Shut Up and Kiss Me (30 page)

The next couple of
hours were filled with noise. Sirens and shouting, and endless questions. So much noise, and yet the shock of the evening had settled into my bones, permeating me, leaving me only able to recognize the silence that had befallen the three of us: Will, Richard, and me.

“
Fifteen-car pileup on the GW!” a woman in scrubs called out as she raced past my bed.

Seated inside an emergency room, wearing a hospital gown, I blinked dazedly as she tore by me, the half-closed curtain before me swaying with force of her speed.

Shirtless, his chest wrapped in white gauze, Richard was holding his chest as he frowned down at Will.

“
Thank you,” Will said hoarsely. Lifting one of his bandaged hands, he reached for Richard’s forearm and grasped it. “Thank you for everything.” His voice was hoarse, a husky whisper of what it normally was. Recalling Luke’s hand around his throat, I angrily swiped away a fresh wave of tears.

“
You saved our lives back there,” Will continued.

“
Just doing my job, sir,” Richard answered with a wan smile.

Will returned the smile. “I told you not to call me that, asshole.”

More tears fell as I watched them trade jokes. Both of them had been injured worse than I had. While I sat here with nothing but cuts and bruises and a broken heart, they’d been shot, strangled, bones had been broken…

And the guilt I felt—knowing that none of this would have ever happened to these two good men if it hadn’t been for me—was so utterly consuming that I could barely find the strength to breathe.

“
You’re going to be fine,” the doctor who’d examined me had said, gazing down at me with sympathetic eyes. He’d felt sorry for me—
me
, who’d escaped a deadly situation in perfect health, while Will and Richard had nearly died.

Worse, I wasn’t going to be fine. Not as long as Luke still lived. And he did live. Even shot in the chest, his face half hidden behind an oxygen mask as the paramedics had wheeled him from the motel and into the ambulance, he’d managed to find me, to pick me out of the small crowd that had gathered in the parking lot and give me a hateful look, promising retribution.

“
Mrs. Anna Drummons?”

Hearing my married name caused a wave of nausea to course through me, one that I quickly staunched as I raised my eyes to meet the gaze of the two police officers standing at the edge of my bed. Back home, Luke had the local police department on his payroll, and I had to repeatedly remind myself that we weren’t in Tennessee. This was New York, and Luke had no sway over this city. Luke had no control here.

“
Yes,” I whispered.

Only one of the officers stepped forward. “We’re going to need you to come down to the station and make a formal statement, ma’am. When you’re ready, that is.” He sounded as apologetic as he looked, and I felt guilty all over again. Everyone felt sorry for me when they shouldn’t. This was all my fault. All of it. I had lied to everyone, Monica was dead, and I had almost gotten two innocent people killed. How could anyone ever view me as the victim here?

“
Of course,” I whispered pitifully, tears blurring my vision.

“
Mila!” The familiar shout pierced through the haze of my thoughts, and as I was craning my neck, attempting to peer around the half-closed curtain, Nikki appeared beside the policemen. She paused for a moment to survey the situation with wide eyes, glancing briefly at the cops and then at Will and Richard, who were now looking our way, before coming back to me. She took in my face, bruised from Luke’s slaps, covered in tears, and her panicked expression crumbled into sorrow.

“
Oh, Mila,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.

My own eyes filled all over again, and as a sob bubbled past my lips, I reached for her with trembling arms.

Nikki came forward, engulfing me in her arms, filling me with warmth, giving me the comfort I so desperately needed in that moment.

“
Shh,” she soothed, rubbing her hand up and down my back. Though she herself was crying, her mere presence was all I needed. I sunk into her embrace with a relief-tinged sigh, feeling, at least for the moment, that I would get through this.

“
You’re safe now, Mila,” she promised me softly. “You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

I wanted to believe her—I needed to believe her—but even as much as her words gave me comfort, as I looked up over her shoulder, past the police officers watching me with warm, pitiful gazes, I found Will also watching me. His expression was pained, full of exhaustion and sadness…and something else. Something unreadable.

Nikki was wrong. Luke could still hurt me. He
was
still hurting me. And if I lost Will because of this, Luke would have succeeded in hurting me for the rest of my life.

“
I demand to know why you aren’t in a private room!”

Will wished he had the use of his hands, simply to rub his temples and help ease the headache his family was causing him. As much as he appreciated their prompt arrival and obvious concern for his wellbeing, just them being there was a thorn in the side of everyone within a mile radius.

“
They’re not admitting him,” Richard dutifully supplied. “He’s going home once they’ve discharged him.”

“
Home!” his mother shrieked, causing everyone in the room to cringe—everyone consisting of his mother and father, and his brothers Bryan and Michael, each of them still dressed in their charity gala finest.

“
You cannot possibly go home in your…your…condition!” she sputtered, looking more unraveled and upset than he’d ever seen her before. “And you!” his mother seethed, turning her glare on Richard. “How could you have let this happen? How could you—”

“
Mother!” Will shouted. “The man was shot twice and stuffed in a trunk! He somehow managed to break free, and he’s the only reason I’m still alive!”

Elise promptly shut her mouth and turned away, though her body language and tight expression signaled she was anything but calmed. Sighing, Will shot Richard an apologetic glance that Richard returned with a tired smirk.

“
I can take it,” he mouthed silently. “That’s why you pay me the big bucks.”

Snorting, Will grinned at his friend—that is until he looked beyond him and found his father watching him with nothing short of disgust wrinkling his expression.

“
The police have informed me that it was this husband of hers that took you hostage.” Clasping his hands behind his back, William Townsend narrowed his eyes at his son, his disapproval and his displeasure with the entire situation a palpable thing, thickening the air in the small, sequestered space. “And your sister’s charity gala has been ruined, thanks to you and this…woman.”

“
Her husband?” Elise trilled softly, her hands flying to her face. “My God, the scandal! It’ll be everywhere, in every paper! We will never live this down.”

Will glanced up at Richard, feeling twice as exhausted as he’d felt before they’d arrived. Even having both his thumbs broken and being strangled seemed like a walk in the park compared to having to endure the disappointment his family felt.

“
It’ll be great for club business,” Richard joked softly, and Will grinned and almost laughed—that is until he saw his father glaring at them.

“
You find this amusing, do you?” he asked, venom punctuating his words. “You didn’t even think of your family before embarking on such an embarrassing charade with that…trashy woman. Parading her around at your sister’s gala like a new toy. And now this? You’ve always been selfish, William, always putting yourself before everyone else in this family, but this is a new low for even you.”

Will stared, stunned, at his father. The man hadn’t spoken more than two or three words to him per visit since his refusal long ago to join the family business, and now, when he finally decided to speak, it was to verbally punish him in the wake of what could have been a tragedy.

“
I could have been killed,” Will said coldly. “And you’re talking about embarrassing you.”

His father shook his head. “And who would have had to clean up after that tragedy? Us. Think of the statements your poor mother would have had to give. How would she explain the scandal behind it?”

His mother was sobbing quietly now, each word his father spoke causing her cries to grow a little louder. Will’s heart felt cold, knowing his mother better than anyone; the tears were for show and due to the stress the situation, not for actual concern for his wellbeing. But his father was the one that had really hurt him.

“
Get out,” Will whispered angrily.

“
This is the last straw,” his father continued, “The absolute last—”

“
Get out!
” Will roared, jerking upright and thrusting his ruined hand toward the curtain. “
Get out of here!
”

Each of them—his mother, father and two brothers—stared open-mouthed and wide-eyed in response, none of them making move to leave.

Then: “How dare you?” his father spat.

But before Will could respond with what was bound to be another rage-filled roar, Richard stepped forward, strolled casually between both Elise and William, and yanked the curtain wide open. “I believe Mr. Townsend asked you to leave,” he stated calmly.

His father glanced between Richard and Will, his cheeks flushed red and his mouth pressed into hard a thin line while his nostrils flared with anger. “You’ll want to give this consideration, young man,” he said. “Behaving this way will only result in us cutting you completely out of our lives for good.”

Will shook his head. “I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t give a fuck.”

His father let out a bark of laughter. “Son, are you really willing to lose your entire inheritance over this? Think about that before you make a decision. That woman is poison. Married and flitting around with you. Mark my words, she will take you for everything you have—everything
we
have. I won’t allow it.”

Then, grabbing hold of his wife’s arm, he tugged her through the open curtain without so much as a goodbye or good riddance, and disappeared. They were followed quickly by Bryan, who shot Will a quick, apologetic glance before rushing out after his parents.

Will fell back against his hospital bed and released a hard breath of air.

“
Will?”

Will turned his head and glanced at Michael, half surprised to find his brother still in the room, not trailing after their parents and ensuring that he, too, hadn’t angered them and been cut out of the will.

Michael, his hands stuffed into his tuxedo pants pockets, took a step forward and shook his head. “Are you okay?”

Will stared up at him, incredulous. “Not exactly,” he responded, his words heavily laced with sarcasm.

“
No, obviously not…” His brother trailed off with a sigh. “I meant, will you be okay?”

Will narrowed his eyes, wondering at his brother’s cryptic words. “Mike, what the hell are you getting at?”

“
I’m asking you if she was worth it? Was she worth this mess? And will you be okay without Mom and Dad’s blessing?”

Understand his meaning, Will glanced beyond the curtain and across the room toward where he’d last seen Mila, or Anna, or whatever the hell her name was, in her own hospital bed. The bed was empty now, a nurse currently divesting it of its rumpled sheets. He lurched upright, feeling panicked. The police had been with her last he’d seen—Nikki, too. Where the hell was she?

“
Where is she?” he asked Richard. “Where the hell is she?”

Already reaching for his jacket, Richard awkwardly began tugging it on. “I’ll go find out,” he said, and disappeared behind the curtain.

Will turned back to his brother, who was oddly smiling at him. Reaching forward, Michael placed his hand gently on Will’s shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze.

“
I can’t tell you how many times I wished I hadn’t married her,” he said, sounding wistful. “That I’d gone my own route, done what I’d wanted, married who I’d wanted, and not done what Mom and Dad wanted for me. I’ve been envious of you, little brother, for a long time now. Always going wherever the wind blew you. Always doing what felt right, instead of what you were told.” Michael released his shoulder and took a step backwards. “Be happy, brother,” he said.