Page 96 of The Broken Keys

A nurse appears in the doorway before I can respond. “Excuse me, gentlemen. We’re moving Ms. Parks to the ICU for continued monitoring. If you’d like to follow me, I can show you to the waiting area on that floor.”

“ICU?” My stomach drops. “I thought you said she was stable.”

Chapter Twenty

JAXON/JAX

Now

Sterile Halls & Unspoken Wars

We don’t walk these corridors…we drag our skeletons through them.

My world shifts again, and I can’t help but pray there’s no more bad news.

Cash steps toward the nurse. “Why does she need to go to the ICU?”

“With the severity of her concussion, we want to monitor her for the next twenty-four hours. It’s standard protocol for head trauma of this nature.” The nurse gestures down the hallway. “This way, please.”

Cash and I follow her through a maze of corridors and up an elevator to the fourth floor. The ICU waiting room is smaller than the emergency room, quieter, with fewer people. More intimate somehow, like we’re getting closer to the reality of how serious this is.

“Someone will update you as soon as they have her settled.” The nurse leaves us.

Cash pulls out his phone and gazes my way with a tiredangst surrounding him. I’m right there with him. My heart cracks, but I hold my steady stance.

“Jaxon, I need to call her family.” He gestures to the phone. “They’re in Spain, and they…”

“Yeah, they should know.” A wave of emptiness knocks me over. “But if you don’t mind, don’t tell them about…”

“Yeah, I won’t say anything about her miscarriage. That’s Livianna’s choice to make.”

Cash steps toward the window for some privacy and makes his call. He moves to the far corner of the waiting room, his phone pressed to his ear.

His shoulders curve inward like he’s bracing for impact. The words are too low to make out, but the way his free hand rakes through his hair tells me Brendan isn’t taking the news well.

The chair is hard beneath me despite its cushioned seat. My elbows rest on my knees, hands clasped together to stop them from shaking.

The ICU waiting room is eerily quiet, like it’s preparing someone to get ready for the earth to disappear beneath them. A searing pain strikes my heart because mine already has.

Livianna was pregnant.

The thought circles back as it has for the past half an hour, each rotation cutting deeper. She was carrying my child, and I had no idea. Because I left her.

While I was in Malaysia trying to get control of an investment nightmare, she was here growing a baby in her womb. While I was preparing to finally tell her everything, she was getting ready to tell me I was going to be a father.

And now that future is gone. Erased in the split second it took for a black SUV to slam into her car. My entire body tenses even though I coil into myself as guilt filters into every crevice I have.

I pull out my phone and send another message to Axel.He was only supposed to be doing a ghost-level operation using encrypted lines.

That plan changed and went into full-blown coverage the second he sent me the message that the police don’t think the incident was an accident.

From their investigation, everything points to a hired operative. Which means someone paid for this. Someone who knows about Livianna and her connection to me.

The list of people who want to hurt me is unknown. I’ve never been able to identify all of them.

But there’s one person who stands out. Someone I’d kill with my bare hands if I ever had the chance. Too bad he went underground after he was found playing both sides.

My phone buzzes. Axel now communicates through open channels, which makes it easier and faster. His team is already coordinating with the LAPD and reviewing traffic camera footage from the intersection. They’ll have something within hours.