Chapter 636
Inside the VIP suite at Sacred Heart Hospital.
Suzanne had slipped into a deep, exhausted sleep last night the moment she heard Elissa was safe.
When she finally opened her eyes, Tristan and Laurel were sitting by her bedside, refusing to leave her side.
She barely spared Tristan a glance, her heart aching as she looked at her eldest daughter. “Did you stay here all night?”
“You’re my mother. How could I sleep anywhere else?”
Laurel’s eyes were shadowed with exhaustion, though she was used to functioning
on fumes. After helping Suzanne into the bathroom to freshen up, she sat back down. At her mother’s insistence, she gave a meticulous play-by-play of the previous night’s rescue.
Even though everyone had made it back in one piece, Suzanne still felt her blood run cold hearing the details.
“You’re telling me she took down a six-foot-tall man completely on her own?”
“Yeah.”
Laurel nodded, feeling a newfound, genuine respect for her younger sister.
The three Wilkinson siblings had been rigorously trained in self-defense by their grandfather since childhood. But that guy, Specs, was clearly a seasoned professional. Even Laurel wasn’t entirely sure she could have dropped him that easily.
When Laurel had slipped that silver needle into Elissa’s sleeve, it was just a desperate roll of the dice.
She never imagined Elissa would actually use it to secure her own safety, completely flipping the power dynamic and giving the Wilkinsons the upper hand in the negotiations.
As they spoke, Serena knocked softly and stepped into the room, leaning down to whisper something into Laurel’s ear.
Laurel’s expression shifted slightly. She stood up and looked at her mother. “Mom, I have to handle some work stuff. I’ll be right back.”
“Alright.”
Suzanne didn’t question it.
Laurel’s career in politics was highly sensitive, and the entire family was used to her dealing with classified emergencies.
Laurel stepped into the hallway. The second Serena clicked the door shut behind them, the warmth completely vanished from Laurel’s eyes, replaced by a freezing detachment. “Did she die at the Crest estate?”
Serena shook her head. “Not yet. She’s currently stabilized, but it doesn’t look good for the baby. The Crests actually contacted Sacred Heart, trying to transfer her here so Professor Sterling could take over, but we denied the request immediately…”
“That’s enough.”
Laurel cut her off smoothly. “Pull our guys back. We don’t need to keep tabs on them right now. And make sure you don’t say a word of this to my mother.”
The three Wilkinson siblings had wildly different methods, but they shared one core philosophy: they always paid back their debts in blood.
As far as they were concerned, Marcia had begged for this exact ending.
But a life was still a life.
For years, Suzanne had devoted herself to charity and good deeds, praying that her karma would eventually bring her missing home
Faughf she knew the
brutal reality of what they had orchestrated, it would eat her alive.
“Understood,” Serena replied.
“Did you find anything on Orion Stone?”
“Nothing.”
Serena’s response was sharp and immediate checked in with Rex this morning. He said the guy’s counter-surveillance skills are elite. It’s highly likely he knew we’d send people to tail him and used a decoy to pull our team off his scent.”
Laurel wasn’t the least bit surprised.
She remembered the stories. It had taken a specialized narcotics task force two grueling years, and the sacrifice of multiple undercover officers, to finally secure enough evidence to put Orion behind bars.
The reason was simple the man was terrifyingly brilliant.
When Laurel walked back into the hospital room, Suzanne was already fully dressed with the help of the nurses. She looked deeply anxious. “I’ve been thinking about it… Rowan is a man. He doesn’t know the first thing about taking care of a pregnant woman. We should bring her home with us.”
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“Mom…”
Laurel let out a helpless, affectionate laugh. “Did you think about what possible
excuse we could use to justify bringing her home?”
“I’m her mother, and you’re her sister. Why shouldn’t we…”
Suzanne’s voice trailed off as her own confidence evaporated.
For over twenty years, the person who had actually been there to protect and care for Elissa was Rowan.
Not them.
Tristan had been listening, completely lost in the conversation, but the moment he heard Rowan’s name, a terrifyingly sharp realization struck him. He stared unblinkingly at Laurel. “Is our little Vera… Dr. Drummond?”
Rowan was notoriously ruthless and cold. Elissa was the only woman in the world he would ever care for.