Page 52 of Trial of Deceit (The Family’s Oath #1)

Chapter thirty-two

“M ek sure yu keep yu eye dem pon Cedella,” Jediah whispered as he stood beside the incubator his child lay in.

“I’m not stupid, Jediah. Yu tell mi dat hundred time since mi come here,” Bryony said, irritated.

Instead of replying, Jediah dared to look down at the incubator.

Before now, he’d looked at it only once since entering the room.

It was a hard sight: seeing a newborn connected to tubes, with its limbs small and fragile, its head too big for its body.

Cedella and her team had said they’d done all they could for the baby.

Now, they’d try to get some rest, then periodically check on the baby during the night.

Whether or not the baby lived to see another day would be dependent on its strength.

Cedella hadn’t said it directly, but the small, sympathetic smile she’d given Jediah before excusing herself from the room said the chance of survival was at the lowest of lows.

Bryony laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it firmly. Jediah didn’t have to look at her to know she was giving him one of the motherly smiles he’d grown to love and appreciate.

Jediah’s eyes darted to the heart monitor.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The incessant tune knocked at Jediah’s resilience. Trying its hardest to lure Jediah a bit closer so he could stick one of his hands inside the hole, and finally get a touch of what he and his wife had created.

A baby.

Their baby.

Who wasn’t guaranteed to make it through the night.

Jediah inhaled a breath, then exhaled it in a tremble. “D-do you remember when I was born?” he asked in a whisper, unable to keep the crack out of his voice.

“Yes,” Bryony answered. “It was the scariest night of our lives, but you made it.”

“I made it…”

“Yes, Jediah.” Bryony moved to stand before him, reaching up to cup his cheeks. She made him shift his focus to her. Her expression held everything she felt for him: love, compassion, understanding. “And your baby will, too.”

“But—”

“Don’t say it,” Bryony interrupted. “You a no the first baby fi born with dextrocardia and survive, and your child naa go be the last fi born and survive as a premie. Trust Cedella’s medical expertise.

Everything will be okay,” she affirmed, and Jediah nodded, though his heart still pounded rapidly.

Bryony gave him a smile, then wiped beneath his eyes with her thumbs.

Jediah pulled away. He dragged the back of his hands across his eyes while turning his back to the incubator. “I’m going back to the estate.”

Bryony frowned. “Why yu don’ mek Reine carry the things come gi yu? Ashari need yu—”

“She’s been sleeping since we came back, Miss B. Why do you think I’m here?” Jediah asked, and she pursed her lips. “I’m not going to ask Reine because I don’t want her digging around me and my wife’s room. Suppose she sees things she’s not supposed to?”

Bryony gasped. “Jediah!”

He chuckled. “I need fresh air, so I don’t mind driving back. If Ash wakes up and asks for me, tell her I went out to get her comfort items.”

Nodding, Bryony removed her reading glasses from the top of her head and rested it on the tip of her nose. She walked away and sat on a chair in the corner of the room, then grabbed her phone off the table.

Jediah exited the room. Aside from the crew scattered throughout the hallway, the wing was empty. There were definitely perks to being the top donor to this hospital for so many years.

Arriving in the lobby, Jediah kept a tunnel vision while moving toward the exit.

He knew the doctors and nurses must’ve been throwing glances at him — curious why the man who avoided the hospital he kept running for years, was suddenly freely walking the halls — but he couldn’t force a cordial smile at them.

He needed to go home, get an update on how Dimitri and Reka were doing with the clean-up, then return to his wife’s side. He was on edge from being in Kingston at a time like this.

“Uncle!”

The bodies around Jediah shuffled, disregarding the public as they pulled out their guns. People screamed as they scattered.

Jediah paused, inches away from the fleet of armored SUVs throttling by the curb. He looked over his shoulder, a scowl on his face when he saw Quadre. “You have some nerve,” Jediah gritted out, extending his arm for a guard to hand him a gun.

He needed to end this himself.

This boy was a pest. One Jediah would squish between his fingers, toss onto the ground, then trample.

“Malia said you don’t kill children!” Quadre rushed out, his eyes wide.

“What?” Jediah hissed.

Quadre lifted his chin. The tremble in his hands was still noticeable as he balled them into fists at his side. “The Richardson family has values. An oath.”

“You’re a Thorne,” Jediah said.

“Y-yes, b-but, Malia—”

Jediah continued speaking, pretending not to hear Quadre’s input, “Fatherless, like your mother. Soon to be motherless, like me.”

More fear rushed to the young man’s eyes. Quadre gulped hard. “Can I go into my pocket?”

Jediah’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Yes.”

Quadre dug into his pockets, then pulled out a piece of paper. He stretched his hand toward Jediah. “Malia said to give this to you. She wants to speak to you.”

Jediah looked at the paper resting between Quadre’s fingers. He dreaded the thought of speaking to that woman. Seeing that woman. Breathing the same air as that woman. Ever again. In this life, or the next.

But Malia caught him at a time he was most vulnerable: he was thinking of the child he had strapped to an oxygen tank and several tubes, and the boy who couldn’t shed a tear at his mother’s funeral because Reine would cry harder and Kayon would reprimand him.

Jediah turned his back, tucking the pistol into his side while continuing toward the cars.

“Somebody get the paper and let’s go.” After he entered the car and it drove off, Jediah accepted the paper.

His brows furrowed at the number scribbled on the paper in black ink before he pulled out his phone and dialed it.

The phone rang once before the call was answered: “Jediah.”

Jediah stiffened at the woman’s voice. It’d been so long since he heard it over the phone. Her voice was aged, raspy from a bad cigar-smoking habit, and still, her sweet femininity remained. Malia was assertive, but not too much to overpower her motherly gentleness.

Jediah’s grip tightened on the phone. “Wa yu wan’?”

Malia paused. “Is that how you were raised to speak?”

Jediah clenched his jaw. “Malia,” he gritted out.

She sighed. “I’m growing tired of repeating myself—”

“Imagine me.”

“I want to meet.”

“Why?”

“To finish our conversation.”

Jediah closed his eyes, leaning his head backward and inhaling a long drag of air through his nostrils.

Exhaling the breath, he willed his heart to steady.

“I’ll set a date and we can meet at a location of my choosing.

You’re allowed to bring exactly one person wid yu,” he said.

“But I won’t come unless my baby makes it through the night.

If mi youth don’ survive, I will hunt you for the rest of your life. ”

Jediah pushed his ring off his finger, rolling it across his knuckles as he watched Dimitri pat down the woman. He was surprised Malia brought Treasure with her. When did they become close?

She should’ve brought a guard. That would’ve shown her fear.

Bringing Treasure meant Malia was being smug.

Jediah’s eyes narrowed as Treasure smirked at him, as if she could hear his thoughts. Realizing his annoyance had seeped into his expression, Jediah relaxed his facial muscles.

Dimitri finished his search. It’d been a week since Jediah had last seen her.

He allowed them entrance into the grand hall of the restaurant.

As always, Malia Valcourt was dressed to impress.

She didn’t care that they lived on a tropical island, she sported an almost identical outfit to the one she’d worn to Kayon’s funeral.

The black bodycon dress hugged her slim curves and stopped at her ankles.

She swapped the layered gold necklaces for a fancy pearl choker. This time, her hat had long fringes.

Malia removed her glasses, placing them on the table while sitting across from Jediah.

The table was at the center of the room — far from windows, in case Malia managed to have hidden snipers; far from exits, in case she tried to outrun Jediah’s guards stationed at different points in the room.

She removed her glasses and placed them atop the table, holding his stare the entire time.

“You’re dressed like you’re going to a funeral,” Jediah mused.

Reaching for the wine bottle in the cooler, Malia shrugged. “Might be my own,” she said, filling both hers and Treasure’s glasses while her eyes flickered about the room. “I heard about what you did to your first wife.”

“Fiancée,” Jediah corrected. He was fed up with people constantly giving Acacia a title she never deserved.

Treasure’s smirk grew. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, little brother,” she taunted. “It’s a pity our father died before he could see how I’m going to take over the family.”

Jediah didn’t resist rolling his eyes. This woman and her son were more delusional than he’d been when he convinced himself that marrying Ashari would deter her from betraying him. “You’re not a Richardson.”

“Thorne might be the name on my birth certificate, be we both know that I was here before you.”

“Mi shoulda kill yu when mi did have the chance,” he gritted out.

Treasure’s cocky expression faded. Her eyes glazed over, probably remembering how viciously Jediah had killed her mother.