The Fearless King (The Kings #2)(72)

He’s going to want revenge.

He didn’t say it aloud. Journey had to know, even if she wasn’t willing to admit it. Either way, the bastard wouldn’t get to her tonight. “I understand.”

“Good.” She turned and headed for the door. “Let’s go.”

*



Eliza woke to both her brothers in her room. She stared dully at Anderson talking softly with the nurse and Bellamy slumped in the chair next to her bed as if he’d been there for a long time. Maybe he had. The drugs they pumped through her IV were strong enough that she slept more often than she didn’t, which was just as well.

At least in her dreams, nothing had changed.

She touched the bandages covering her face. She’d seen the damage this morning when they switched the dressings. Brutal cuts crisscrossed her face and a good portion of her shoulders, chest, and arms. Her lower half hadn’t been spared, either. When the car crumpled around her, the metal had shattered her hip and left leg. The doctors assured her that the surgery had been successful, and though it may take one or two more, she would walk again.

Eliza didn’t fucking care.

She closed her eyes, listening to the nurse murmur that she’d give them some privacy, and then the door shut. It was only then that she said, “I told them I didn’t want to see any of you.” She didn’t even sound like herself, her voice raspy and hollow. Fitting, in a way. The rest of her was ruined—why not that, too?

“Eliza.” This from Bellamy at her side.

She didn’t open her eyes, couldn’t see the pity on his face, couldn’t handle knowing that her brother thought less of her. Even without looking at him, she knew what he was thinking. “It’s not your fault, Bel. Even if you’d been driving, it still would have happened.” The cops had already been in to talk to her that first day, though they couldn’t be clearer in their disinterest in following up on whoever did this to her. Fine by me. She’d have the reminder every time she looked in the mirror. The people of Houston hated the King family as much as they loved them. Going from fashion model to scarred freak would create a media sensation all on its own. She didn’t want to be dragged through a trial—both in the courtroom and by the press.

No, better to let it all fall away.

“The doctor says you’ll make a full recovery,” Anderson said. He sounded closer, his big personality taking up too much room. He’d always been like that, the type to take charge of every situation he came across.

Well, too damn bad. She wasn’t a situation. She wasn’t even a problem he could solve.

Eliza pulled her blankets higher up her chest. Her hip and leg were encased in metal and plaster, so that the left side of her body lay exposed for anyone to see how truly fucked up she was. A full recovery. The very idea was laughable. She might walk again, but there was no recovering from this.

Her face would scar. Not the kind that could be covered up with the right makeup and careful lighting. Hideous red jagged marks that rent her features like a mirror someone had thrown a chair through.

Her career, her life, was over.

When she didn’t respond, Anderson continued, “I know Elliott has this bullshit merger in place, but I’ll find a way around it. If they want a merger, we can make that work, but I’m not selling you to secure it.”

Who would want to buy such a broken thing, after all?

“Eliza,” Bellamy said again.

She couldn’t turn from the pain in his voice despite her best efforts. She reluctantly opened her eyes to find her brother staring at her. The only other time she’d seen that look from Bellamy was when she’d come home after her first school dance, her mascara running rivers down her face because her idiot date had thought her being a pretty blonde meant she was down to fuck him in the locker room. Bellamy had taken care of her, calmed her down, and disappeared for several hours.

She still didn’t know what he’d done to her date, but when she saw the guy the next Monday in school, he looked like he was about to pass out as he stammered an apology.

No one had asked her out for the rest of her high school career, expedited as it was.

“B…” She couldn’t tell him she was fine. He wouldn’t believe it, probably because it was a bald-faced lie. Eliza hadn’t been further from fine than she was in that moment. “I’ll survive.” A much weaker reassurance, but closer to the truth. Survival required the bare minimum, after all. One foot in front of the other, an inhale followed by an exhale. Life dragged on for everyone, including her.

She cleared her throat. “I really would like to be alone.”

Bellamy didn’t look away. “You’ll be here for a couple more days and then you’re coming home.” He probably meant that to be comforting, but it sounded like a special kind of hell. She’d die before she let her brother—or anyone in her family—become her caretaker.

A battle to fight when we get there.

The nurse ushered them out shortly after, for which Eliza was grateful. She didn’t trust herself not to strike out like the wounded animal she was. It wasn’t her brothers’ fault that Elliott had effectively sold her to secure his merger, and it sure as hell wasn’t their fault that someone had hurt her. Whether they targeted her because of the merger itself or because she was trying to flee it was anyone’s guess.