He looks up at me wide-eyed—shocked that after what he confessed I hit him instead of hugged him.

Then his eyes narrow on me.

A hand hits my chest hard pushing me back into the opposite wall. My dad stands between us and glares at me. “Control yourself!” he demands.

I spin around and see a tray full of medical supplies. I shove it over. The sound of them hitting the floor covers Courtney’s cries but it also attracts the attention of others. So I turn around and walk back out the front doors of the hospital. Two arms grab me from behind. I’m shoved into the outside wall of the hospital and Parker is in my face. “Now is not the time to get arrested. Do you understand me?”

“Parker?” my father yells from behind him. He pulls away and takes a step back.

I look down to my white button up dress shirt, now covered in my wife’s blood. My legs give out, and I slide down to the cool ground and pull my knees up to my chest.

“What the fuck happened?” My voice shakes as much as my body does.

Parker stands over me as he looks out over the parking lot. “I went over to check on her,” he repeats. “She was a total mess.” He swallows. “She…” He pauses and I see him close his eyes tightly before he opens them and continues. “She said she had gone to see Jax.”

“What?” I choke on the word. “When…why?” Words are lost on me.

“She went sometime today. He told her that someone was after you. Someone wanted to hurt you. She said she called and texted you to try to warn you but you wouldn’t answer.”

I place my forehead against my knees. This whole time she was trying to warn me, and I was ignoring her because of what I found out about Jeremy. How could I have been so careless?
Please forgive me, Angel.

“She said you were going to leave her. I reassured her everything would be okay. That you guys just needed to talk.” He pauses for a few seconds. “Work was slow so I told her to get in my car. That I was gonna take her over to your parents for you two to talk. After several minutes she agreed to go but she wanted to drive. She said she didn’t want to be out late and that she was already tired.” His voice is quiet, and I have a feeling he’s blaming himself for what happened.

“I was right behind her. I saw the entire thing. I couldn’t do anything but watch.” His voice cracks. “You have to believe me, I tried to do everything I could.”

Tears run down my face and I try to swallow the lump in my throat.
He tried to do everything he could?
Does that mean he knows she’s not going to make it?

“What about the car that hit her?” my father asks trying to take Parker’s eyes off of me as I cry. “Are they here as well?”

Parker shakes his head looking down at his feet. “After it hit her, it veered off and hit something else.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t see what it hit. I just know that it caught on fire, and they didn’t make it,” he adds quietly.

I can’t even imagine what those family members are going through right now. I’m a fucking wreck just thinking about losing her.

I hear the sliding glass doors open to the hospital and then my mother comes running out. “A nurse is looking for you Slade.”

I take off once again

*****

I sit quietly in the waiting room with everyone as we wait for her to get out of surgery. I have been updated twice so far. The first time I was told that she had internal bleeding due to blunt force trauma. They had to put her on ventilator, and that she has a chest tube due to a collapsed lung. They said that once she is out of surgery they will keep her sedated for eight to twelve hours in order for her body to rest.

I rock back and forth as I go over the last couple of days. Everything has been perfect, and I fucked it all up. I still hate that she kept what happened with Jeremy from me but I hate how I reacted more. I should have never treated her that way. To the point where she thought I was going to leave her. She’s pregnant for fuck’s sake, she’s probably been scared to death. Parker did say that she was sick. Plus she went and saw Jax. What would make her do that?

I stand quickly when I see the same nurse in blue scrubs from earlier approaching me. “It shouldn’t be much longer before we move your wife up to the ICU. If you guys want to head up to the twelfth floor, the receptionist will tell you where to wait for her,” she says nicely.

“Is she still doing okay?” I pray to God that he saves her. If I could, I would take her place. I would do anything to keep her from having to go through this.

She nods once and then responds, “She’s stable.”

I asked about our baby earlier, and they said that they were monitoring the baby and it is doing well for now. The fact that she’s not very far along is a good thing, because in some cases where the mother is farther along, a woman’s body will automatically sacrifice the baby in order to save the mother.

It was still going to be a long road to recovery, but at least she got through surgery with no complications.

We all get up and make our way up to the twelfth floor. When we were told everything went well, and she was going to be sedated for at least eight hours, I tried to send Courtney home. But she just ended up crying harder, refusing to leave the hospital until she could see her best friend.

At some point, Tate finally arrived. I guess Parker had already called him before I had. He was a couple hours out of town but made it back in half the time.

Micah keeps checking his watch. He had called Holly as soon as we had been told the news of her accident, and she caught the next plane home to be here for her best friend. I couldn’t help but be jealous as he apologized to her for how he reacted to him finding out about Jeremy.

I wish I had been that forgiving. I wish I could have been the man I promised her that I would be in front of our friends and family. Instead I was hotheaded and a piece of shit to her. The same way I’ve always been.

I make my way to the desk and tell them my name along with hers. We are then shown to a new area where we can sit.

I take a seat, and Tate comes to sit beside me.

I clear my tight throat. “Has anyone called Missy?” I ask looking up. She’s the only one besides Holly who isn’t here.

“I tried. She wouldn’t answer,” Tate says so only I can hear.

Courtney nods her head as tears run down her face. “She’s on her way,” she sobs as Josh wraps his arms around her.

I just nod my head to her. My head drops down, and I run a hand through my messy hair. I think back to the first time I ever heard Angel’s voice. How much she had affected me before I ever even saw that beautiful face.

“Hi. I’m, uh, looking for Slade.” The sweetest sounding voice that I have ever heard comes from the other end of the line. My body instantly reacts, making my already hard cock jerk.

“That’s him…me. I mean, this is he.” Fuck, what’s wrong with me? I clear my throat, since I can’t seem to speak properly, and continue to stand in the dark, waiting to hear what she has to say.

“Hi, Slade. My name is Samantha Hall. I’m so sorry to be calling you this late…early. Your brother, Micah, said you could help me.”

Help her? I haven’t been any help to her. All I’ve done since then is hurt her. It started out as instant attraction. I wanted her. Needed her sexually. Then I ended up falling in love with her. Needed more than her body. I needed her to give me everything she had to offer. And now it looks like she’s giving her life for my stupidity.

“It’s not your fault you know,” Tate interrupts my thoughts.

“Yes it is,” I mumble. It goes back to the beginning. If she wouldn’t have fallen in love with me she would have gone down a very different road. One that didn’t lead her to this hospital.

“Mr. Long?” My head snaps up when I hear my name.

“Yes?”

“You may see your wife now,” a nurse says getting my attention. I stand quickly and wipe my sweaty palms on my dress slacks, before I walk over to her desk. She points me to an alcove-like room that is open to a central region. The staff sits at a big circular area in order to view all patients while in ICU.

The area is busy with RNs, physicians, nurse aides, and other staff.

I make my way over to her small room and pull back the curtain. A nurse in light yellow scrubs looks up at me from a machine.

“Hello,” she says in a kind voice. “I’m Vicki, you’re wife’s nurse.” She motions down to the chart in her hand. “I’m just going to write down a few things and then I will leave you two alone.”

I nod once before my eyes land on my wife laying in a hospital bed once again. But this time is different. I take a step toward her, and my heart stops. I have physical pain in my chest as if someone just stabbed me with an ice pick. She has tubes and wires running to machines that are on both sides of her bed and hanging on the wall behind her head. She looks so frail and lifeless. I instantly have that vision of how we found her when Jax had taken her but this time she looks worse. Bruises and cuts dot her beautiful face. Her eyes are swollen, and she has a white bandage wrapped around the top of her forehead. She doesn’t look anywhere near like herself. Her usually tan skin is white as if drained from all color.

“Is she in any pain?” My voice cracks, and I feel my legs start to shake.

“Here,” the nurse says coming around to me. She scoots a chair closer to the bed and gestures for me to sit.

I run a hand over my face as I try to swallow the lump in my throat. I shakily grab a hold of the chair and sit down.

“No,” she says getting my attention. “She’s heavily sedated and on a continuous infusion of pain medication. We’re watching her closely, to control any pain and anxiety.”

I go to grab a hold of her hand, and I see that her wrists are tied down to the bed. “Why…” I go to ask, but she answers before I can.

“She has been restrained for her own protection. Prevent her from pulling the tube out without knowing it,” she says referring to the ventilator.

“Why does she have a bandage around her head?” I ask.

“She had a head laceration that required ten stitches,” she informs me.

I take in a shaky breath. “What is the possibility of brain damage?” I ask as tears fill my eyes.

“We have no way of knowing that until she wakes up, and we run some more tests,” she states writing something down on a chart that she is holding.

The sound of the ventilator fills her quiet room, and I try to hold down the lump in my throat once again.

I swallow it down but the tears flow easily down my cheeks. She looks to be dead, and it’s a terrifying feeling seeing the one you love look so far away. I wanna shake her as I yell wake up. Look at me. Just like I did when she was in the hospital after we found her in that house with Jax. But I know this time won’t be the same. I won’t be able to leave things out like I did then. I’ll have to remind her that we were fighting, that I was being a total ass and wasn’t speaking to her.

I reach down and grab a hold of her cold, pale hand, careful not to touch the IV and bandages that cover the gashes.

I look at the machines and see one that is moving rather quickly. “What does that machine mean?” I ask pointing to it.

“That one is a fetal heart monitor so we can monitor your child.” She smiles. “The baby is doing just fine.”

She smiles as she places a pen in her scrub pocket. “I will be right outside at that desk if you need me.” She goes to walk out but stops. “Talk to her. Let her know that you’re here.” She walks over to the corner of her small room and picks up a bag. “Here are her belongings.” She hands it to me, and I numbly take it then she starts to walk out leaving me alone with my wife. “Her wedding ring is with security but everything else is in there,” she adds.

I open it up to find her iPhone with a bloody and shattered screen. I run my finger over the picture of us in Paris smiling as she holds the lock that I had engraved with our names.

A sob comes out that I don’t even try to swallow down. Even with the cracked screen I can see her beautiful smile and bright green eyes.

I place it back in the bag and pull out a small blurry picture that sits at the bottom.

I look at it frowning for a few seconds before I realize it’s an ultrasound from her appointment today. I smile as I run my fingers over it. “I promise I’m going to do things differently,” I say quietly. “I’m gonna be the best daddy and husband I can be.” I look up from it and stare at my wife once again.

I take in a deep breath. “Angel,” I say softly. “I’m here, baby. I’m so sorry.” I know nothing I can say will ever make this right or ever make her believe me. “I failed you.” My voice wavers, and I clear my throat. “I told you I would always protect you, and I failed.” I stand from my chair, lean down, and kiss her forehead. “I won’t fail ever again, Angel,” I promise with a malice to my voice. “No one will ever hurt you again. I love you, and I’m going to show you just how much.”