Page 107 of Past Due

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Are you okay?” Besian gently asked as we waited to be called into Spider’s hospital room the next afternoon.

Sharice Johnson, the lawyer we had hired as soon as we returned to Besian’s penthouse last night, had been working nonstop to arrange a visit with Spider. She was a no-nonsense, aggressive defense attorney, and I liked her a lot. She didn’t bullshit. She didn’t make empty promises. She warned me about the very real possibility that Spider would be going away for the rest of his life. She even rehearsed what topics I should avoid, just in case the hospital room was bugged.

“Hospitals make me nervous.”

“The Tub makes everyone nervous,” he grumbled and interlaced our fingers. He lifted my hand and kissed it. “No one comes here by choice.”

“No,” I agreed, glancing around the space. Ben Taub was the hospital that served any patient, regardless of their ability to pay. They also handled a lot of violent injuries and gunshots—including the one that had nearly killed Besian.

“Listen,” he said, tilting his head closer to me, “before I head out to work tonight, I’m going to put some files on my desk. I want you to read through them and get familiar with my holdings. You need to know about all of the bank accounts, investments, properties and clubs. All the legit above-board things,” he added quietly.

“And the other things?” I wondered, holding his gaze.

“Those things aren’t written down,” he answered with a bit of mischief in his dark eyes. “Tomorrow, we’ll sit down and go over those things. If something happens to me between now and then, Ben can help you.”

“Don’t say that,” I hissed and swatted his chest. “You’ll jinx us!”

“Sweetheart, we’re already jinxed,” he said with a sharp laugh.

I scowled and poked his chest. “Stop! We’re not jinxed.”

“The last seventy-two hours would disagree with you.”

Before I could think of a reply to that, Sharice returned from her conversation with the federal agents outside Spider’s hospital room. “Okay, Marley, it’s time. Remember what we discussed. You have no expectation of privacy in that room. You aren’t covered by any privilege. As much as you want to find your mother and help Spider, you need to worry about yourself first.”

“I remember.”

Besian quickly kissed my cheek and encouragingly patted my back. “Good luck, rrushe.”

I fell into step at Sharice’s side and immediately felt underdressed and drab. She had that badass boss bitch style that I would never be able to emulate. From the red soles of her Louboutins to the sharp lapels of her Balmain jacket, she exuded power and confidence. Even her hair, worn natural and curled, was a statement.

Me? My hair was in its usual loose braid. I had on the nicest top and pair of jeans from my travel luggage and some black slip-on sneakers I had scored at Target in the clearance aisle before my trip. To say we were a picture of contrasts was underselling the situation.

The two guards outside Spider’s door looked me over and didn’t even try to hide their judgmental sneers. I could practically hear the ugly things they were thinking about me. White trash. Lowlife. Mafia whore.

“You have fifteen minutes,” Sharice reminded me before she opened the door and gestured for me to go inside.

The antiseptic scent of the ICU room only barely covered the smell of blood and something sweet and stomach-turning. It didn’t take me long to pinpoint the origin of the strange smell—the bandages on Spider’s amputated legs. My stomach revolted at the shock of seeing my stepfather, a man I had known my entire life, so weak and pale in the hospital bed. His right leg had been taken just above the knee. The left had been cut just under the knee.

There were multiple lines snaking out of his body. Some were IVs and some were drains. The right side of his chest, arm, neck and face had terrible road rash. I winced at the image of his skin sliding across the pavement, tearing away the soft flesh and leaving him so raw and wounded. The swaths of abraded skin were angry and red with black splotches and white specks. It finally occurred to me that those were pieces of rock and debris embedded in the wounds.

“Is it true?” Spider asked, his voice raspy and dry.

“Is what true?”

“That you married him?”

So, this was how it was going to go.

I lifted my left hand to show him my wedding band. “Yes, I did.”

Spider exhaled roughly. The heartbeat monitor kicked up a few notches, betraying his agitated state. “Why the hell would you go do something stupid like that?”

“I love him,” I stated matter-of-factly. “And he loves me.”

“Love?” Spider scoffed. “Yeah, tell me again how well that worked out for your mom and me?”

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