He slapped his hands on the table. “Tell me if Liza’s okay. She’s my wife.”
“Mrs. Cade came through the delivery. She is okay, but, well, she has been refusing to see you. However, I have convinced her that you should have a chance to…” Her eyes pooled with sympathy. “You have a right to see your child. Your wife relented. You will wait here, and I will collect the child and bring her to you.”
He straightened. That made no fucking sense. What was going on? “Take me to my wife.”
The woman rose, her face set. “She does not want to see you.”
Fuck this. He swung around and bolted for the door. Once in the hallway, he heard an argument between Gray and the woman, but he didn’t care. “Beth! Liza!” He stopped at every room, barreling in and rushing out when he didn’t see Beth.
At the third one, he burst in and stopped cold. There on the bed lay Beth with her eyes closed. Her glasses were missing, and quiet tears rolled down her face, dripping onto her shoulder covered in a hospital gown. Her skin was sickly pale, hair stuck to her head, and the shadow of a bruise marred her forehead.
In her arms was a tiny bundle wrapped in a blanket, so small it could fit in his hand.
Their baby.
Behind him he heard Gray speaking rapid French to security, probably trying to keep Justice out of jail. But all that mattered to Justice was in the hospital bed, and he wasn’t leaving.
Pain slashed his chest, biting as deep as the first time he saw his father broken and burned in a hospital bed.
Only this was worse. This was his wife and baby. And somehow he’d fucked up so badly she’d refused to see him.
Going to the bed, he stared down at the perfect little face. The baby’s eyes were closed, tiny little eyelashes lying against her rounded cheek. Two perfect little eyebrows, a tiny nose and lips. A soft tuft of pale reddish-blonde hair lay against Beth’s arm. She was exquisite.
And gone.
His throat swelled. How had this happened? “Beth? Sweetheart, I’m here. They wouldn’t let me in. I tried to get to you.”
Slowly she lifted her lids. The green he loved had dulled to utter misery. “I trusted you. How could you do this?”
The harsh agony in her voice wrecked him. Sitting on the bed, he reached for her. “What—?”
“Don’t touch me.” Her eyes filled with more tears. She dropped her head to the baby she cradled and sobbed.
She was breaking his fucking heart. “Beth, please. What happened? How did you fall?”
“I saw him. Gene Hayes. He showed me what you’d done by signing that contract.”
Every muscle, tendon and nerve snapped awake and hot. His heart pounded with the violent thump of murder. Gene Hayes had been at the arena? No fucking way. “He can’t have been there. He’s a wanted man.” So? a harsh ugly voice said. He was rich, powerful, and famous enough to be able to get away with it.
Justice was going to kill him. All this time, while he’d been out on that stage, Hayes had been there in that building and torturing Beth.
“I can’t bear it. I can’t,” Beth said. “If that wasn’t enough, he told me Nikki’s been selling pictures, videos and information.”
Nikki? That bitch betrayed Beth? He’d never even guessed.
“I ran. Then…” Beth looked down at the tiny child in her arms. “She died before we got to the hospital.”
Her anguished voice tamped down his rage over Hayes. She needed him. He couldn’t lose control and go after Hayes right now.
“He took everything once before. Everything. Now he’s taken her, he killed my daughter. And you let him.” With the baby tucked against her, she rolled to her side, her entire body shaking with wrenching sobs.
Beth’s suffering shredded him. Circling the bed, he crouched to her eye level. Tears flooded from her with horrible wrenching sounds. Mascara ran onto the bed.
Don’t think about Hayes right now. He’d find him later. Right now, he focused on his woman. “Let me touch you.”
She cried harder, her entire body jerking.
A nurse ran in, holding a syringe and giving orders in French. Seeming to remember her patient didn’t speak French, she slowed and focused on Justice. “You must leave.”
He glanced in the doorway to see Gray with two security guards. He assumed they didn’t want to traumatize Beth more by dragging him out. Returning his attention to the nurse, he said, “I won’t leave my wife. You bring security or police in here, and you’ll upset her further. No one is taking me from her.”
The nurse hesitated, then looked toward the door and shook her head.
The guards backed off, and Gray followed them.
Once the doorway was clear, the nurse held up the syringe. “This will calm Madam Cade. We’ll take the baby.”
Liza rolled to her back, took one look at the needle, and sat up, throwing herself toward Justice, while cradling the baby. “No! Don’t let them drug me. Please.”
His response was automatic. He closed his arms around her, protecting her from that deep terror. “Sh, it’s okay. No one will drug you unless you want it.” Her fear of being drugged and forced into the black nothingness where she’d be rendered helpless and vulnerable was all too real from what Hayes had done to her when she was fourteen. Stroking her hair, he asked the nurse over her head, “How badly is she hurt?”
The woman frowned in concern. “Bruises and contusions from the fall. The delivery was uncomplicated, but she’s bleeding and must rest. She’ll heal, but her grief…she needs a lot of support to help her accept the child is gone.”
Justice recognized the sympathy in the woman’s expression, understood that she meant to help, yet he wanted to shake her. Could she not see his wife? “She knows.” Nothing else could break Beth like this. She curled into his chest, her body heaving while their baby girl lay too fucking still in her arms.
The only consolation was that in her moment of fear, she’d thrown herself at him.
“She knows,” he repeated. “Just leave us. She needs time.” He didn’t care what they thought was healthy or right, this was what Beth needed. He gently lifted her in his arms, settled on the bed and held his sobbing wife and their baby.
Twenty minutes later the storm passed. Justice rubbed her back, keeping his touch light for fear of hurting her. Beth had to be in physical pain. She’d fallen down a half flight of hard stairs and then suffered a miscarriage. Rage flickered, threatening to erupt into a forest fire of raw, lethal fury.
Not yet. Hold it together for Beth. Don’t think about going after Hayes until later.
She shuddered. “Her name is Savanna Rose. Will your grandmother recognize her if they have the same middle name, do you think? Take care of her? I don’t want her in the dark by herself.”
His eyes welled up. He hadn’t cried in years, not since the day his mom walked out and left him in jail. But Beth holding their child, begging him to promise his dead grandmother would care for their baby, tore him apart. “I promise. She loves children.” He stroked the tiny baby’s cheek. “Savanna Rose.” His voice trembled on her name.
Their daughter. A beautiful, torturous love ballooned his chest. He’d had no idea, no concept of what he’d feel when he saw his child. A terrible and bright feeling made of all that he was. But right now, he had to give Beth some peace and solace. “Savanna Rose will have her great-grandmother to love and watch over her until we see her again.”
“Will we?” Beth looked up at him with so much raw vulnerability and awful grief.
“Yes.” They would one day. They had to.
She curled back into him, quiet and limp with sorrow.
The nurse returned, checking on her. “Mrs. Cade? Would you like more time?”
Beth lifted the baby to her lips, kissing her head. “Mommy loves you, Savanna Rose Cade.” She tried to hold the baby up, but her arms trembled.
Justice pressed Liza to his chest. “I’ve got her, Beth. Hold on to me.”
He slid his hands beneath
his daughter. Beth let her go, wrapping her arms around him.
For a heartbeat, he held his tiny, perfect little girl and wished they could have a lifetime. He’d trade his soul for her life, but he was powerless. He kissed her head. “Daddy loves you too.”
“We’ll take good care of her,” the nurse said.
Beth trembled against him, and Justice gently enfolded her in his arms.
But the wrath in his mind, the fires of hatred, flamed.
He was going to find and kill the man who’d done this.
Gene Hayes.
* * *
Liza hated herself. If she could trade places with her baby, she would. Why hadn’t she died and the baby lived? How could she let Justice touch her after what he’d done?
She scrambled off him, then yelped as pain bit into her hip. Her shoulder, arm and knee were sore. Her empty belly ached. Blood gushed between her legs, but she deserved it.
They both did. Maybe this was their hell—living with the pain of knowing they’d failed their child in the worst possible way.
“Beth—”
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
Before she could rise, he rolled off the bed, then his arm wrapped around her shoulders, easing her up. “I’ll help you. Stand slowly, I’ve got you.”
She wanted to argue, but she was weak, tired and fogged. She let him help her up and walk her to the small bathroom. At the door, he tugged her face up. “Can you do it?”
“Yes.” His kindness hurt so much more than if he didn’t care. Justice loved her, but when faced with a choice—he chose his career, and their baby paid the price.
He hesitated, and said, “No one told me, Beth. I was out there onstage singing, and you were going through this. I’d have left the stage.”
Liza couldn’t see his eyes clearly without her glasses, but she could feel his desperation for her to believe him. But her ability to do that had died with their daughter. “We’ll never know. I can’t believe you anymore. The cost is too high.” She pulled from him and went inside, shutting the door.
Every step and movement hurt. She’d been told she didn’t have any broken bones. It took everything she had just to use the facilities. What should have taken three minutes took fifteen. Weary, she barely got the door open when she heard Justice’s voice.
“Find out, Em. Please.”
Liza stopped, gripping the door. While his voice was clear to her, his image was fuzzy. “You’re talking to Emily?” She took a step and another, aiming for the bed.
“Beth.” He put an arm around her, his scent warm and safe.
“I can do it,” she snapped.
He ignored her, easily taking her weight. “Do you want to talk to Emily? I was letting her know.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t, her throat had closed up.
“Em, I’ll call you later, okay? Take care of— Yeah. I’ll tell her.” He slid his phone in his pants. “Em said she and Ben love you. She’ll talk to you after you sleep. Anytime. And Gray’s going to our hotel room to find your spare glasses and gather some clothes. They’ll probably release you tomorrow, but we’ll stay in France until you’re cleared to fly.”
Reaching the bed, she put her hand on it and turned out of his hold. The question burning her soul spilled out. “Why? Why did you do it?” The pain was too much, Liza couldn’t think rationally. Nor could she get back in the bed where she’d held her daughter for the first and last time.
She couldn’t. Hysteria bubbled and clawed, and yet she was so tired.
Justice’s hand closed around her arm. “We’ll talk tomorrow. You need to sleep. Rest.”
She jerked away. Another shaft of pain made her hiss. “I can’t do this. Go away. Go back to the hotel, or go party. You got what you wanted.” Her inner bitch snarled and snapped.
He reared back as if she’d hit him. “I’m not leaving you. You’re mine, now and always. I never wanted this to happen. Christ, how can you even say that? I didn’t want to lose our baby.”
“You wanted your dream more. You signed that contract. Hayes showed me.”
“Hayes.” He barked the name, pacing like a caged animal. Then he stopped. “I didn’t know he’d be at the arena. Are you sure it was him?”
“Am I sure?” A bitter noise escaped her, half sob, half laugh. “He was there. He had me summoned by that security guard he apparently hired specifically for that reason. Like the idiot I am, I walked right into the room where Hayes waited. And do you know why? Because I trusted you. It never occurred to me you’d keep something like Hayes being a part of World Rock Stage from me.” The moment of seeing Hayes was forever burned on her brain. “Just like I trusted my dad.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
Justice lunged to her, his hands curling around her arms. “Beth…he wasn’t supposed to be there! You have to believe me. I’d never have signed the fucking contract.”
She looked up, and another wave of betrayal rode through her, trampling over everything she’d ever loved and believed. “But you did sign. You knew he was an owner. His name was right there.” Her nose clogged, and more tears fell.
“I had no choice. We still owed money from the tour, and if we didn’t sign, we’d be ruined. All of us. I wouldn’t be able to protect you, take care of my dad and our baby.”
She flinched. Their baby. Savanna Rose. The agony rose and tried to swallow her. She wanted to hate Justice, it’d be easier. Better. Because those moments when he’d held her and their baby earlier, she’d felt his grief, his tears, his comfort. She craved nothing more than his arms. Even now he tempted her. A part of her wanted to run to him, to cry with him, to endure until they could breathe again.
But he’d betrayed her, their child and their love.
“You sold out your wife and child to become an international rock star. That was more important to you than us.” She shrugged out of his hold and sat on the bed, grateful she didn’t have her glasses. She didn’t want to see his face.
He dropped to the floor at her feet, taking her hands in his. “I was trying to protect you. I screwed up. Please, Beth, forgive me.”
“I can’t.” She took her hands away, crawling into the bed and closing her eyes. “I can’t forgive you or me. I deserve this, but she didn’t. She should have lived and I should have died.”
* * *
“He’s where?” Justice said into his phone, unable to believe this as he stood in the hallway outside his wife’s hospital room. “In the St. Andre hotel?” It was only a few minutes from the hotel he and Beth were staying at. All the bands were spread among three hotels.
“That’s the one,” Emily said. “It was booked by World Rock Stage. Do you know it?”
“Yes.” They’d had a cocktail party there the previous night in one of the suites. He’d had Beth right there with him. Jesus. Red coated his vision. Hayes had balls. He’d tormented Liza until she fell down the stairs and lost their baby, and he hadn’t run to the hole he’d slithered out of? Thought he could just stay in Paris like no one would do anything? “How sure are you Nikki is telling the truth?”
“Very. She broke down entirely when I told her Liza lost the baby. She told me it all started in Vegas on Liza’s birthday. Nikki was desperate for money, Ace made her an offer. That whole scene when he pushed Nikki was set up to get Liza to react.”
He closed his eyes for a second, recalling another time Liza had defended Nikki at the Sandcastle Contest and Concert a year ago. Ace and Nikki had known it would work. He expected that shit from Ace, but not Nikki.
Emily went on, “Then it just ballooned, until Hayes was demanding more and more. And soon he was threatening to expose Nikki on the Bring Gene Hayes Home website if she didn’t keep feeding him information. Hayes’s money was paying for that condo Nikki is living in.” Emily’s voice trembled. “I wanted to choke her.”
“Don’t, Em. We’ll deal with her, but Beth’s going to need you.” He meant it. Emily was like a sister to Beth. She’d already been
betrayed by one friend she trusted. And him.
“I can’t stand this,” Em said. “How is she?”
“Asleep. She finally agreed to take some pain meds, and they’ve numbed her enough to rest.” Which was why he had to handle this now, before Beth woke. “So how does Nikki know Hayes is still here?”
“She called him right in front of me. He’s so sure of her, he bragged about getting Liza to come into that room and showing her the contract. I could hear him. He’s an animal. Call the French authorities, get him arrested. He belongs in a cage.”
“Fuck that. I’m going to see him myself.”
“Justice! Wait—”
“Thanks, Em.” He hung up and went back into the room, looking down at his wife. In sleep her face was ravaged, dark craters beneath her eyes, her breath ragged from crying. Gene Hayes had hurt her.
And caused her to lose their child.
The rage exploded, roiling up until his skin burned with it. “He’s going to pay, Beth. Now.” He walked out. In the waiting room, Gray shot to his feet.
“Justice. How’s Liza?”
“Asleep. Can you stay with her? I need to do something.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Don’t leave her alone. I owe you.” He broke into a jog, going out into the dark.
Fifteen minutes later, a car dropped him off at the hotel. Justice strode in, bypassed the elevators to take the stairs to the third floor and found the room. Music thumped, and laughter rolled out.
He knocked.
A girl answered.
Justice lunged inside, forcing her to jump back. He scanned the room, looking past the half-naked, too-damn-young girls mixing among the men. There were at least fifteen people in the room, some snorting blow, others making out, drinking. Two girls were dancing and pulling clothes off each other.
Ten feet away, Gene Hayes sat in a chair, glass in one hand, eyes fixed on the two girls making out.
The last hold on Justice’s sanity snapped. His wife lay in a hospital bed, their daughter dead, and this pervert was getting off watching two girls. A roar of agonized rage tore from him. He rushed across the room, grabbed Hayes by the shirt and jerked him to his feet. His drink tumbled out of his hand and hit the carpet.
Savaged Vows: Savaged Illusions Trilogy Book 2 Page 30
