“You didn’t do anything?” Christian’s voice rose to an octave that pierced all of our eardrums. “Are you delusional?”
He paused.
“Don’t answer that. I already know you are. You beat our child. Then, when the woman you were dating tried to save her from that beating, you beat her, too. She’s in the hospital with several broken ribs, Cedrick. Did you know that?”
Cedrick’s smile turned brittle. “She means nothing to me.”
This bitch…
“She meant enough for you to bring her to my wedding. She meant enough for you to introduce our child to her. She meant enough that you wanted her added to Simone’s school pick-up list.” She pointed at him. “I hope you realize that your entire world just changed, and you were the dumbass to make it that way.”
Cedrick tried to say something more but the man who’d come from the office in plain clothes said, “Officer Daniels, get Cedrick booked. Officer Moore, please release that woman before we have another lawsuit on our hands.” He looked around the room. “I’m on vacation for two seconds, and you forget how to be police officers?”
They all looked sheepish. “He’s one of ours.”
“I don’t give a fuck if he’s my goddamn wife. You will not overlook the overwhelming evidence that’s right in front of your face. You were both literally in the same room when he went to take his child hostage. His child whom he beat, and you were aware that he beat. And when a citizen stepped in to do your job for you, you arrest her?” The man laughed, but it wasn’t a good laugh. “You’re both on unpaid leave after you finish getting them booked. Pending investigation, of course. But from where I’m standing, it’s not looking too good for you.”
The officers moved then, taking a struggling Cedrick into custody.
Calliope arrived at my side at the same time that Christian and Simone went into the pissed off man’s office and closed the door.
I decided to grab Calli’s hand and pull her out of the station before anyone could change their minds.
When she was in my truck, I said, “What the fuck happened?”
She spent the next ten minutes telling me exactly what happened, ending with, “And then I was arrested.”
I pulled up into the hospital parking lot and stopped, scraping both of my hands down my face for a long second before I said, “Thank you, Calli.”
She patted me on the hand. “Contrary to what you might think, I’m not that bad of a person.”
I snorted. “I never said you were.”
She got out of the truck and hopped down to the ground. Before she closed the door, though, she looked at me and said, “If you say so.”
With that parting comment, she slammed the door closed and walked to her truck.
I waited to see her drive away before I headed into the hospital.
It took everything I had not to die a little as I entered.
If I never saw another hospital again, it’d be too soon.
Spending months upon months in one, unable to talk or relay my fears and concerns, made them feel like a prison to me.
I’d just made it to the hospital doors when they parted for a person exiting.
My breath hitched when I saw Harlow standing there.
Or, more accurately, her best friend’s husband, Laric, supporting her.
He had his arm under her, holding her up.
She looked frail against the large man.
“What the fuck?” I hissed.
“Did you get her out?”
