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Chapter Twenty-Two
Vanessa
For all the time she’d spent watching the door, waiting for it to open, when it finally did, she nearly jumped out of her seat. It crashed open with a loud bang. She must’ve missed the sound of the key in the lock.
Hunter stumbled in. She screamed when she saw the blood, and ran to him.
“It’s not mine,” Hunter said. “It’s Nicholas’s blood. He’s been shot.”
“What? By who?”
Vanessa looked over Nicholas, trying to see how bad things were.
“I’d have Opal go into her room if I were you,” Hunter said.
Vanessa spun around and saw Opal staring wide-eyed at them. Her lower lip trembled, and she looked like she was about to burst into tears.
“Opal, honey, let’s go into your room, okay?” Vanessa went to her and ushered her out of her seat at the table, using her body to block her view of the bleeding man. She closed the bedroom door behind them and knelt down to Opal. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. We just need to get him help and doctors will make him all better, okay?”
“Did Daddy do that?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. And Hunter protected Nicholas, too, didn’t he? He’s going to be just fine.”
Opal blinked at her, and the seconds were ticking by in Vanessa’s mind. “Just sit here and play, and I’ll let you know when everything is okay again.” She gave her a hug and kiss and rushed back into the living room.
Hunter was half holding up Nicholas, and Nicholas looked very pale, which was a startling contrast to the deep red seeping across his chest.
“Get him into the bathroom,” Vanessa said. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
She held the door and helped Hunter get Nicholas into a seated position on the side of the tub. Hunter helped her get his jacket off. As they peeled back layers of clothing and the wound was revealed, Vanessa was relieved to see it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought. The bullet had only grazed him. There was a lot of blood, but not a lot of damage.
She realized, as she reached for a towel to clean up the blood that she had thought at first that he was going to die. She’d been planning for it in the back of her mind. How she’d explain to the cops about her ex and hope it would work out in their favor somehow.
“I think you’re okay,” she said. “It just grazed your shoulder.”
Nicholas turned his head to look. “It hurts,” he whispered.
She pressed down on the wound with the towel, trying to get the blood to stop. After a minute, some color returned to his face.
“I don’t think it’s too bad at all now that the blood is cleaned up. Do you want us to take you to the hospital?” she asked. “Might need stitches.”
“I wouldn’t know what to tell them,” Nicholas said. “What happened?” He looked to Hunter.
“Vanessa’s ex and Opal’s father, Jeremy, hired a hit man to kill her. And it looks like he’s also trying to take me out since I’ve been protecting them. You happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Vanessa found a large bandage and cleaned the wound the best she could. With Nicholas talking to Hunter, he was somewhat distracted from the pain. She did the best she could with what she had, but he definitely needed to get to a doctor or the ER, just to get it properly cleaned and maybe stitched up.
“How do you know he wants to kill her?” Nicholas asked. “And how do you know he hired someone? Do you have any evidence of this?”
Hunter looked to Vanessa. She took in a breath. This was going to be tricky. How could they convince Nicholas without telling him too much? She certainly didn’t want Hunter getting in trouble at this point, before Jeremy was locked up. She still needed him to help her build a case. Telling Nicholas too much now might end with Hunter in jail and Vanessa and Opal sitting around for Jeremy to come along at any time. That couldn’t happen.
“He told me,” Vanessa said. “Jeremy called me and told me that he was going to kill me and take Opal. He said to watch for the men he’d hired.”
It was close enough to the truth, and couldn’t be disproved anyway. What did it matter how they knew? Nicholas just had to believe that Jeremy was the monster, not her. And if they could convince him, maybe it would turn everything around. Maybe they could make Nicholas more of an ally than an enemy.
# # #
Hunter tried not to let his relief show. He hadn’t thought Vanessa would give him away, but after she’d blurted things out to Mari, he wasn’t sure. When she was distressed and her daughter was in danger, she did risky things. But this was okay. Phone records would show that Jeremy had called her.
