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Why else would she run away?
I never told Kingpin what I suspected. I acted like I believed her. But in a matter of days, I lost it. Completely. January became a blur of breakdowns. Even as Kingpin spent every waking moment with me. Even as all the gossip was that Hallow and Eve were back together and the baby was his, I never believed that. One day at the bar when I was acting okay, I got confirmation.
Paisley took me aside. “Don’t have a cow,” she started.
I braced myself.
“Hallow never raped Eve,” she admitted and told me the story. “I spread that rumor. For some reason, he believes he did. He was pretty trashed.”
“But are you certain they didn’t have sex at all? That there’s no other time. Surely there was.”
“Hallow was with everyone but Eve. And he was with me too. He told me that they hadn’t been having sex before the wedding either. There’s no way her baby is Hallows.”
“Whose is it?” I asked, playing dumb.
Paisley crossed her arms. Her eyebrows raised and her lips flattened. She didn’t want to tell me her suspicions. She wanted me to understand them though.
I wouldn’t give her any power. “If you know you should tell Hallow, not me. It’s none of my business who Eve’s baby is.”
“I don’t have any hard proof,” she said.
“Does that matter?”
Paisley had an idea. She produced Eve’s wedding rings.
“How did you get those?”
“It doesn’t matter, but I figure I can use them in my plan. I’ll let Hallow know as Eve, and she’ll have to admit it. She’ll say who.”
Later that night I saw Paisley slip a box into Hallow’s jacket. I fantasized about leaving the babies with Kingpin. About running away. Far away, maybe back to California. Starting over. I was young enough. But I knew I couldn’t. Deep down, I wanted everything between Kingpin and I to go back to normal. I’d been waiting for the babies like they would fix everything.
When my water broke, I felt like I was freed from a prison. As planned, I had a C-section. Labor was still excruciating, somehow more so than what I suffered before. But it was thwarted quickly through an epidural. There was no pain involved in the birth part. Nothing to bring back the horrible memories. I stared at the ceiling for too long.
Awake for it all, I felt nothing but pressure. All the gory bits were hidden from my view, thankfully. I should’ve known something was wrong when Kingpin left the operating room before I did. He said his goodbye, giving me a kiss on the forehead but no explanation. I’d not even seen the twins. I was in there for another hour. The anesthesiologist who stood by the whole time, clarified, telling me my uterus had ripped when they’d cut into it. They were repairing the tear.
But when I was finally in a room no one handed me babies, either.
Something was wrong. Dead wrong.
Kingpin talked to the surgeon.
“We've given her something to calm her down,” a nurse said from beside me.
That's when I was told, we lost one of the twins, a girl. She was still born. And the boy was in the NICU. They were going to transfer me to a different floor. I wasn't allowed to be on the same floor with the successful mothers. I didn't even get to hold the baby that lived.
Chapter 28
Sky
Kingpin went to see our boy first. My time would come. I was told I was recovering from more than giving birth. Having lost too much blood, my heartrate was through the roof. And they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. The nurse came in my room while Kingpin was gone. I thought they needed more blood or another test. I was tired of everyone bothering me.
I held out my arm, but she sat beside me and said, “I have a message from Ralph.”
“Ralph?” I asked before it dawned on me.
“Mr. Getty,” she repeated herself.
I tried to sit up.
