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“Juan.” My tone was less than enthusiastic as I tried to discreetly wipe my face. Avery was just a tad more sweet than me, but she couldn’t stop her face from showing how she really felt.

“How are you feeling?” My eyes lifted, surprised that he was even asking and even more that he sounded sincere. “You weren’t supposed to be discharged until tomorrow, right?”

I cleared my throat before nodding. “Yes, but they said I was good to go, and I’m actually feeling okay, but I’d feel better if I knew when Cruz was going to be waking up.”

“From what they just told me, they don’t know.

His body suffered a lot of trauma, so they want to keep him unconscious for a while longer.

I have a specialist flying in tomorrow, and we’ll see what he says though.

” I wasn’t shocked that he was going to spend extra money on another opinion, and I damn sure didn’t blame him.

Whatever got Cruz home to me faster, I agreed with.

“If I’m not here, can you please let me know what they say?” Since I wasn’t a family member, they refused to tell me about his condition when I asked, but if I formed a relationship with his parents, despite their behavior, it would definitely make things easier.

“Of course.” I raised my eyebrows and shared a look with Avery to see if she was witnessing this shit. “Me and Serena actually wanted to ask if you would join us for dinner one of these days. The matter of our grandchild is one that needs to be discussed…no?”

Snickering uncomfortably, I gave a nod, even though seeing them without Cruz was probably not going to happen.

“I’ll have to see about that. Between the twins and trying to sit with Cruz, I’ll probably be tired, but I’m sure we can set something up,” I lied through my teeth, but he seemed satisfied or at least understanding.

I stayed for as long as I could, considering that Juan was in the room, but when Serena entered, I knew it was time to go.

Besides, I really did need to check on the twins since they hadn’t seen me in a couple of days, but I was definitely going to make sure I came back.

When I left the hospital, I hadn’t thought at all about why there was no security.

Hell, even when Avery ended up being the one to drive me and the twins home, it hadn’t crossed my mind how weird it was to go from having a big hulking man following me around to having complete freedom.

It wasn’t until I returned to Cruz’s house that it all started to make sense.

Every person he had standing guard was gone, from the men surrounding the gate to the ones that were posted inside the house, and when I asked the head maid about it, she was extremely hush-hush.

I figured that perhaps with Cruz out of commission, they didn’t know they were supposed to stay, but that was just me trying to make sense of some shit that didn’t seem right.

It wasn’t until the next day when I attempted to see Cruz and was told that I was on the no-entry list that shit started to become crystal clear.

For as much as Juan had tried to seem nice and unassuming the day before, his ass had really just been waiting for the moment to bar me from seeing his son!

I cursed everybody out from the nurses at the station to random doctors walking by that didn’t even have shit to do with his care, but all that did was make them call security and get me escorted out.

I called and vented to Avery on the way home to see if maybe Maasai could talk to them, but Juan had a deep disdain for him too, after having Cruz more involved in McCarter family business than his own.

“What the hell…?” My voice trailed off as I watched a steady flow of people coming in and out of the house with me and the kids’ things and set them in a truck.

“What? What is it now?” Avery was beyond worked up at the underhanded shit Cruz’s parents had done, so I didn’t even want to tell her about this and add to it, but I’d already slipped up. Plus, I was probably going to need their help anyway.

“Ummm, there are people moving our stuff out of the house.” I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping that this shit was just a bad dream, but they were still there, and my shit was still on a damn U-Haul.

“ What! ” she screeched so loudly in my ear that I had to move the phone away.

“Oh, they got us fucked up! They can’t do shit like that!

Call the police, ’cause I’m sure that’s an illegal eviction or some shit!

” I could hear her moving around and sounding all out of breath before Maasai’s voice came through.

She’d been loud enough that he probably could’ve heard her from the other side of their big ass house.

I watched in horror as they finished up, and Serena came strolling out of the front door.

Instead of following the truck with my shit in it though, I stormed over to her ready to knock her ass out.

“What the fuck is wrong with you! You have no right to?—”

“No dear, you have no right. Now you need to go with your belongings and leave my son to me. You’ve already caused enough problems in his life, don’t add to his stress when this is already your fault.

” It felt like a knife in my heart to hear her say that, especially after how they’d been playing in my face the last week, but they really had me fucked up.

I was sure they had no clue about the money Cruz had given me, so my kids and I would be good regardless, but I know when he found out what they’d done, I couldn’t say the same for them.