I dug my phone out of my purse and called Tasha.
Devlin
Mercy Glen’s waiting room was both dark and dead. I watched Rena closely as we rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. For a girl who’d watched her boyfriend die in a car accident, she was relatively calm about coming to the hospital to visit a guy who’d been in a car accident.
Then those dark eyes found mine and I noticed fear in their depths. I kissed her. Just a brief peck to communicate I’d do anything to keep her safe. Including walking away from the bookie who’d been like a father to me.
We stepped off the elevator and spotted Sonny, of all people, in the waiting room. A magazine rested on his lap and his hand was wrapped around a steaming Styrofoam cup. Coffee. I’d rarely seen him without one. He looked up when I walked in. I gave him a look that asked, What the hell?
A blonde paced the floor. She wore shiny brown boots with tall socks sticking out of the tops, and a patterned red dress. Everything from her outfit, her hair, and her makeup screamed privilege. Tasha.
Her face melted when she spotted us. Rena dropped my hand and ran to her friend, hugging her close. When she pulled away, Tasha brushed my girl’s hair away from her face like I had earlier. “Reen, are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” Her eyes sought mine, and her gratitude hit me square in the solar plexus. I suddenly felt certain. After years of bobbing untethered, it was damn nice to feel certain.
Sonny abandoned his magazine but held fast to his coffee. I took a generous step away from the girls to speak with him.
“Paul’s in the room,” he said. “Cade isn’t going to have to have surgery.”
“Okay.” That sounded good. Maybe he wasn’t as hurt as we’d thought. “Why are you here?” I couldn’t imagine a scenario where Paul would have called him.
Rather than answer, he gestured for me to follow him. At the nurse’s station he introduced me. “This is Caden Wilson’s brother, Devlin.”
Well, Sonny was informed, wasn’t he? The nurse gave me a once-over followed by an almost reluctant smile. “You can go in.”
My stomach went tight. I hated hospitals. The tubes and hissing machines. The thought of Cade mummified in bandages. But this wasn’t about me. It was a shift I hadn’t realized I’d made until now. Rena, I realized. She’d been the one who’d changed me; made me think of someone other than myself.
“Room four-fourteen,” Sonny told me.
Over his shoulder, Rena watched me. Tasha’s arm was looped in hers. She was okay, which was the most important thing to me. Someone else as my priority was also new. I liked it.
I turned down the corridor, having no idea what I’d find in room 414. What I found was Paul standing over his son, arms crossed over his chest.
Cade wasn’t mummified, but he was bandaged in several places—his head, his arm. On one foot, and there were tubes sticking out of his nose. I mirrored Paul’s stance, tightening my arms over my chest. Small cuts, likely from the glass windshield breaking, dotted Cade’s cheek. His eyes were closed, the machine monitoring his heart beeping at steady intervals. Seeing him lying there, unconscious, hurt, helpless, and wearing a thin pale blue hospital gown turned my stomach.
“You gave him Sonny’s number,” Paul rumbled, sounding none too happy.
I had. So that Cade could pay Paul’s debts.
“Sonny had a lot of cash riding on the race,” Paul informed me.
What did the race have to do with Sonny?
“They say it was black ice.” He was looking at his son again, looking through him. “I say this is your fault.”
The puzzle pieces slid together slowly. Sonny. The street race. Cade. Paul’s debt.
Cade had street raced before. He was good. His car was built to win. If he didn’t have the cash to pay his father’s debts, he could have won it street racing. He would’ve bet on himself. Had that been the way he planned to pay off Sonny?
This wasn’t my fault. It was Sonny’s. He was here, knew about the accident, because he’d been at that race.
“Son of a bitch.” I headed for the door, down the hallway, and into the waiting room. I was going to shake Sonny Laurence until his teeth rattled. What the fuck had he done?
He was lounging in a waiting-room chair. I stalked over to him, seething, my fists curled at my sides.
“You set up the