Page 107 of Lessons in Power

The door to the hospital room opened. I expected it to be Ivy or Bodie, who’d promised to bring me a snack, but instead, William Keyes stood there. He hadn’t changed clothes since the last time I’d seen him. His thick white hair was disheveled. He’d aged a decade in a day.

“You are unharmed?”

Those were the exact same words he’d said to me before, but this time, there was more raw emotion woven through them than I’d ever heard in his voice. I wondered if he believed, as the rest of the world did, that Daniela and the baby had been killed. Given everything I knew about the man, if he hadn’t uncovered the truth yet, he would soon.

“I’m going to be okay,” I said. I meant it. Ialmostmeant it.

“If I thought I would not be murdered on the spot,” the kingmaker said, coming toward me, “I would turn you over my knee for going back into that building.”

I wasn’t sure if Keyes was concerned about being murdered by Adam or Ivy or me. Beside me, Adam glowered.

I felt a grin tug at the edges of my lips. “You sound like my grandfather,” I said. “My other grandfather.”

William Keyes had never liked being reminded that Gramps had raised me and loved me and made me the person I was, but this time, he seemed to take the reference in stride.

“You’re a horrible girl,” Keyes said, coming to stand right in front of me. “A reckless, stupid, irresponsible,horriblegirl. And I …”

He looked at Adam, then back at me.

“I could be a better man,” he said hoarsely. “For you.”

CHAPTER 65

The hospital didn’t hold me. I was released into Ivy’s custody. The first thing I did was ask about Henry. She knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t back down. And—apparently—the hospital staff knewherwell enough not to turn us away from the ICU.

Henry’s mother was standing in the hallway, her back to the wall, her fist pressed to her mouth, her face crumbling around it. My throat and stomach constricted.

“Tessie,” Ivy said softly, but I was already off running.

“Is he …” I asked Henry’s mother. I couldn’t get further into the question than that. Pamela Abellard-Marquette looked up. It took her a moment to register my presence, to look at me, instead of through me.

Her entire body shuddered as she bit back a sob.

“He’s going to be okay.” The words undid her, even as she tried to pull herself together. “He’s out of surgery, and they say …”

Ivy came and rested a hand on Henry’s mother’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Pam said. “I can’t fall apart right now. I know that, and Henry’s going to befine. He’ll need physical therapy, but he’ll befine, and I don’t know why I’m crying like this—”

Another sob racked her body.

I know.I knew why she was crying like she’d lost him. Because in the hours since Hardwicke had been taken over, she’d been down that road again and again. Grief was like a set of stacking dolls, and the woman in front of me had lost her husband. She’d lost the father-in-law who’d been her rock in the wake of that loss. She had a daughter who woke up screaming at night, terrified that Henry or her mother might be next.

Pam shook her head and pulled herself to her full height. She forced her breath to even out but couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down her face. She was as strong a woman as I’d ever seen. And she was broken.

Life hadbrokenher.

And still, she stood. She carried on. Standing there, looking at her, I saw so much of Henry. I saw that she would do anything to protect her children. I saw that she would be horrified by the idea of Henry carrying the weight of the world to protect her.

“Can I see him?” I asked.

“Tess.” Ivy said my name in a way that meantno, with a side ofstop asking.

“He saved me,” I told Pam. “He took that bullet for me.”

He betrayed me.

Pam must have heard something in my voice because she looked at Ivy. “It’s fine,” she said. “I’m not sure he’ll be awake,” she told me. “But you can go in.”