Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 119597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
The nurse gawks at my chewed-up thigh, blinks a few times, and gathers her supplies without another word.
While she sticks the IV in my arm, another woman enters the room. This one wears a buttoned shirt and pants, marking her as someone outside the nursing staff.
“Mr. Novak instructed that we give you these.” Her voice is neutral, businesslike, as she extends two folders to Frankie. “Medical charts for Leo and Kody. We don’t have their full names since they refused to provide those.” She glances at Leo and me and returns to Frankie. “I hope you’ll convince them to share their health history and other personal details.”
Our refusal to cooperate brings a grim satisfaction. It’s a small rebellion, a way of clinging to the last vestiges of our privacy in a world that seems hellbent on stripping it away.
Yet, as I glance at the folders, reality cuts through the defiance. This is serious. Those charts represent our presence in this foreign system, a footprint that’s currently nonexistent.
The problem is we don’t know our identities, birth dates, addresses, emergency contacts, genetic diseases…I don’t know the answers to most of the questions they asked me when I woke.
“I’ll see what I can do.” Frankie flips open the folders, scanning the contents with an experienced eye.
“Thank you.” Monty dismisses the woman without looking at her.
He’s staring at me.
As the nurse finishes my IV and steps away, I lock onto those arctic blue eyes and hate how much he looks like my brother.
That’s what Wolf would’ve looked like in twenty-five years.
A static charge agitates the short distance between us. Separated by Frankie’s bed, we’re in a standoff, a battle of mutual suspicion. I read the distrust in his eyes as clearly as if he’s shouting it. It rivals my own.
The air thickens with unvoiced questions and assumptions. His gaze sharpens and digs like he’s trying to peel back the layers of our survival story to find the truth. It’s evident he’s piecing together his own narrative, one where Frankie’s heart no longer belongs to him.
Tension ripples from him in waves, holding the room in a tight grip. I can tell he’s on the brink of voicing his suspicions, of asking the one question that’s eating him alive.
Did Leo or I fuck Frankie?
Yeah, Montgomery Strakh, blood of my blood, kin of my kin. We’ve been inside her in every way possible, and she lives inside us. You may have fathered me and married Frankie, but she’s with us now. Until forever.
Our eyes remain locked, a silent acknowledgment of the standoff. There’s an understanding, however reluctant, that this confrontation must wait.
The room is too crowded, too full of ears straining to catch snippets of private conversations. This isn’t the time or place for accusations and personal disclosures.
When we finally look away, the bristling tension doesn’t dissipate. It merely recedes, lying in wait for a more opportune moment to surface.
Monty steps back, physically distancing himself, but the questions remain, hovering like Wolf’s cigarette smoke.
He’s going to fight for Frankie and try to salvage his marriage. I feel the foreboding, the looming battle, and the implications it holds for all of us.
Despite the dread, there’s a resolve within me. The medical evaluations will come to an end. The room will clear. The lawyer will arrive. The moment for open, unguarded discussion will present itself, and Leo and I will tell him exactly how it will be.
Until then, we exist in a limbo of waiting and wary observation.
“Kody needs an X-ray.” Frankie hands the charts to my nurse and looks at me. “Other than your leg, concussion and malnutrition are the biggest concerns. They took blood when you both arrived. Those tests are in the works now.”
She grabs her own medical chart from the holder on the footboard and quickly skims through it.
“You provided all my information?” She glances at Monty.
He nods, his expression unreadable.
I watch her closely, the tremble in her fingers as they trace the words on the page.
The hospital room feels colder, the beeping monitors more distant as she reads. “A gynecological test was performed when I arrived.” Her whisper barely cuts through the heavy silence. Her eyes, wide and searching, flick over the words again, absorbing them. “Because…my known recent pregnancy.”
The way she hesitates, it’s like watching a snowflake caught on the cusp of an arctic wind, hovering briefly before being swept away.
Sitting behind Monty, Leo instantly senses she’s upset. He starts to climb out of his bed, flexing his arms and pulling the IV tube taut, a predator about to break his chains to get to her.
I give him a sharp shake of my head and a commanding glare. This doesn’t involve him or me.
He knows I’m right and stays in his bed, but his gaze remains ever vigilant.
“The tests came back…” With a courage that rips out my heart, Frankie slowly, painfully lifts her gaze to the man who demanded an abortion. “You know, then. That I lost our baby.”