the next few minutes cleaning the glass up, all the while chattering inanely about everything under the sun. Except her literal son. I mean, I was pretty much making educated assumptions now, but it was clear Mary wasn't ready to discuss it yet.
And I respected her enough to allow her this chance to get herself together. It wasn't up to me to force a confession from Mary. I'd wait forever for her to be ready, but something told me Dylan wouldn't.
Maybe he'd never show up and she could continue in her sweet denial. Something truly terrible must have happened to make her leave her child. She was the most motherly, kind, and wonderful person I'd ever known, and I'd thought so many times over the years that it was a shame she didn't have children of her own.
"I need to get you some dinner," she said in a huff. "And you need to order some prenatal vitamins. And... my goodness, we have a lot to worry about."
Untucking my legs, I stood and wrapped my arms around her. "It's going to be okay," I whispered. "I have vitamins. And I'm not very hungry. I just need some rest."
I explained the rest of my injuries and the doctor’s recommendation of lots of bed rest for at least another few days. "I'll be good by Christmas, as long as there's no more bleeding."
"Okay, sweetheart. Then let's get you into bed, and I will take care of everything else."
I could tell she needed to stay busy, so I allowed her to fuss over me, tuck me into bed, and I drank the juice and water she left on my bedside table. This continued on through the night as she checked on me, brought me chamomile tea with honey, and mothered the shit out of me.
This was the first time ever we were freely allowed access to each other, to the food, and to the rest of the house. We freaking loved it. By the time morning arrived, when I woke feeling refreshed, Mary already had the locks and alarms changed. She'd also switched our phone numbers and was in the process of obtaining Blake's death certificate so we could get all the assets put legally into my name.
"New lawyers will handle it all,” she said. “I believe you are the sole shareholder left in the company, and the only legal heir, so it should be a simple enough process.”
I nodded, swallowing the last bite of my scrambled eggs. Thankfully, this morning my stomach was cooperating, and I had to wonder if it hadn’t been the stress, more than anything else, that’d had me so off food before now. "Okay, great. It's good that his body was found."
She’d told me all about it last night, and I’d read the news articles. No doubt Dylan had thought of ease of discovery when he'd disposed of Blake so publicly—lion's cage at the zoo, of all places. My brother’s final moments were as a lion’s chew toy, and according to the report Mary got, there really wasn’t that much of him left, except the skull, making a positive ID on the bastard straightforward. Dylan was nothing if not creative, and honestly, it should freak me out that he could cold-bloodedly murder someone. But I had no issue with that side of him at all.
Protecting your own was exactly what I’d always wanted from a family, and now my baby would have that tenfold. Delta Five played for keeps, and they would fuck anyone up who tried to hurt their inner circle.
"The police do want to speak with you," Mary warned me. "It's an open investigation, but if the murder went down the way I expect it did, their interest will dry up quickly."
Yeah, Delta money made a lot of shit disappear. Neither of us would be surprised if the “loss of interest” happened before the police even showed up on my doorstep. "Tell them I'm fine to chat whenever they want. There's surely no way they could suspect me. I haven't seen my brother for weeks."
Thanks to Blake erasing all signs of him being at the hospital, I was going to live happily ever after, no longer caught in his bullshit.
There was honestly no better revenge than that.
29
The next morning, Mary woke me with a stunned look on her face. She was clearly in shock again, but not quite as intensely as when she'd found out I was pregnant.