Page 16 of All for her Forgiveness

I pick him up, and he rears his head back, still looking at me intently. Something in his expression feels familiar, but perhaps that's because I've memorized every feature of his mother’s face.

"Does he have a car seat?" I ask Kennedy when I return to the living room with her son in my arms.

She points to a door, this time in the opposite direction of the hallway. "Yes," she groans, her forehead covered in sweat. "There, in the coat closet."

King struggles to go to his mother and starts crying when I don't let him.

"I'm sorry, little man. Your mom can't hold you right now."

When I return to the living room, already holding the car seat, Kennedy is standing, though she seems to wobble on her feet.

"Help me," she asks. "And don't lose sight of King. Ernest won't be back until tonight. Hate me for the rest of my life, Hades Kostanidis, but please take care of my son until I'm well again."

"Nothing will happen to either of you."

"I can't take your word for it, but I'll do this," she says, seeming on the verge of passing out.

"Mommy!" King cries out.

"Don't close your eyes, Kennedy. I'll secure him in the car and come back for you."

Less than two minutes later, I'm back, picking her up in my arms. When we reach the car, she says almost in a whisper, "Let me sit in the back with him."

The vulnerable Kennedy wasn't what I expected when I came here.

"You'll be fine." I sit her next to her son and fasten her seatbelt.

I get in the car and type the address of the nearest hospital into my phone. I look in the rearview mirror and notice that despite her condition, she's trying to calm her son down.

I drive like a madman. When I finally leave the car haphazardly at the hospital's entrance, I don't wait for a stretcher or wheelchair. I take King out of the car seat and put an arm around Kennedy's waist, practically carrying them both as I enter the hospital.

"She was stung by bees and is having an allergic reaction," I say, and the receptionist picks up the phone and calls someone. Soon, two nurses approach us.

"I forgot the insurance card Ernest got for me."

"Don't worry about that," I say as I watch a nurse inject something into her.

"I don't want any favors from you. I'll be eternally grateful to you for bringing me here, but now I need you to let Ernest know to come take care of my son. He'll worry if he comes home and doesn't find us."

Ernest Wich, her protector and a kind of father figure to her. I researched him as soon as he became a constant in Kennedy's life, after she moved to New York to be with Vina and Pam. For years, he was a senator's driver, and then, suddenly, he moved to Louisiana, into the house next door to Kennedy, and started monitoring her every breath.

Ernest disappeared around the same time Kennedy did, and I have no doubt he was with her. When she woke up from the coma, the elderly man was the first person I tried to talk to, hoping to get information to help the prosecution, but it didn't take me long to realize I was hitting a concrete wall because even though all evidence pointed to Kennedy helping Ryan kill Pam, Ernest Wich was a staunch defender of her.

"I'll let him know."

"Do you have his number?"

"I still remember everything about you, Kennedy."

She looks at me with fear, although my intention wasn't to threaten her.

"Sir, are you her husband?" one of the nurses asks. "Someone needs to fill out the admission paperwork."

I hope Kennedy will deny it, but when I look at her, I see she has lost consciousness. "Will she be okay?"

"We believe so. We've given her an injection to neutralize the venom."

Consciously, I know Kennedy is not my problem, but I still can't move. I don't want to leave her side.

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