Chapter 295 The Result
ADRIANA
I drove back to the hospital with the window down because I needed air and I needed to think and I needed the wind to do something about the feeling in my chest before I arrived back in Lana’s room and had to be calm and steady and present.
What I had seen in that office had produced in me not the jealousy I might have expected but something colder and more analytical. She had staged it. She had heard the knock at the door and positioned herself and she had been in exactly that position when it opened because she had wanted someone to see it, and the someone she had hoped for was me.
Which meant she knew I was in the house. Someone had told her.
The hospital was quiet at this hour. I came back through the main entrance and went straight to Lana’s room and found Hazel asleep in the chair on the other side of the crib.
I stood over the crib for a while and looked at my daughter. She had color in her cheeks now and she was breathing on her own. The terrible stillness was still there but it was different from before.
I sat down and I thought about Simone and the staging and the person who had told her I was home, and I thought about Roy’s partial fingerprint and the envelope I’d sent with him, and I thought about the name that was somewhere in all of this that I hadn’t found yet.
I fell asleep thinking about it and woke up with Hazel setting a cup of tea on the table beside me and the morning light coming through the window.
“Court is in a few hours,” Hazel said. “The DNA results are going to be presented this morning.”
“I know.” I looked at Lana. “Tell Elijah I said nothing is decided in my absence. Whatever the results say, no ruling is made until I’m in that room.”
“He already knows.”
“Tell him anyway.” I muttered, adjusting Lana’s blanket that was perfectly placed.
She left without a word which I appreciated. I asked the nurse for a shower and changed into the clothes I’d had Hazel bring, and I ate what the hospital kitchen sent up even though I wasn’t hungry because I needed to be functional today and functional required eating.
“My Queen. We’ve been monitoring her through the night. Her temperature has been stable for the past six hours and her brain activity looks clean on the scans.” He paused, like he was managing hope and caution simultaneously. “I won’t give you a timeline for waking up because I don’t have one. But I have no reason to expect anything other than a full recovery.”
“What does full mean?”
“It means what it sounds like. We’ll monitor her closely, but the indicators we’re seeing are good ones.” He held my gaze. “She’s fighting. You should know that.”
He left and I sat with that for a while.
Roy arrived, carrying the brown envelope, and he looked at my face before he looked at anything else in the room, which was something I had always appreciated about him — he always read the person before he read the situation.
“She looks better,” he said, coming to stand beside the crib.
“She does.” I stood up. “Come outside.”
We stood in the corridor and he handed me the envelope.
“He’s still working on it. He said give him another day. The adhesive on the seal might have preserved something the paper didn’t.” Roy paused. “The partial that he did get from the letter, he affirmed it could indicate a woman but he won’t go further than that.”
“A woman,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And Simone? What have you gotten on her? Anything about where she’s been, who she knows, who paid for her to come here. Because she didn’t arrive alone and she didn’t arrive uninstructed. Someone told her exactly how to approach this to make it a legal succession question rather than a personal conversation, and someone also told her I was home last night when I was supposed to be at the hospital.”
Roy’s expression sharpened. “She had someone in the house?”
“Or she’s in contact with someone who does.” I paused. “Can you look into her quietly? Without Elijah knowing yet? He has enough to manage and I want something concrete before I bring him into this part of it.”
“I’ll start tonight.”
“And your wife?”
He was quiet for a moment. “She’s sleeping more now. The medication helps with the pain.” He said it the way people said things that cost them a great deal to say — evenly, with the effort of evenness visible.
“Go home to her when you can,” I said. “This can wait a day if it needs to.”
“It can’t wait,” he said. “And she would tell me the same thing.” He straightened. “I’ll text you when I have anything.”
He left and I stood in the corridor for a moment and then I went back to Lana’s room and sat in the chair beside the crib and waited for Elijah.
He came in the early evening, and I could tell from his face what the results had been before he said a word.
“Positive,” I said.
He sat down across from me. “Yes.”
I nodded. I had known it would be. I had known it, if I was honest with myself, since I looked at the boy in the courtroom.
“I adjourned court,” he said. “I told them no ruling would be made without you present. We reconvene tomorrow.”
“What happened in the courtroom?”
“The doctor presented the results. The Elders started applauding.” Something moved through his expression. “Someone called it an heir announcement. I told them nothing was decided and dismissed the session.”
“And someone in the room said something after you left.”
He looked at me. “How did you know?”
“Because that’s what always happens. Someone says something when your back is turned.” I held his gaze. “What did they say?”
“Something about how my father would have handled it differently. That he was a real man.” His jaw tightened. “I had him put in the cells.”
“Good.” I turned back to Lana. “The boy’s name,” I said. “Do you know it?”
“She hasn’t told me.”
“Find out before tomorrow. You should know your son’s name before you sit in a courtroom discussing his future.”
He was quiet. “Adriana. I’m sorry. For all of it, for Simone, for the timing, for the position it puts you in.”
“Don’t be sorry for things you didn’t choose,” I said. “You didn’t know about the boy. That’s the truth and I believe it.” I looked at him. “What I need from you tomorrow is clear and direct authority. Leo’s position stated without qualification. Whatever arrangement is made for this boy should be handled with dignity and without apology.” I held his gaze. “And Simone needs to leave this house the moment this is resolved. I don’t care where she goes. She leaves.”
“Agreed,” he said. “On all of it.”