Page 39 of Blood (A Killer’s Love #4)

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Kaleb

I glance over at a silent Samantha.

Red-eyed and pale, she looks tired and older than her twenty-two years under the fluorescent lights of the hospital elevator.

Hearing the ding, I reach out and take her hand, happy when she doesn’t pull away.

“Come on, baby,” I encourage, leading her down the corridor toward her best friend’s room.

The night nurse looks up as we pass but doesn’t comment on our late visit.

Money will do that for you.

The blinds are open in Shelby’s room. Through the slats, I see Leonard stand.

Quietly, he joins us in the hall.

“How is she?” I ask.

He shakes his head and blinks.

“Awake. On good pain meds.” He manages to get out.

Samantha isn’t the only one with red eyes.

“Riley?” he asks.

“She’s perfect. More than happy to be having a sleepover with her new aunt Lara and uncle Michael,” I reassure.

He runs a hand through his hair. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Shelby’s family. That makes you family?” I state. Raising a brow, I dare him to argue.

“She could use some of that right now.” He nods back into the room. Pinching the bridge of his nose, we watch as he tries to calm himself. “She was pregnant.”

I stand straighter at his words.

Was.

Sam doesn’t wait to hear anymore. Slipping her hand from mine, she rushes into her friend’s room.

We watch as my girl slips off her sneakers and crawls onto the bed. Sam wraps her body around Shelby, careful of the sling and bandages.

That’s all it takes. The young brunette breaks down, and her sobs claw at my chest.

“How far along?” I ask, meeting his eyes.

“Only a few weeks.” Removing his glasses, he wipes his own eyes. “We didn’t know.”

My heart breaks at the pain coming from the room and the man before me. Placing a hand on his shoulder, I offer the only words I can. “I’m sorry.”

Leonard and I join the girls in the hospital room.

Hearing us enter, Shelby turns her face into the pillow away from us.

Sam follows suit, moving with her. Spooning her friend, Samantha strokes Shelby’s hair, whispering words lost in the little space separating them.

Leaning over the bottom of the bed, I reach out to grasp Shelby’s foot. “I’m sorry, sweet girl.”

My words are drowned out by her tears, but I feel her foot flex under my fingers.

The room slowly stills, Shelby falling into a light sleep.

Leonard shifts on the small sofa that he and I sit on. “She has a broken clavicle where the car impacted and a dislocated shoulder.”

I eye the sling on her right arm.

“Bruising along the entire right side of her body. She’s lucky her hip wasn’t broken, but she’ll feel it when she walks for a few weeks.”

I swallow, keeping my eyes on the bed.

“A broken wrist where she tried to break their fall.”

Her left wrist lays near the edge of the bed, the plaster bright pink.

“It’s Riley’s favorite color. She thought it would be less scary. The doctor says her headache will ease, but we need to be wary of the concussion.”

Grief fills me.

“This is your fault.”

Closing my eyes, I feel my tears break free at his words. Sam’s doubts from earlier attack me.

No!

“He may have been there because of us, but Cooper’s actions are his own,” I push back.

“I’m not talking about the car plowing into my family.” He shakes his head, giving an empty laugh. “You and your brothers should have taken care of him well before now. He shouldn’t still be on this earth to be driving!” Leonard hisses.

My head snaps around.

He glares at me through his black-rimmed glasses.

“You’ve been fucking around with him for years. This”—he points at the bed—“is on the three of you.”

My heart thumps in my throat. What does he know?

“Before now, I didn’t give a fuck what you did, none of you. You kept it to yourselves, but this . . .” He looks away.

“We’ll take care of it,” I say carefully.

“No, you had your chance.”

Interesting . It seems my family isn’t the only ones with a secret.

“Shelby’s family.” I repeat my words from earlier.

Silence fills the room.

“Then maybe it needs to be a family event,” he relents.

We sit, watching our girls.

I’m not worried that he knows. He clearly has skeletons of his own. Ones we should probably dig up for safekeeping.

I promised Samantha that I would make this right, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

My eyes find my girl.

My life.

My strength.

Nothing and no one will ever take her again.