One Chance (Hogan Brothers 1)

“You won’t,” he insisted.

Lennox watched the clock as they waited, and every minute felt like an hour. An hour longer than he should be kept away from her. An hour longer that he had no information. Agonizing about whether something went wrong or not while he was left in the dark.

As he was about to demand answers, a nurse came from behind the doors Soph had been taken through. “Mr. Hogan?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Come with me, please. You can see Miss Bennett now.”

Tossing his phone to Levi, he said, “Call Braxton, find out where the hell they are.”

Trepidation had his steps slowing as the nurse opened a door. Taking a fortifying breath, he entered the room. Beeping sounds and a hushed voice were the only audible noise. Walking closer to the bed in the middle of the room, he was shocked at how pale she looked, how many machines surrounded her.

“You’re the boyfriend?” he was asked for a second time that day.

“Yeah,” his voice cracked as he saw the bruising on her face.

“It looks much worse than it is, so take a deep breath and sit down.” The doctor laughed. Nox found nothing funny.

“What do the tests say?” he asked her, looking up. She was an older woman. Thin, graying hair, kind eyes. Reminded him a bit of his mom.

“Miss Bennett suffered some severe bruising along her chest and belly. Thankfully, there is no internal bleeding which is always the biggest worry. She’ll heal from that just fine, but it will take a while. Her wrist is broken, and she’ll be getting that set just as soon as she wakes up on her own, and then we can put her under again. We need to know her cognitive function before we can do that because of the concussion.”

His head was swimming with the information.

Clearing his throat, he asked, “The concussion, how bad is it?”

She hesitated for a second before answering. “The good news is there’s no bleeding so far.”

“And the bad news?”

“There’s some swelling.”

“What does that mean?”

&nb

sp; “If there’s too much cranial pressure, we may have to drill a hole in her skull to relieve it.”

“Christ, baby.” Tears. For the first time in his life, he was close to shedding a tear.

His girl was so fucking broken.

“Don’t worry just yet, Mr. Hogan. We’re not there at this time. We’ll continue to monitor her progress.” She placed a hand on his shoulder in a display of support before leaving him alone to contemplate what the fuck he was going to do.

“Come back to me, sweetheart.” He kissed the tip of each finger on her uninjured hand as a tear rolled silently down his cheek.

“You stupid bitch! You’ve ruined everything.” Rebecca snarled at the woman who was to blame for everything. She had been perfectly fine hating Sophia, tormenting her and her father for forcing the girl into her life. Now, this spoiled brat from Sophia’s biological mother showed up. She was ruining Rebecca’s plans to get her hands on all of Anthony’s money.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have killed our mother.” The bitch had the audacity to snarl back at her.

“Listen here, little girl, we didn’t even know you existed.”

“Because that gives you the right to kill another human being.” Her sarcasm wasn’t missed.

Rebecca eyed her up. She was a tiny thing, completely opposite of Sophia in looks with her amber hair, but the eyes…they were exact same shade as Sophia’s.

“What do you want?” she barked at the little blackmailer.