“Yeah. Got my feel of your pussy.” I stab the knife to the hilt, hating myself more than I already do in the process.
“I’ll pray for your son.” She twists on a heel and stomps down the corridor.
I watch her go, hating every second her fine ass is strutting further away, while knowing this is the way it has to be.
“He’s not even yours.“ Belinda’s words play on a loop in my head followed by the scene of the accident on replay. I keep reliving that fateful moment, asking myself what I could have done differently. Why Belinda said that shit to me? Why I fucking slammed the brakes? Why I’m still breathing? I don’t have any answers. Only more questions. Like if I’m not this boy’s father, then who the fuck is?
Fuck me. The easy thing to do would be to give the kid over to my wife’s family. Let them raise him. Go lose myself in Freya and her sweet cunt. Let her make me forget any of this happened. But that’s not the kind of man I am. Not the man I choose to be. I’m Bensen’s father. Whether we share DNA doesn’t change the fact that I’m the one who watched him enter this world. I’ve been here every step of the damn way.
I may not be the best man for the job, but I’m the man who stepped up.
“Sir, I’m sorry. The scans show no sign of improvement. The internal injuries sustained due to the impact of the crash were too much for his small body.”
“You said when the swelling went down, you’d have answers.”
My vision is distorted to nothing but shades of red. Hatred for this world and everyone in it brews inside me in waves.
This four-eyed bastard has the balls to stand here and tell me that there’s nothing that he can do. Says he’s exhausted all his resources. I call bullshit.
“These situations are never easy. I—“
The doctor doesn’t finish his sentence because my hand is wrapped around his throat squeezing the life out of him like the life is draining out of my boy.
“Security,” someone screams as two men grab hold of me.
I fight, punch, and kick. “You can’t take my boy,” I roar. They’ll have to kill me first.
Sharp fangs pierce my skin and bursts of electric currents jolt through me. I drop to my knees before I’m slammed on the cold floor. My body jerks with every volt. Metal cuffs circle my wrists as I’m jerked back to my feet and escorted to an awaiting police car.
Belinda is comatose and paralyzed. My son is brain dead. And I might as well be. I don’t want to live in a world where he doesn’t exist.
“Shane Jackson.”
I look up from my seat on this metal bench in the holding cell I’ve spent the past five hours in. Five hours in purgatory with only my tainted thoughts for company.
“Hospital isn’t pressing charges. Thank your father-in-law.” The officer opens the door and lets me out the back door of the station. “Don’t pull any more stupid stunts.”
“Right,” I mutter.
I’ve spent the past five hours not knowing if my son is still alive. They want to pull the plug on his life support and donate any viable organs.
They’ve given up on him and expect me to do the same.
I don’t have my cell phone to call anyone for a ride. I don’t even know where my wallet is. I take off walking toward the hospital. They can’t keep me from being with my son. He’s going to be okay. Miracles happen every damn day. I don’t give a fuck what that doctor has to say about it.
They aren’t taking my boy.
Over my dead body.
Chapter Five
I wipe away my tears and go in search of Fisher.
I find him where I left him. Shit talking with my father. Fisher’s gaze meets mine and he smiles at me as though there’s no one else he’d rather see. He looks at me the way I’d hoped Death would.
“I’m going home. You staying or going?”
“Wherever you are, that’s where the man wants to be. You two get on out of here. Come see me when you’re ready to come up for air.”