Page 125 of Commit

Kenzo smirks and walks out as two more nurses and a doctor walk in, taking in the scene.

“If any of you touch me, I’ll kill you. None of you are keeping me from my wife.”

“Mr. Smith—” one of them starts as he approaches the bed, his hands held up in surrender.

“Move,” Kenzo orders from behind the two standing in the doorway. They step aside, and there she is, asleep in Kenzo’s arms, the hospital gown she’s wearing showing the curve of her ass.

I drop the bedpan to the floor, my eyes locked on my wife.

“What are you doing? She can’t be in here.” The original nurse protests, but Kenzo stares her down, making her and the doctor next to her back up.

“Nothing is going to keep him in this bed but Starling. If you strap him down, he’ll chew through the fucking restraints to get to her. Now, back the fuck up and let the man see his wife.”

He turns to me as I ease myself gingerly across the bed.

“Lay the fuck down,” he orders.

I don’t argue with him because he has what I want.

Once I’m comfortable, or as comfortable as I’m going to get, he lowers her into my waiting arms and then pulls the blanket around us.

“I will have to report?—”

Kenzo turns around and takes a menacing step forward, chuckling when they all flee.

He moves to shut the door when Atlas’s hand stops it. Atlas’s eyes sweep the room before landing on Starling.

“Should’ve known I’d find her here. I nearly had a fucking heart attack when I found her room empty.” He glares at Kenzo as he steps inside and closes the door behind him.

“Abbot?”

“That Lewis kid is with him. So is Trix. She flew in with me. Don’t look at me like that. You know I don’t like being away from her while she’s pregnant. She was getting bored in the hotel room so I brought her with me to keep your boy company.”

Atlas just shakes his head, looking amused.

“I filled Abbot in on what was going on. He’s okay,” Kenzo continues.

I blow out a deep breath and almost scream in pain.

“Yeah, maybe don’t do that for a while.” Kenzo grins.

I look down at Starling and tense when I see the bloody scabs around her mouth and the bruising appearing on the side of her face.

“How is she? What did the doctors say?”

“Since her next of kin was in surgery,”—Kenzo rolls his eyes at me— “we had to get her son to give permission for us to hear everything the doctors had to say.”

“Her son?”

“Why, Abbot, of course. I mean, she did marry his daddy. That makes her his stepmom.” Kenzo laughs, enjoying this way too much. “It’s so fucked up, I love it.”

“Kenzo,” Atlas sighs as he sits in one of the chairs beside the bed. “The doctors gave her something to help her sleep because she just kept screaming for you.”

“Talk about codependence at its finest,” Kenzo sighs, like he’s any fucking better.

“As you can see, the stitches from her mouth have been removed. Landon had started to do the same to her pussy, but we must have interrupted him. There’s a chance of minimal scarring, at least around her mouth, but it should fade eventually.”

He pauses as I process what he’s saying. A bullet was too fucking quick for Landon. If I’d had the chance, I would have kept him alive until he was nothing but a rotting sack of shit.