Chapter 147 An Unexpected Visitor

Chapter 147 An Unexpected Visitor
The hospital smelled the way hospitals always did.

Antiseptic, bleach, stale air that never seemed to leave the building no matter how often the doors opened. Beneath it all lingered another scent Grace could never quite describe, something heavy that seemed to cling to the walls. It was the smell of fear, of waiting, of families praying for miracles and doctors delivering bad news. A place that had witnessed too many of the worst days of people's lives.

She didn't think she'd ever get used to it.

She sat beside Enzo's bed, her hands folded loosely in her lap as she watched the steady rise and fall of his chest.

The monitor beside him beeped at regular intervals. Every sound was reassuring. Every breath he took felt like one more step away from losing him.

Grace felt a sense of dejavu from the last time she'd been in a hospital with him. The memory was specific. The window. The glass breaking, and Enzo quickly moving before she had processed any of it, putting himself between her and whatever was coming through that window.

He had not asked her if she was okay first. He had not hesitated. He had just moved.

She looked at him in the bed now. He looked better than he had on the concrete beside the sewer opening, which was not a high bar, but better was better. 

The doctors had acted quickly.

Anti-venom.

Fluids.

Medications she couldn't even pronounce and slowly, little by little, the fever had begun to fade. His breathing had settled sometime after midnight and around four in the morning, she'd pressed the back of her hand against his forehead again.

The heat had finally broken.

She hadn't realized how tightly she'd been holding herself together until then. The relief had almost made her cry.

She'd stayed in the chair ever since, a nurse had offered to bring her a blanket, another had suggested she get some sleep. Someone had even mentioned going home but Grace just smiled politely at every suggestion.

Then she'd remained exactly where she was. She wasn't leaving, not until he opened his eyes.

The room fell quiet again.

She watched him for another long moment before her thoughts drifted back to the tunnel.

She thought about what he had said when they sat above the sewer, it was almost like a whisper but she'd heard it. It had been playing in her mind since she sat there turning it over and over.

She knew he could be cruel. She knew the specific quality of his cruelty, had been on the receiving end of it enough times to have a comprehensive understanding of it. She knew what it felt like when he decided that being cold was the appropriate response and he used it with the precision of someone who knew exactly which words landed where. She knew the way he left rooms and the way he used silence, the way he looked at her sometimes like she was a problem he had not consented to having.

Somehow had never hated him. She blamed it on the so-called mate bond.

Of everything that had happened between them, that was the part she couldn't make sense of.

She'd had every reason to hate Enzo.

He'd locked her in a cell. He'd dragged her into a cave against her will. He'd pushed her away whenever she thought they were finally beginning to understand each other. Then there was that morning after they'd spent the night together. He'd gotten dressed, walked out without a word, and left her alone with questions she didn't know how to ask.

She had never forgotten how much that hurt.

She'd been embarrassed. Angry. She'd replayed every second of that morning until she'd convinced herself she'd imagined whatever had existed between them. She'd opened herself to someone she barely understood, only to wake up feeling like she'd been another mistake he wanted to leave behind.

It had stung more than she ever admitted.

But somehow...

It had never become hate.

She had tried. There were times she told herself she was done with him, that the next time she saw his infuriating face she'd ignore him completely. Then he'd appear, say something that annoyed her, do something that confused her, or throw himself into danger to keep her safe, and all the walls she'd spent days building would quietly fall apart again.

She didn't know when she'd stopped seeing the arrogant person who seemed to enjoy provoking her.

She only knew that somewhere along the way she'd begun seeing the man underneath. The one who carried more than he ever spoke about, who smiled less when nobody was looking.

The one who pretended everything rolled off his shoulders even when it clearly didn't.

Her thoughts drifted to Maddox.

The memories came as easily as breathing, the hidden room beneath Bastian's shop, the body lying silently on the platform.

The spell she'd spoken with blood drying on her lips.

She remembered the way Maddox had looked at her whenever he thought she wasn't paying attention. The quiet affection in his eyes that had always been there, even before either of them had found the courage to call it love.

Her heart ached.

She loved him.

That truth had rooted itself inside her long before she'd ever spoken it aloud. It had grown through years of shared childhood memories, ordinary afternoons, laughter, arguments, forgiveness, and quiet moments that had slowly become the foundation of her life. Loving Maddox felt as natural as breathing.

Nothing could erase that and nothing ever would, her eyes returned to Enzo. His chest rose and fell steadily beneath the hospital blanket.

She smiled faintly.

Then there was him. Everything about loving Enzo felt different. There had been no childhood memories. No years of friendship to soften the edges. No gentle beginning, there had only been chaos.

Arguments.

Stolen glances.

Near-death experiences.

A bond forged in danger, sharpened by misunderstandings, and strengthened every time one of them chose the other without thinking.

It wasn't the same love she felt for Maddox. It couldn't be, but that didn't make it any less real.

Grace lowered her gaze to her hands, letting out a quiet breath.

She had spent weeks pretending the feelings weren't there, giving them different names because admitting the truth felt too complicated. She couldn't do that anymore, not after everything. Not after carrying him through the darkness because losing him had never felt like an option.

Sitting beside his hospital bed, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat through the monitor, she finally allowed herself to accept what her heart had known long before her mind was ready.

She loved Enzo, too.

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his cheek, light and brief, she straightened up and looked at his face and he did not wake up and she did not need him to.

Besides, she needed water.

She had not had enough of it since the tunnel and the hospital had a vending machine in the corridor and she stood and stretched, glanced at him once more and went to the door, thinking she should get some snacks too.

The corridor was the specific quiet of a hospital at an hour that was not quite morning and not quite night, the skeleton shift of people moving at the pace of a building that was always on but never loud. She found the machine and got water and stood in the corridor and drank and felt the specific gratitude of someone who had spent several hours without it.

She was halfway back to the room when she saw them.

Three officers came through the main entrance at the end of the corridor, moving with the kind of purpose that meant they already knew exactly where they were going.

She watched them and felt her stomach tighten as she followed their path. They were heading toward Enzo's room.

She thought about the police raid that had happened back at the pack, she got the gist of it when Enzo was abducting her from the cell. There was a manhunt going on.

Her mind jumped to Enzo in a hospital bed under his own name and what it would mean if those officers saw him.

Grace started to turn back, towards the cell, to do something she didn't have a plan for yet but she couldn't stand idle and just watch them take him, she took a step when a hand closed around her arm from behind. She froze instantly, her breath catching before she could react.

She turned fast.

The person standing behind her was not someone Grace had been expecting to see at all. Of all people to complicate her life further, it had to be this woman.

Sarah Ainsley—her adoptive mother.

Sarah looked older than the last time Grace had seen her. She looked like the last months had been a real struggle for her.

'Wasn't she sick? How is she here and how did she find me?'

Grace didn't know what she was here for, but the fact she was, Grace knew she wouldn't like the outcome.

Sarah was dressed simply and she looked like she was struggling not to throw her arms around Grace, her eyes were huge and filled with tears.

She was holding Grace's arm, her grip was not tight but it was firm. Sarah shook her head like she was trying to get rid of other thoughts as Grace just stared at her in slight annoyance.

"I need to speak with you," Sarah began.

Grace tilted her head to the side and tried to pull away but Sarah refused to let go. She looked at the hand on her arm, then looked at Sarah's face then looked at the corridor in the direction the officers had gone, and looked back at Sarah.

"Now?" Grace frowned.

"Yes," Sarah nodded too eagerly. "Now."