Page 73 of Crowned in Sin
"Two visitors at a time. Family only past this point." She says it automatically, a rule recited a thousand times, no idea what those two words are about to cost me.
Nico's hand tightens once against my back. I step through the doors before I can think better of it.
Nothing preparesme for the room.
The lines. The machines breathing numbers at each other in soft beeps. My mother, tiny under a white blanket, tubes taped to the back of her hand, an oxygen line looped under her nose.
And then the gown slips at her shoulder when a monitor cord shifts, and I see it.
Bruising. Green-yellow at the edges, fresh purple closer in, layered over each other like something that's been happening for weeks, not once. Not from a fall. Not from whatever pills put her here tonight.
I've heard this through a door my whole childhood. The thud of it, the silence after. I never had to look at it laid out on skin before.
My knees actually buckle, just slightly, and Nico's hand is there at my elbow before I even sway.
I don't cry. I want to. I just stand there with my throat locked shut, staring at my mother's arm like if I look hard enough I can rewind time and put myself back in this house seven years ago, the version of me who could've stopped this instead of running.
I promised her I'd come back for her.
I didn't.
That's the whole rot of it, right there, and no plane ticket or dead father-in-law or forced marriage changes the fact that I left her here with him for seven years while I built a life two states away with a fake name.
I used to tell myself she could've left too. That she chose to stay, chose him, chose this. Standing here now, looking at what choosing him actually costs a body, I can't hold onto that lie anymore. She didn't choose anything. She survived what wasin front of her, same as I did. I got out and she didn't. That difference is the only thing that separates us.
"Bianca."
Frank's voice, from the chair at her bedside, and I'd forgotten he was even in the room until he speaks.
He's up and moving before I can react, planting a kiss on her forehead so tender a stranger would weep for him. He takes her hand like he's afraid of breaking it. When the nurse steps back in to check the monitor, he turns his whole face toward her, eyes wet, chin trembling.
"Is she in pain? Tell me she's not in pain." His voice cracks right on cue. "God, if I could trade places with her..."
The nurse's expression softens. Of course it does. He's good. Practiced smooth, like he's done this exact performance in this exact key before, for cops, for doctors, for judges.
He doesn't look at me once while she's in the room.
The second the door swings shut behind her, it's like a switch flips.
He drops Bianca's hand. Doesn't look back at her. Turns to me instead, and every ounce of grief drains out of his face like it was never there.
"Lyddie." He says my name the old way, the way that used to make my skin crawl at the dinner table. It still does. "You made it. Must've cost your husband a fortune, flying you home on no notice like that."
"Get away from her."
"Excuse me?" He steps closer to the bed instead, plants himself squarely between me and Bianca like he's guarding her, like he's protecting her from me. "I'm her husband. I'm her next of kin. You're..." He tilts his head, sizing me up like a stray dog that wandered too close, deciding whether I'm worth the trouble of chasing off. "What are you, exactly, these days? Visitor's badge is about the size of it."
"She's my mother."
"She's my wife." He says it flat, final, badge-tone. "Captain Frank Carpenter, OCCB. That means something in this building, sweetheart, in case you forgot. I could have a nurse walking you out to the lobby inside thirty seconds if I felt like it."
Nico goes still beside me. Not calm-still. Coiled-still.
Frank's gaze flicks to him and something ugly lights up behind his eyes, delighted, like he's been waiting all night for exactly this audience.
"Your mother still got that chip in her, Lyddie?" He says it soft, conversational, easy as small talk. "The one we talked about. I told you once, didn't I, I always know where my girls are."
My stomach turns over. I don't answer him. I won't give him that.
