Page 96 of Cruel Riches

A familiar face came into view. Edward Paxton.

Fuck.I forgot he owned this place.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Lockwood?” he asked, peering down at me through his glasses. “The nurses found your license in your wallet,” he added.

“I feel like fucking shit,” I croaked.

“That’s normal. It’ll pass,” he said. His brows furrowed, and he stepped a little closer and lowered his voice. “I don’t know how much you remember, but you were stabbed.”

No shit. Stabbed by your fucking granddaughter, I wanted to say. I simply grunted instead.

“When I heard you were here, I decided to come and check on you personally,” he said, glancing over some paperwork on the table next to my bed. “I’m acquainted with your mother. She assists with the hospital’s philanthropic endeavors on occasion.”

“Right.” My mind felt a little clearer now, and I noted that the pain was gone. My main issue was nausea, presumably from the painkillers they’d given me. “What’s the time?”

Edward glanced at his watch. “Half past six.”

“So I’ve only been here for a couple of hours?”

He smiled and shook his head. “No. It’s half past six in the morning. You were in emergency surgery for quite some time, and then you had to sleep it off.”

My brows shot up. “I’ve been here for over fourteen hours?”

Alexis would think I was dead. Right now, as I spoke to her estranged grandfather, she was probably simultaneously gloating over that and crying over her impending death from dehydration and starvation.

“Yes.” Edward nodded. “We’ve been trying to get in contact with your mother, but we haven’t been able to reach her yet. Her assistant said she’s on some sort of business trip.”

“Don’t talk to her,” I said. “I don’t want to worry her.”

“We need to inform a next of kin so we can—”

“No,” I snapped. “I don’t want to worry anyone. I’ll be fine, won’t I?”

He frowned. “Well, yes, but I’d really prefer it if we could—”

I held up a palm. “I can take care of myself. No need to worry anyone else.”

He was silent for a beat, and then he nodded. “As you wish. You’ll need to sign some extra forms before we discharge you, though. Liability issues and such.”

“That’s fine.” I waved my hand to hurry the conversation along. “When can I leave?”

“Not yet. I need to go over what happened to you first.”

“Okay. You said something about surgery?”

“Yes. You’re very, very lucky. The knife was lodged between your ribs, just a hair’s breadth away from your liver. If it was any lower, you might not be here right now.”

I clenched my jaw. “So what happened when I got here?”

“Our surgeons removed the knife and stabilized the bleeding. Then they explored the wound to check the extent of the injury. A minor surgery had to be performed to repair some of the damaged tissue inside you, but as I said, you were fortunate to avoid any major organ damage. You’re going to make a full recovery. It’ll just be quite painful for you over the next few days.”

“But I’ll have painkillers, right?”

“Yes, along with antibiotics. Right now, the biggest risk is infection, so we need to go over some aftercare techniques.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

Edward rattled off a long list of instructions about keeping my stitches and bandage dry, cleaning the wound when it was time to change the bandage, and monitoring for signs of infection.

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