Chapter 224 Last One to Finish is a Rotten Egg
ADRIANA
The pain hit before I fully understood what had happened.
One second I was standing on the balcony with Leo’s hand on my head and the crowd still cheering below, and the next the world tilted sideways and I was on the ground with no clear memory of how I got there. The pain came in a wave, electric and total, locking every muscle in my body for a long moment before Hazel’s hands found me and pressed down hard on my shoulder.
“Stay with me. Don’t move. We’re getting help.”
I could hear everything — the screaming from the crowd below, boots on stone, someone shouting orders, the specific chaos of a celebration turning into an emergency in under sixty seconds. It all reached me like it was coming through water.
“The kids.” That was the first thing that came out of my mouth. “Get the kids inside.”
“They’re being handled—”
“Hazel.” I grabbed her wrist with my good arm. “Get them inside yourself. Lock them in my room. Go.”
“I’m not leaving you—”
“That is not a request.”
She looked at me. Her jaw was tight and her eyes said about fifteen things she didn’t have time to say out loud. Then Leo was there, dropping to his knees beside me, and I looked at him directly.
“Get your brothers and sisters. My room, lock the door, don’t open it for anyone except Hazel or Aiden. Go now.”
He moved immediately. He didn’t argue, didn’t hesitate, just moved, and I was grateful for that because I only had so much left in me.
Hazel pressed harder on the wound and I heard myself make a sound I didn’t intend to make.
“The shooter—”
“Aiden’s on it. Stop talking and let me help you.”
“I’m fine.” I argued.
“You’ve been shot, Adriana.”
“I’ve had worse.” I hadn’t, actually, but it felt like the right thing to say.
She got me upright, got my arm around her shoulders, and moved us inside with a speed that suggested she’d been thinking about exit routes since before the celebration started, which knowing Hazel, she probably had. The crowd noise faded as we got through the doors and into the corridor, replaced by the quieter, more controlled chaos of guards relaying information and someone on a phone with the doctor.
“The doctor is coming. Keep your eyes open. Talk to me.”
“About what?” I asked, noting how heavy it felt to move my lips.
“Anything. What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking about how much this hurts.”
“Good. Keep thinking about that.”
She was trying to keep me conscious and I knew it, so I kept talking, kept focusing on her voice and the pressure of her hands and the feeling of the floor under my feet as she half-carried me down the corridor.
I remembered exhaling. I remembered the ceiling above me changing as I was lowered onto something flat and cool.
After that, I remembered nothing.
When I opened my eyes, the room was dim and for one completely disorienting moment I thought I was in Elijah’s room. The same darkness, the same quiet. Then the pain in my shoulder reminded me exactly where I was and what had happened, and I let out a breath and lay there for a moment taking stock.
I moved my fingers. Then my arm. Then I slowly pushed myself upright, ignoring the way my body immediately filed a formal complaint about it.
My phone was on the nightstand. I reached for it. The next evening. I’d been out for less than a day, which was faster than I would have expected.
Someone had shot me at my husband’s coronation anniversary celebration, on our wedding anniversary, in front of my children and a crowd of thousands.
That was not a coincidence. That was not opportunistic. That was planned, prepared, and aimed — and the only reason I was sitting upright in this bed instead of lying in a room next to Elijah was that whoever pulled the trigger had bad aim or I’d moved at the wrong moment.
I sat with that for exactly as long as I could afford to, which was about thirty seconds.
Then I called for the guard outside my door, told him to find Hazel and have her meet me in the throne room, and stood up.
My legs were not entirely cooperative. I made it to the door through sheer stubbornness and then had to accept the guard’s arm for the walk down the corridor. By the time I lowered myself into the chair in the throne room I felt like I’d run a marathon, but I was upright and that was what mattered.
Hazel came through the door and stopped dead.
“When did you wake up?” Her voice was flat with the specific energy of someone deciding whether to be angry or relieved. “Why wasn’t I informed the second you opened your eyes?”
“No one was in the room.”
“There were two guards outside your door—”
“Hazel.” I cut through it. “Sit down. Where are my children?”
She looked at me for a long moment. Then she sat.
“All of them are fine. Leo has been with the younger ones since last night. The twins were asking questions. Lorain hasn’t said much, which is worse.” She paused. “Lana has been fed. She’s with the maid.”
“I need to see them.”
“You need to rest—”
“I know. After I see them.” I shifted in the chair and tried not to let the pain show in my face. “Who do we have in custody?”
“One shooter. He was picked up within minutes of the incident. He’s not talking.”
“He will.” I closed my eyes briefly, then opened them. “What else?”
“That’s enough for tonight.” She stood up and came around to me. “Let me take you back upstairs. The kids are already eating dinner. You can see them there. But Adriana—” her voice dropped — “you scared me today. Don’t do that again.”
I let her help me up without arguing about it.
I heard the twins before I turned the corner into the dining room. They were arguing about something with the enthusiasm that only they could sustain at that volume, and the sound of it hit me somewhere behind my ribs in a way that had nothing to do with the bullet wound.
I stood in the doorway for a moment before they saw me.
Lorain was the first one to look up. She looked at my sling, then at my face, then back at her plate. The set of her jaw was pure Elijah.
Then Elijah Junior spotted me and both twins launched off their chairs simultaneously.
“Mum!”
I caught them with my good arm and held on.
“What happened to your arm?” Liam pulled back and stared at the sling with enormous eyes. “We saw blood. There was so much blood.”
I looked at Hazel over their heads.
“Your mum got hurt during the celebration,” Hazel said smoothly, sitting down like this was all entirely normal. “But she’s fine. See? She’s standing right here arguing with me about going back to bed.”
“I’m not arguing,” I said. “I won.”
Leo caught my eye from his end of the table. He gave me a look that said he knew the difference between fine and fine, and that he’d be asking me about it later when the little ones weren’t in the room.
I sat down between the twins and reached across for a piece of bread with my good hand.
“Last one to finish is a rotten egg,” I said.
The chaos that followed was immediate and complete and exactly what I needed.