Wyatt opens his mouth to respond but is thankfully cut off by the clicking of high heels echoing in from the hallway. Glancing towards the door frame, I see Garrett’s face fall. The smile he’d only just found disappears, his sandwich forgotten on the table. I grip onto Axel’s hand protectively, anticipating a threat advancing on us.
A doctor steps into the room, followed by a woman dressed for a business meeting rather than a hospital visit. A navy jumpsuit clings to her curves, pink detailing around the bust to a matching sash tied tightly to cinch her waist. Her neck and ears are dripping with expensive jewellery, her dark hair pulled back into a chignon bun.
“Who are you?” Huxley stands and confronts her. There’s barely any height difference between the two with her six-inch heels. Ignoring the question, the woman’s pale brown eyes drag over Axel lazily and come to rest on our joined hands. Her perfectly painted red lips lift in a sneer, the true reflection of her ugly personality coming to the surface. Straightening my shoulders, refusing to be intimidated, I latch onto Garrett’s answer, dripping with venom.
“Although she doesn’t deserve the title, this is Axel’s mom.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Oh, my poor boy! What have you done to him?” Axel’s mom saunters across the room to inspect the botched shave job we just finished, reaching out to run her finger across a few missed longer hairs. Garrett’s hand shoots across from the other side of the bed, snatching her wrist tightly in his grip.
“Don’t pretend you give a shit about him, Sharon,” he hisses her name through his teeth. “He doesn’t belong to you anymore.” Garrett’s dark eyes are blazing with fury, his arm trembling from the firm hold that has the slender woman whimpering.
After a tense second, which has even a doctor hovering in the doorway frozen with anticipation, Garrett releases her with a shove and moves to sit on the bed. Sliding his arm beneath Axel’s neck, Garrett tenderly pulls him close like a lion protecting his sleeping mate from outside threats.
With a roll of her eyes, Sharon turns around to face the rest of us and holds out her palms expectantly. The doctor, whose name tag reads as Dr. Breeson, jerks into action. Rushing forward with a brown envelope I hadn’t noticed he was holding, he pulls a pen from his jacket pocket and hands them both to Sharon.
Pulling the papers free, her eyes roam over the typed words, lips pursing before scrawling an elaborate signature with her manicured fingers. The glint of an outrageous diamond fixed to her skinny weddingfinger catches Garrett's attention. His eyes narrowed as he tracks the jewel back down her side.
“There,” she hands the paperwork back to the doctor, his forehead dripping with sweat, making his black hair look even greasier. “I’ve already made the necessary arrangements.” He nods quickly, his eyes flicking back to Garrett before ducking out of the room like a bomb is about to detonate.
“What arrangements?” I ask when clearly no one else is going to speak. Dax’s muscles are bunched by the bathroom door, his locked jaw matching Huxley’s, who has edged around and slyly stepped in front of me. Sharon’s pale eyes light up further as she takes in Huxley, scanning his handsome features and broad frame and pausing over his crotch for a beat too long.
“Axel’s coming home with me.”
“Like fuck he is!” Garrett roars, gently placing down Axel’s head before leaping from the mattress to join the rest of us by the foot of the bed. “I refuse to let him out of my sight, especially around the likes of you. You’re not beyond pimping out his unconscious body for the right price.” His chest is heaving, fists clenched, ready for a fight that Sharon doesn’t seem interested in having.
I clearly don’t know as many details of Axel’s past as everyone else in this room, but I know enough, and the woman before me isn’t the monster I envisioned. Axel has her full lips and heart-shaped face, although that’s where the similarities end.
Her hair sits perfectly at the back of her slender jewel-covered neck, her breasts too perky to be natural in an expensive pantsuit. She easily could have been a model or boutique owner, but I suppose marrying into money was more her speed. Twisting her lips at Garrett’s comment and checking her watch, she looks to the ceiling as if her patience is being tested.
“I don’t like this anymore than you do, but both the hospital and Waversea have been insistent. There aren’t enough beds to keep him here indefinitely, and since Axel is still a minor by law, he needs to return to my care whether I want him to or not. I’ve got enough on my plate without babysitting a houseful of overgrown delinquents. By all means, tag along and play happy couples or whatever this is,” she waves herhand vaguely between all of us. “He’s being transported within the hour, with or without you.”
Her heels click loudly across the floor as she moves to leave, my mind whirling with questions and concerns. My mouth opens, but it’s not my voice that fills the room.
“We’re all coming with him,” Wyatt states coldly. Sharon halts at his demanding tone, looking back over her shoulder, although she isn’t looking in his direction. A smirk pulls at her lips as she holds Huxley’s gaze and raises a brow.
“As you wish. A bit of extra eye candy hanging around is never a bad thing,” she winks at him and leaves, her hips slinking with much more vigour than before. Huxley visibly shudders.Well, that was disturbing. No one moves for a while, watching the empty space in the doorway.
I’m the first one to turn, finding Dax’s blue eyes fixed on me with a note of longing in them. For a split second, I could have easily run into his arms and allowed his spicy scent to wash away my worries. His gentle touch and soft lips to take control of my pain and wipe it from existence. But that won’t help Garrett, who is quickly spiraling back into the panic that consumed him earlier.
I close the space between us and take his trembling fists in my hands. Garrett stares over my head; his neck is so taut it looks like it might snap itself at any moment. “Hey, look at me.” I beckon his head to tilt downwards. “Nothing will happen to him. You heard her, she’ll be preoccupied.”
“I promised he’d never go back there,” Garrett’s eyes shift between mine, the glassiness from earlier reappearing. I cup his jaw, feeling the weight of the others all pressing closer.
“None of us wanted this, but our hands are tied,” Dax says from my side. Huxley swallows hard beyond my shoulder.
“The least we can do is make sure we’re there for him when he wakes.”
“She won’t get within ten feet of him,” Wyatt growls, his shoulders tense and jaw tight. I blink over at him, but he doesn’t spare me a glance. His expression is murderous and set on the empty doorway. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Something about Wyatt’s certainty breaks through Garrett’s rising panic. Nodding slowly, some of the tension ebbs from his shoulders, hisconcerned gaze flicking back to Axel. On a heavy sigh, he whispers his agreement and shifts back to the bedside, brushing his fingers along Axel’s jaw. Peacefully sleeping Axel, blissfully unaware that he’s about to return to the place of his nightmares.
No time was wasted. Security quickly evacuate most of us from the room to prepare Axel for transportation. As expected by all, Garrett refuses to leave. Luckily, Dax and Huxley are in the habit of keeping their belongings close, and Wyatt left ours in the trunk so no time is wasted gathering our belongings. Within just a few minutes, we are ready to go, settling in for yet another long journey.
Watching through the SUV’s windscreen, the gurney is pushed into the back of an ambulance in the hospital's layby. Garrett is also on the bed, his arm and leg hoisted over his lover, hissing at anyone who gets too close like a pissed-off cat. The two porters struggle to move the extra weight on the silver ramp, using their shoulders to stop it from rolling back down. I have to snort at the ridiculousness of it all.
Finally managing to secure the gurney in place and slam the back doors closed, one of the porters raps on the side of the ambulance for the driver to pull away. Huxley doesn’t waste a second, keeping the SUV right on their tail as the van merges into traffic. His jaw is tight, hands gripping the wheel as he weaves through the busy streets, refusing to let any cars slide between us.
