“The bed lifts up, it’s one of those buttons,” I told him.“You gonna do that yourself too, or do you want me to do it?”
He was still studying me, guardedly, even as he took anothersip.
Then he nodded.“You.”
I nabbed the control, figured out which button and pressedit.
“Tell me when,” I said to the control.
The bed whirred.
“When.”
I stopped pressing and dropped the control.
I returned my attention to him.
“Where’s Liam?”he asked.
“With Toni and Tony, seeing as today, I disowned my mother,father and Lena.”
“Baby,” he whispered, but his mouth was twitching.
Fury boiled in my veins.
“Are you being serious right now?”I asked, my voicedangerous, my eyes locked on his gorgeous, full lips.
“Maybe when I’m not in a hospital bed with a caved-in head Ican explain this to you,” he said.
My eyes darted to his.
“Explain what?”I asked.“How you, for the last nine years,colluded with my sister, and then my mother and father, to be a part of ourson’s life, and you didn’t tell me?”
“Lena caught me watching him on the playground one day.”
“I know.”
“She got up in my shit.”
“You’ve been unconscious for a while, Darius, and cell phonetechnology was invented before you took that hit for Ally.I’ve had a fewconversations since then.”I leaned slightly toward him.“Heatedones.”
His lips twitched again.
Of all the—!
“This isn’t funny,” I snapped.
“Maybe you’ll get there one day,” he murmured.
A tire iron, two bullets and a knife didn’t kill him.
But I was going to.
“Taking us back, I know that too,” I declared.“About Lenagetting up in your shit.About you two striking a deal.About how sheeventually roped my parents in.Even about the fact that when Miss Dorothea sawus in the waiting room of this very hospital and gasped, she didn’t gaspbecause she didn’t know Liam existed.She gasped because you were in surgerywhen it was all gonna come out that all of you all,” I whirled a finger in theair, “were playing mebehind my back.”My voice was rising when Ifinished, “Even Miss Dorothea!”
“I know you wanted Liam to know his grandma.”
“Not behind my back!”I shouted.
