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Her head snapped up, anger blazing in her cheeks. “Don’t you dare judge me. You don’t know what my life was like before I met Zep.”
“Living with murderers and criminals was a better alternative?”
Rachel’s eyes flashed with anger. “Zep was nothing like that. Not with me.”
Abby gripped the arms of the chair to keep from screaming. “Can you actually hear yourself right now?”
“What we had was real, Abby, and believe it or not, you were conceived in a loving relationship.”
She couldn’t credit the words that were coming from her mother’s mouth.
Rachel took a deep breath and gathered herself, her eyes softening. “I don’t want to fight with you. But I am not going to sit here and defend who I was and what I felt when I was barely twenty years old.” She nodded to herself. “All you need to know is Zep didn’t kick me out because I was pregnant, and I didn’t leave because of the murder. I would have stayed with him forever.” The wistful look on her face was soon replaced with a hardened set of her jaw. “But Zep didn’t want this life for you and I.”
Hearing the sadness in her mother’s voice made some of the rage dissipate. She released the grip she had on the chair, her fingers aching from the tension.
“He took one of the other boys from the club and went and saw Trudy and Bob. I don’t know what happened, but when he came back, the money my parents left me–money that until this point had been kept from me–was in my bank account.”
A shudder ran down Abby’s spine.
“I thought he might come away with me, just for a moment.” Rachel’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “But The Devils were his life, his family. And he knew we’d never be safe while he was with us.”
“Bullshit.” Abby refused to believe there was anything noble about this man. “He could have gone with you if he really wanted to.”
“Darling, it’s not that easy–”
Abby stood. “I can’t sit here and listen to you try and make him out to be some kind of hero. He’d willingly choose a life of crime over you. Scott said he’s wanted in connection to murder.” She threw her hands in the air. “This is insane.” She paced between the wall and the bed again. “So why is he here now?”
“I don’t know.”
Abby let out an exasperated sigh. “Is there anything else I need to know?”
“Maybe one thing.”
She whirled around to face her mother.
“My name’s not actually Rachel Sloane.”
It landed like a punch to her gut.
Chapter 15
The cops left two officers and a couple of the forensics team at the hospital, but it looked like everything had returned to business as usual when Zep walked through the main doors. Brodie reported that Isobel and his boys were still setting up camp in Lennox Head, and Dodge had followed Abby when she left the hospital on foot about half an hour ago. According to Mick, she looked like someone had stolen her lunch. Obviously, she’d had a chat with her mother.
Zep strode through the corridors as if he had every right to be there, knowing he would attract less attention that way. He headed straight to Rachel’s room, not letting himself stop to think about what it would mean to see her again, speak with her. Or if she’d even let him in the room. Rachel was no fool, she’d have to know that him turning up like this wasn’t about wanting to make up for all the Christmases he’d missed.
As he entered the hospital room, his heart clenched at the sight of Rachel–he refused to think of her as Becca—laying in the hospital bed. It had been thirty years since they’d parted ways, yet the time seemed to dissolve in an instant, leaving him raw and exposed to a flood of emotions.
The stark hospital lights cast a pale glow on her features, emphasising the passage of time and whatever illness had brought her here. Zep recognised the subtle features of the woman he once knew—the curve of her cheek, the gentle slope of her nose, the softness of her skin. These small, familiar details momentarily transported him back to a time when life was simpler, and their futures seemed full of possibilities.
Rachel, once vibrant and full of life, now lay frail and pale, a stark contrast to the image of her that he’d preserved in his memory. Approaching her bedside, he was acutely aware of the rhythm of her breathing, the rise and fall of her chest under the hospital sheets.
Zep felt a deep urge to hold her, but he shook it off. He squeezed his eyes closed. The pain that came with realising he’d never stopped loving her was like a knife to his heart. This was not what he came here for. He clenched his fists, trying to force the emotion from his soul with sheer force of will.
“I wondered when you’d show up.”
He opened his eyes to find her blue eyes trained on him, without a trace of animosity in them.
“Hello, Becca.” He grimaced internally. Rachel, that’s who she was now. Not his Becca. “I did drop by earlier, but you were busy.”
