Everlasting - Christine Michelle Page 0,64

also in critical condition in a hospital in Canada. Tiger Lily sat with me, holding my hand while we waited, but Gretchen and Kane had taken my kids for the day.

My father had been the one to call and suggest that the girls not be there when they arrived. “He’s a mess, Ever. I need you to prepare yourself. Physically, on the outside, he’s unharmed. I don’t want you to fool yourself though, he has a long road to recovery.”

I already knew that. Ava had told me about his condition and what Toby had explained to her was being done to him. Knowing my brother, he was sheltering me from part of it, so I expected the worst. We also made sure to keep the Durbin guy around, just in case his particular skill set was needed when Deck got here. As it turned out, he was one of the foremost skilled people in the damn world at getting others detoxed and their habit kicked. Due to a rather shady background and upbringing, he tended to work for hire for the rich and the dangerous, taking extremely large payouts for his services and his silence.

He spoke to me, told me what to expect and the condition he had last seen Deck in. I was stunned, and I’m not going to lie, devastated to learn about the amnesia and memory issues. No woman wants to hear that her man forgot who she was. I especially didn’t want to know about it, because that meant that at some point, he may have willingly been with the woman who was brought back to the compound, still pregnant. She was still screaming down the pit that she was having Deck’s baby. I hadn’t been allowed to see her in person, but Kane snuck me into the guy’s command center, as I called it, where I was able to watch her on video and hear her claims. It killed me to think that my husband had ever been with this woman, and I knew that they had a history before me. He had told me about her on one of our first dates. That was where all my doubts had kicked in. My husband had explained to me that he was ready to propose to her, had he not found her fucking his best buddy at the time.

“Put it all out of your head,” Tiger Lily whispered to me.

“What?”

“All the doubts, the worries, the what ifs that go along with that whore they have locked up, you need to put them away for now. You’ll get to the bottom of it all, eventually.”

“What if he doesn’t remember? What if she really is pregnant with his baby and he did that with her willingly?”

“I’m going to tell you this once, and I want you to really hear me,” she looked me right in the eye as she spoke. “Whatever he did when he couldn’t remember, whatever he did when he was drugged out of his mind, none of it matters and sure as fuck shouldn’t count. You know why? He was their prisoner the whole damn time. Even if she managed to trick him because of the drugs and amnesia, that wasn’t your Deck who did those things. You need to get that right in your brain, because you can’t hold it against him. If that baby turns out to be his, you can’t hold it against his child either.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” I whispered. That much, I knew for sure, even if I was confused and frustrated about the rest. Lily patted my knee.

“I know, just had to say it for myself. Lucy set a good example for you, with you. There’s no way you wouldn’t do the right thing, but sweetheart, you know she struggled. I know you’d struggle, and I’m here. You need to know that I’m here when you do.”

“I know. Thank you. I love you, Lil.”

“Love you too, baby girl,” she insisted. “Now, let’s get ready to welcome my boy home.” While I knew she was just as excited to do so, her smile wavered, and the exhaustion played out in her features.

“After you get to see him and welcome him home, I need you to get some rest,” I demanded.

“I won’t argue with you because I feel dead on my feet right now, but when I have more energy, I’m going to tell you that you aren’t the boss of me,” she joked.

I was laughing when the compound doors opened,