The Stranger Behind My Orgasm

Chapter 248: GUILT

Finnegan

The ambulance doors closed behind her as they wheeled my Abigail away on the stretcher. I couldn’t breathe. I was standing in the middle of a highway that reeked of burning rubber and blood.

Her blood.

I could not pull air into my lungs. My men were everywhere. Someone was speaking to me and I couldn’t hear a single word.

The paramedics had practically pried me away as they loaded her in because I wouldn’t release her hand.

"Dad," Angel grabbed my arm. She had been pulled from the wreck first, shaking so badly I could hear her teeth chattering.

The paramedics had checked her over quickly — minor cuts, no broken bones, mild shock.

I had barely registered any of it because my eyes kept returning to Abigail’s face.

Why was it so white? Too white.

I steered Angel toward the police car.

"Follow her," I barked at the driver. "Follow her, please. Now."

Thank God he understood without needing me to repeat the words.

The inside of the car was suffocating in its silence. Angel sat pressed against my side, small and trembling.

I kept one arm locked around her while my free hand pressed flat against my chest, trying to physically hold myself together before I came apart.

She’s fine. Abigail is going to be fine. She had to be. My mother could not have taken the one thing I had dared to want, the one dream I had dared to hold onto. No mother could be cruel enough to try to kill her own son and her granddaughter.

But I had watched Abigail go limp. I had seen how much blood she lost. I had held her face in my hands inside that wrecked car and watched her eyes slide shut. Oh shir!

She had not opened them again no matter how many times I called her name. My jaw was clenched so hard it ached.

"It’s my fault." Angel sniffled.

I looked down at her. She was staring at her own hands in her lap, knuckles scraped raw, a butterfly bandage already fixed to her forehead. Her eyes were glassy with tears.

"Angel—"

"She threw herself over me." Her voice fractured completely on the last word. "She covered me with her whole body, and now she’s—Dad, what if she dies? I don’t want Abigail to die. Please, Dad."

"Stop, baby." I pulled her tighter against my chest. She sobbed harder, her small hands twisting in my shirt.

"Listen to me. What happened to Abigail is not your fault. Not even close. Don’t you ever say that again. Do you hear me, Princess?"

I pressed my lips to the top of her head. "She loves you. You understand that? That’s what love does. She would lose her mind if she heard you blaming yourself for this."

Angel only cried harder and I held her tighter, keeping my eyes fixed on the ambulance ahead, my mind locked on the way Abigail had looked at me when I reached her in that wreck.

Hey. I’m okay.

A sound scraped low in my throat. That barefaced lie she fed me while she was bleeding out.

Infuriating woman.

My throat tightened and it felt like I had been dropped straight into hell. There was a voice in the back of my mind insisting I was going to lose her.

I would be destroyed. Utterly and completely destroyed. The radio in the police car crackled to life.

"Driver of the truck is detained at the forty-second precinct for assault."

"Assault? He had better pray," I said quietly, "to any fucking god he serves that she lives. Because if she doesn’t, there isn’t a precinct on this earth that will keep him safe from me."

The hospital came into view. They rushed Abigail inside fast. The gurney rattled over the entrance as nurses swarmed around her.

I carried Angel on my back, cold dread sweeping down my spine as we followed the gurney. I walked beside it for as long as they allowed me, holding Abigail’s cold hand.

She hated hospitals. If she were awake right now she would have demanded to be wheeled straight back out.

I would tell her that later. When she woke up. I would tell her exactly what I thought and she would tease me relentlessly about it.

When she woke up. She had to wake up.

"Please, Abigail. Please, baby. You have to be okay."

A nurse caught my arm at the ICU doors. "Sir, you can’t go in."

"She’s mine," I said. "I’m not leaving."

"Sir, please-"

"Check my daughter." I nodded toward Angel on my back. "She needs to be attended to."

The nurse redirected her attention to Angel and I stepped aside. Angel threw me a look over her shoulder as they led her away. I mouthed I’m here at her.

She nodded, and I watched through the glass as they settled her onto a bed. They were already taking Abigail around the corner.

No. Wait.

I followed until the doors swung shut in my face, then stood there with both hands pressed flat against the cold metal, breathing hard.

She can’t die. She cannot die. I won’t accept it. I haven’t said it enough times. I haven’t told her I loved her nearly enough. My vision blurred with tears I had been fighting since the highway.

Someone gasped and I glanced up to find a male nurse staring at my side with wide eyes.

I looked down. My shirt was torn and soaked through. I lifted it with unsteady hands and found a gash running from just below my ribs halfway across my left side.

I had told the paramedics the blood on me was Abigail’s. I hadn’t even known I was hurt.

"Sir," the nurse said, very carefully, "I need you to—"

My knees buckled. I caught the wall with one hand but my body hit the floor hard, pain rippling through me.

"Doctor!" the nurse shouted, already reaching for me.