“I can’t just stop this, Colton. Look at everything that’s happened. If I give up now, that means Nic wins, and after everything he’s done, I can’t let that happen. We’ve already come so far. Too much has happened for me to wave a white flag now.” I gesture down my broken and beaten body, trying to ignore the millions of questions flooding my mind. “Look at me,” I demand. “All of this would be for nothing. I can’t let that happen, and I know deep down, you can’t either.”
“Babe…” he groans.
“Please,” I whisper, desperately needing him to see this from where I stand. I take his bruised hand in mine and bring it to my lips, gently kissing his split knuckles. “Let this go. I want to have a future, and I want it so badly with you, but without this … we don’t stand a chance. You don’t know Nic like I do. He will not stop. He’s obsessed, and now that I’ve turned my back on him and betrayed his trust, I'll never be safe. We can deal with the Wolves later, but I have to finish what I started first.”
He goes to respond, and I see the objection in his eyes, but Mom comes back in with the doctor on her heels, desperately ushering him into the room so she can hang on every last word he has to offer.
Colton glances away, but there’s a silent promise in the air that we’ll be talking about this later. He doesn't dare take his hand from mine as the doctor walks deeper into the room and picks up the chart at the foot of my bed. “Miss Oceania,” he says in a displeased tone. His eyes remain on the chart, scanning through the papers. “How are you feeling?”
I raise a brow and instantly regret it. “Like I just got run over by a train.”
“I can imagine,” he grumbles in a disapproving tone, making me wonder what the hell he knows. If I was an innocent victim, I’d assume that his attitude would be a shitload better. But at the end of the day, his attitude isn’t what matters, it’s what he has to say that does.
“Just rip it off like a bandaid,” I tell him. “Give it to me straight.”
Mom presses her lips into a tight line, more than inclined to hear the news in the soft, gentle way that she would have done it, but I’m not down for that today. Too much has happened to be wasting time with niceties.
“Okay,” he tells me, letting out a deep breath and carelessly dropping the chart back into place before looking at me, making his disapproval more than obvious. “You nearly lost your life today by playing ridiculous games with gang members, so I hope that this will be a lesson to you.” Colton flinches at my side, and I squeeze his hand to reel him in. “Three men are sitting in my waiting room, terrifying the patients, who are already being robbed of my attention.”
Colton growls. “You’re telling me that my girlfriend gets jumped by a fucking gang, and you want to start blaming her?”
“We had no gang activity in Bellevue Springs before this young lady moved in.”
Colton stands, glaring at the doctor. “You’ll be smart to remember who owns this fucking hospital and pays for your fucking penthouse apartment, your mistress, and the gambling addiction. Now, Ocean has asked you to tell her about her injuries. You have three fucking seconds to do that without the goddamn shitty attitude before I put in a call to the board and have your license revoked.”
Well, well. If I wasn’t stuck in a hospital bed, wanting nothing more than to bathe in a tub full of morphine, I’d be all over that fucking boss of a man. There’s nothing sexier than Colton Carrington in alpha mode.
The doctor clenches his jaw, not taking kindly to threats from an eighteen-year-old kid, but not willing to risk his career on it either. He turns back to me and finally gets on with it. “You have severe, deep bruising all over your body and multiple lacerations. We’ve done a thorough check and are confident that you have no internal bleeding. You will be in quite a bit of pain for a few weeks. However, it will be manageable with some pain medication. You will need to stay a few days for observation.”
I glance at Mom before looking back at the doctor. “And the baby?”
Colton’s hand flinches again as we all seem to concentrate extremely hard on the doctor. “The baby seems to be doing well. There’s still a heartbeat, however extremely weak. It is imperative that you rest and take care of yourself. Absolutely no stress permitted,” he tells me, confusing me as a cloud of disappointment fares through me, making me feel like a horrible person. “There is quite deep bruising around your abdomen, which is why we need to hold you for observation. You’re at a very high risk of miscarriage, so as soon as we can, we’ll have a sonographer come and perform an ultrasound. It will also be wise to see an obstetrician who will see you through your pregnancy. I’m assuming you haven’t looked into that yet?”