Page 116 of Finding the Forward: Part Two
AJ met me in the hall. “There you are. Mercy’s sorted?”
“Yes. Now I can focus on him. What’s wrong?” My heart wrenched, and I kept seeing Grif fall to the ground in my mind.
AJ tugged me into a small waiting area where Jonas was holding Dean. “It’s his kidneys. Dean already called his doctor. There’s a good chance we can’t hide his designation. While I might be able to buy everyone off to keep everything off his record like we did with the overdose, I’m not sure we should.”
“Me neither. We need to make sure they’re running the right tests. Which they’re not because currently they think he’s a beta who had too much sex and booze. Grif’s family is texting me. I told them I’d update them when I knew what’s going on,” Dean said quietly, though we were the only ones in the room.
“Let’s hold off the parent patrol for as long as we can. Hopefully, it won’t be that serious,” Jonas agreed.
A bunch of security came into the room.
“That’s her. She can’t be in here,” the woman from the front said.
“Why the fuck not?” AJ snapped.
“She’s not listed as pack. Only pack and immediate family can be in Critical Care outside of visiting hours,” she snapped. She had major mean girl energy. Ugh.
One of the large security guards paused, eyes focused on Jonas and Dean. “Wait, you’re…”
“We are. Grif Graf’s in the hospital,” Jonas said. “Someone should plan for that. The media might even be here already.”
“You can’t make her leave,” Dean pouted, coming over and pulling me to him.
“You’re Team Mom.” The guard looked at me, then to the woman in scrubs, and shrugged. “Team Mom’s with Grif Graf and Double-D. Everyone knows that.”
“I’m on his file as an emergency contact. I’m one of his alphas and I can be here.” Authority filled my voice.Nope, not leaving.
The guard shrugged. “Sounds reasonable. This is the waiting room. People wait here.”
With a jerk of his head, they turned to leave.
“She’s not…” She pouted as the guards ignored her.
Jonas put an arm around me so I was between him and Dean as his amber eyes focused on her and narrowed. “Verity can be here.”
AJ joined us with a glare that saiddon’t make me call my lawyer.
“Fine.” She stomped off in a huff.
“Good job standing up for yourself.” Jonas planted a kiss on my temple.
I held Dean, stroking his hair, not saying anything because there wasn’t anything to say. AJ and Jonas texted and made phone calls.
“Grif is anomega?You didn’t think to tell me?” Kylee, the Knight’s PR person, ran into the waiting room, looking frazzled, heels clacking on the ground. The no-nonsense brunette beta was usually calm and put together.
“Coach told you.” Jonas’ words were matter of fact as he looked up from his phone.
“Coach Atkins knows?” Her voice rose in pitch. “Fuck. No. It’s all over the news.”
Dean sat up. “The news? Someone outed him? This is literally his worst nightmare.”
“Who’d do that? Barely anyone knows,” I replied, still holding Dean tight, my belly in knots.
“Wewerecareless in the locker room a couple weeks ago,” Dean admitted. “He broke through his blockers when he spiraled; anyone could have figured it out, even with AJ’s quick work in trying to de-scent everything.”
“Blockers. Is his collapse related to bad blockers or something?” Kylee asked, a frown tugging on her lips.
“More like he’s approaching the point of no return. He told Coach because he was getting ready to come out. You were on the list,” Dean told her.
