With Every Heartbeat (Forbidden Men 4)

“Cora or Zoey?” Noel asked.

I’d meant Zoey, but I said, “Both.”

“Caroline took Zoey home with her. Cora…” Ten shrugged. “Who knows?”

“I’ll try her place first.” I knew where she lived. After that, I’d find out where Belcher lived, and then I’d hunt him down, too. And after that...I didn’t know. I wanted to go to Zoey, but I’d caused this. If she and I hadn’t gotten together, this never would’ve happened to her.

She’d gotten hurt because of me, and then I’d hurt her more when I’d turned away from her.

Guilt dug its claws in a little deeper, irritating the anger, which nearly had me breathing fire as I started for the door. How dare they hurt Zoey because of me?

“Uh…before you go.” Ten winced, lifting a hand to stall me.

I paused to send him a stony stare. “Don’t even think about trying to stop me.”

“Man, we’re not going to stop you.”

“We’re going to help you,” Asher added. “Zoey’s too sweet to be treated this way.”

I nodded, but Ten still had his hand in the air. “I swear, I’m not trying to talk you out of going after the whore, but, uh…there’s something you might need to know about Cora before going over there.”

Of course there was. Cora was layered with secret after secret. She probably had so many she didn’t even know who the real Cora Wilder was.

“She’s kind of sick.” Ten winced again and shrugged. “Kind of really sick. Like...she’s dying.”

I kept staring at him, waiting for the punch line, but when he said nothing else, I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Okay, so...” He lifted his hands, letting me know he had an entire story to explain. “I never really trusted her, right? Right. So, after we fucked that one time and I found out you were still hooking up with her, she told me she hadn’t known then that you wanted to see her again, but I wasn’t sure I could believe her. And I couldn’t go and ask you about it, or you’d get suspicious and figure out the truth, so I started kind of, I don’t know, following her, hoping I could catch her with some other dude. Then I could tell you about her being unfaithful with him, but she was always too crafty to get caught. She wasn’t as sneaky about the treatment center she went to three times a week, though.”

“Treatment center?” I shook my head, utterly confused.

“What? Like, she’s a drug addict?” Noel asked, just as boggled as I was.

Ten glanced at both of us. “She has kidney failure.”

I backed up a step, not expecting to hear that at all. Actually, it was probably one of the very last things I was imagining. I had known something was going on with her health-wise, but I’d been thinking more along the same lines as Noel, that she’d been doing something to herself to provoke an illness.

“But...she can’t...what?” I backed up a couple more steps.

With a solemn nod, Ten kept talking. “She’s bad enough along that she needs dialysis three times a week to keep going.”

“End stage,” I murmured. Shaking my head, I sank down until I was sitting on the sofa. “That’s just... That’s not even possible. I would know. How could I not know something like that? And w-w-why would she...”

But I had known something was going on with her, that she was keeping things from me. Covering my mouth with my hand, I looked up at my roommate.

“Why wouldn’t she say anything?” I think the fact that she’d kept this from me was more of an insult than realizing she’d cheated on me.

Ten sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “I guess it takes a really selfish person to understand why she’d want to keep that silent, but I get it.”

“Then, please,” I barked, “Explain it to me.” Because I didn’t get it at all. I didn’t get any of this. The Cora Wilder I had started dating months ago was nothing at all like the Cora Wilder I was learning truly existed. How had she been able to hide this side of herself for so long? And why?

Sociopath, I reminded myself. But a sociopath with kidney failure?

I gripped my head with both hands, because oh yeah, my temples were throbbing like crazy.

“Sickness and disease is gross,” Ten said. “Stupid, careless people like me, like Whora, look at people with cancer and terminal illness with revulsion. They’re weak and repugnant and should be hidden away from society. To learn she’s one of them...” He laughed and shook his head, “She’s in denial, man. She doesn’t want people to know she’s not perfect. She wants to stay the fucking queen bee. She can’t have a flaw, or no one will follow her. So she hides it.”

“Even from me?” I had to ask. I felt sick to my stomach. Ten might’ve classified himself in that same category with her, but I knew he didn’t belong. He didn’t really see others that way, no matter how much he wanted us to think he did.