She looked at me as if I were insane, but took it off and gave it to me. I looked it over before telling her.
“Thank you. Grayson, please pay her,” I said, turning around, placing the brooch into my open purse and heading straight towards room 9219. The wooden door squeaked when I stepped inside. Making the woman inside, who wasn’t even looking towards me, say, “I knew you’d come.” She turned, the grin on her face deflating as she saw me instead of the man she hoped would come.
Her hair was brushed over her shoulder, and she had cuts on her arms and face, including the one from the punch I’d given her. She sat up on the bed earlier…she’d been waiting.
“How did you know he’d come?” I asked as I walked further into the room, closing the door behind me.
“Because he values family more than anything else. Once he knew, he’d have to come,” she said proudly, placing her hand on her stomach. “Aren’t I lucky? Our son’s a fighter just like his father.”
I glanced at her stomach and then at her again. “You aren’t scared of me, are you?”
“Why would I be?”
“Yeah, most people say that.” I sighed.
She snickered, even popping her head to the side. “You don’t belong in our lives. This is proof. Congrats, you may now be Ethan’s wife, but I’m going to be the mother of his child...he won’t let anything happen to either of us.”
“…hmmm.”
“What?” She glared at me. “There’s nothing you can do. Other than get used to me, that is.”
Without a word, I turned to the machine beside her, reaching inside my purse I pulled the card I’d stolen from the nurse as she gave me her brooch, swiping it on the machine.
“What are you doing? Stop!” She tried reaching over to smack my arm away but she couldn’t reach and I did what I needed to do.
“I’m sure you really love Ethan.” I said, turning to her. Picking up her morphine drip and pressing down hard, the limit was taken off it and the drug flooded into her system. “And I can’t say I do…so this may seem unfair. But life has been unfair to me too. In the past…I just let it go. Good will win out at the end of the day. That’s what I told myself…But I was wrong. Now I have a second chance, Klarissa. I can’t wait for the end of the day. I can’t be the better person. I can’t be left behind.”
Her body weakened, her arms fell back onto the bed, I swiped the nurse’s card once more, getting out of the system, setting the dose back to normal, and moving over to her, I put the control for the drip in her palm.
“Burn…in…hell.” She sneered at me as I returned the room back to normal, even moving the machine back into place.
“I already did,” I whispered back, petting her cheek before moving back to the door.
When I opened the door, Greyson looked at me and then back at the woman glaring at my back.
“She doesn’t want to talk,” I said to him.
He frowned but nodded, moving for me to walk past. I stopped near the station, the nurse now gone, most likely happily celebrating. I dropped her card on the desk before we walked across the cream-colored lobby, towards the door. There, standing in his all black suit at the very top of the white staircase, was Ethan himself. The guards were gone, and he didn’t move, he didn’t say a word, but merely watched me.
“Was she supposed to be a mistress while I was the happy Irish wife to help get Boston’s support back?”
“The Callahan men don’t have mistresses.” He said unmoved and emotionless as always.
“I heard that once,” I replied stepping up and up until I stood on the same level as him. We turned to face each other. “I was kid, we were having a cookout, my parents just had their anniversary and my grandma said, ‘Say what you want about ’em Callahan boys but ain’t none of them ever step out on their wives.’ Her voice was the first thing that went through my mind as Nari told me about Klarissa.”
“Is it—”
Before he could say anything I punched him as hard as I could. His head went back, but he took it, lifting his hand to wipe the blood from his nose.
“Dona was right. You know how to throw a punch,” he muttered.
“And you know how to use people.” I snapped back at him. “The second thing that went through my mind was whether you knew. I quickly realized you did. And if you were going to keep her as your mistress, you would have made sure Nari had no chance to speak to me. But you didn’t and she did. So that means you must have t
old her to tell me. You did this so I’d kill her and you didn’t have to have that on your hands. You didn’t kill your unborn child, your wife did.”
He didn’t bother trying to deny it. “It was only three weeks old. It wasn’t a child. It was a bunch of cells.”
“And yet you still couldn’t do it.”