Annihilate Me 2: Omnibus (Complete Vols. 1-3, Annihilate Me 2)

by Christina Ross

  “What about Stephen Rowe?” I asked, aware that I was beginning to fade.

  “What about him?”

  “What if they made him interim CEO?”

  “What if they did? The keyword here is ‘interim.’”

  “You and I both know that it won’t be that simple. I’ve read enough to know how these things work, especially when it comes to dealing with a divided board. After the SlimPhone fiasco, not all those board members were on Alex’s side.”

  “They weren’t when we left, but they might be now,” she said as she stood over my bedside and kissed me on the forehead. “What I need you to think about is this—how will the media portray this story? Not sure? Fine. Let me tell you how. Alexander Wenn proved his mettle on that island. He made the decision to get on that boat with armed men, fully aware that they might kill him. He willingly put his life on the line for his wife, for his friends, and also for Wenn Enterprises. When you are a hero and are recognized as such—as he will be, and as I believe you will be—it’s tough to beat that kind of PR, wouldn’t you say? Now, sleep. When we arrive in Singapore, you’ll be grateful for the rest.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  The moment we landed in Singapore, Cutter and I were rushed by ambulance to Gleneagles Hospital, which was considered to be among the world’s finest.

  I was still hazy from the drugs I’d been given, but not hazy enough to be unaware of the conversations taking place around me. From those alone, I knew that we were about to arrive at the hospital’s emergency entrance, and that doctors and nurses were waiting outside for us—as were the press.

  “Get rid of them,” Alex said to somebody, likely to Tank.

  “No,” I heard Barbara say. “The world has only heard that you’re alive. Now, they need to see it for themselves. Let the press take your photographs and run those photos wherever they can. Right now, it’s critical that you prove to anyone who doubts that you’re alive that you are indeed alive—and not at the bottom of the ocean that claimed the lives of our friends.”

  “We need to move,” I heard the doctor say. “Now.”

  With that, I heard the ambulance doors swing open with a clatter of metal. I felt a breath of warm air waft across my face, and I heard a cacophony of voices rise up just outside the ambulance in anticipation of our exit. Alex leaned in next to me, kissed me on the lips, and said, “Hang in there for me?”

  I nodded at him. “Let’s do this.”

  While there was a part of me that wanted to hide from the media as I was rolled out of the ambulance, I chose not to because, after listening to Blackwell, I knew that I also had a part to play in this. So I fought for clarity and took the opportunity that was being presented to me.

  When they rolled me outside, I heard and felt the excitement thrumming in the air. I glanced around me and saw a surprising number of reporters being held at bay by police as we started to move toward the emergency entrance.

  Cameras flashed.

  People called out our names.

  Questions were hurled our way.

  "How did you survive on that island, Mr. Wenn?”

  “Why did your plane go down?

  “How many people are dead?”

  “Who were those people on the island with you?”

  “Is that Mrs. Wenn in the gurney?”

  Nobody answered. Nobody said a thing. We just kept moving forward. For all the press knew, I could very well be dead.

  I need to do something.

  With an effort, I turned my face to the reporters and lifted my hand so they could see that I was alive, which would crush any tabloid fodder that I was dead—and that Alexander Wenn had lost a second wife.

  The hand I raised was the one with the intravenous drip attached to it, which I showed them on purpose because I knew it was too dramatic a shot for any media outlet to overlook. The press had manipulated Alex and me since we’d begun dating a year ago, but they had been especially brutal since Wenn’s earnings fell short of Wall Street’s expectations due to the research and development that went into the development of the SlimPhone. That, coupled with the media’s unrelenting questioning of whether Wenn could survive such a financial blow, had caused our stock to plummet.

  And right now, I wasn’t above manipulating them because of it.

  The moment I raised my hand, I heard the uptick in the rapid clicking of cameras. People called out my name. I waved to them and gave them a thumbs up, lowering my hand only once I was wheeled out of sight and through the hospital’s emergency entrance.

  Doctors and nurses were on either side of me, but so was Alex, who held my arm as we hurried down a hallway.

  “Where is Cutter?” I asked.

  “Just behind us.”

  “What’s going to happen to him?”

  “He’ll be treated immediately.”

  “And me?”

  “They need to assess your wound, and then we’ll take it from there.”

  “Somebody must know if I’m going to have surgery.”

  “No doctor with proper equipment has looked at you, so we don’t know if you need surgery yet. But it’s possible that you do.”

  “Alex, if our child is still alive, it can’t sustain a surgery. You know that. If they put me under, it’ll be too much for the baby to bear.”

  “We’re in one of the world’s best hospitals, Jennifer. They'll only do what’s right.”

  “For whom? For me? Or for me and our child?”

  Before he could answer, I saw a hand descend upon his shoulder—it was one of the nurses, quietly telling him that he could go no farther. Quickly, he kissed me again on the lips, and told me that he loved me and that he would be waiting just outside for the doctor when they were finished examining me.

  When I was examined, it turned out that I wasn’t going to get out of this so easily. After undergoing an MRI, it was clear that, while the bullet may have broken no bones, it nevertheless had caused muscle damage severe enough to warrant an operation.

  “We need to operate now,” the surgeon said to Alex and me when Alex was brought into the room. “The wound we’re dealing with is tricky—the muscle is still actively tearing each time she moves and breathes.” He looked down at me. “Because of that, the sooner we operate, the better chance you'll have for a full recovery. The longer we wait, the more I fear that you’ll go through life with only limited use of your arm and shoulder. Do I have your permission to operate now?”

  “I’m pregnant,” I said to the man with tears in my eyes. “Or I might be. Before I commit to any of this, I need to know whether I am or not. So, tell me. If you put me under and I am pregnant, could that harm my child?”

  “There’s a possibility of that, yes.”

  “Then do a pregnancy test.”

  “There’s no time for a pregnancy test,” the man said.

  “I’m sorry, but there is time, so make it. Give me the test. Do it now, or I'll take my chances otherwise.”

  “Jennifer,” Alex said.

  I looked up at him as the doctor moved swiftly out of the room. “Don’t you see?” I said as I started to cry. “I have to know. So do you. We need to know that fixing my shoulder doesn’t turn out to be the reason we lost our child. If it’s still alive, then to hell with the surgery. I won’t have it. I won’t risk our child for the sake of my shoulder and my arm.”

  “Think about what you’re saying. Listen to yourself. Your life also matters. It matters to me. We can try again, Jennifer. You know that. And we’ll be successful.”

  “Neither of us knows that. If this child is still alive, I will do anything to protect it just as I would do anything to protect you. Do you have any idea how far I would go to help you, Alex? That’s the same length I’m willing to go to save our child. Unless I have no choice, I’m not giving up on it. I’m not.”

  But thirty minutes later, after a urine and blood sample had been taken from me, the worst proved true. I could see it on the doctor's grim face when he returned t
o the room, and the pain I felt was unlike any other pain I’d experienced. It was greater even than any pain I’d felt at the hands of my alcoholic parents, who had abused me my whole life.

  “I’m so sorry,” the doctor said to us.

  I shook my head at him. “No,” I said. “It’s wrong. This can’t be.”

  “We've done the tests. We ran them twice.”

  Alex took my hand and when he squeezed it, I could feel him trembling.

  “Please,” I said.

  “I’m afraid that you’ve miscarried, Mrs. Wenn—but not recently. There are no signs of HCG in your system, which indicates that you likely lost the child when your plane crashed. If you’d lost it in the shooting, there would still be solid signs of the hormone in your system. But there is barely a trace of it. This isn’t your fault. You’ve done nothing to harm your child. You need to know that it would be nearly impossible for a fetus so early in its development to sustain such a blow.”

  Before he could say anything more, I became so overwhelmed with despair and grief that I started to cry in outrage and loss. I heard Blackwell call out my name from beyond the closed door to the examination room. I felt Alex nuzzle his face close to my neck, and then place the palm of his hand against my cheek. I felt him shudder against me as he told me again and again that he loved me. I heard the doctor say how sorry he was. And even though on some subconscious level I had tried to prepare myself for this moment, it now became clear to me that there was no preparing for such a moment. There was nothing that could steal away the pain of losing my first child. And so I howled even louder in grief. I started to heave and cry in the face of our loss. I looked at Alex, and saw my own pain reflected in his eyes.

  And it was at that moment that the world started to dim.

  “Jennifer,” Alex said. “This won’t be it for us. We will get pregnant again. We’ll have a child.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked. “How do either of us know that?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  But I wasn’t so sure. The plane crash could have damaged my body in ways that might prove impossible for us to conceive again, and the very idea of what that might do to my marriage made me start to shake at the very thought of it.

  My heart began to race.

  My body was suddenly sheathed in sweat.

  And then everything I saw around me started to whirl and blur in ways that were at once familiar and frightening.

  “Look at me,” Alex said. “Stay with me,” he said.

  But the moment he spoke, I heard the emotion in his voice, I felt the tension behind his embrace—and that was all it took. A crushing sense of loss overcame me, followed by a feeling of faintness—and then a world I never wanted to face again quietly went dark.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  After the operation, my mind was so clouded with drugs, I only vaguely remembered what came next—the doctor talking to me, telling me that the operation had been a success. Nurses walking me up and down a hallway to get my circulation flowing again. And then the trip to the Gleneagles Suite, which housed the hospital’s best private suite of rooms.

  It was there that I slept.

  When I finally woke and parted my eyes, having no idea how much time had passed since the operation, the room was so bright with sunlight that I winced.

  “Close the blinds,” I heard Blackwell say. “Keep the room dim for now.”

  When the light eased, I opened my eyes to find that Alex was at my side, as were Blackwell, Lisa, and Tank. All of them had obviously showered, and were wearing a fresh set of clothes. I looked around the room for Daniella and Alexa, but they were nowhere to be found. I looked questioningly at Blackwell.

  “The girls are with Cutter,” she said, as if she could read my mind. “He’s not in the clear yet, but they have his infection under control, which is the miracle we prayed for. His fever is dropping. He’s still in a coma, but the doctor believes that he will come out of it soon and that there’s a chance that he’ll recover.”

  A chance? I furrowed my brow at her.

  “His fever caused his brain to swell,” she said. “We’ve been told that’s normal in situations such as this. The good news is that the swelling was mild. The doctors are optimistic. With the exception of Alex, who insisted on remaining here with you, all of us have been in to see Cutter, and I can tell you that he looks better. I believe the doctors are correct—he does stand a chance. That young man isn’t just strong—he’s also a fighter.”

  I absorbed the news with a nod, and prayed to God that Cutter would make it. As the fog of sleep lifted off me, I became aware of monitors beeping beside me and a needle stuck in the back of my right hand. I looked around the room and couldn’t believe how large and unusually posh it was. It was more like a high-end hotel room than a hospital room. I’d never seen anything like it.

  “As for you,” Blackwell said, “you came through brilliantly. You’ll have to wear a sling for a few weeks, but the surgeon got to you before more damage could be done to the muscle. We’ve been told that, with time and after some physical therapy, you will indeed make a full recovery.”

  “Not full,” I managed. My mouth and throat were so dry, my voice had become a rasp. “I lost my child.” I glanced over at Alex, who looked gaunt to me. Ragged. Upset. “Our child.”

  “May I have a moment alone with Jennifer?” Blackwell asked those in the room.

  “I’d like to speak with my wife,” Alex said.

  “I promise you that this won’t take long,” she said to him. “I also promise you that my talking with her now can potentially help the situation. Otherwise, I’d never take you away from her. As soon as I’m finished, I'll come for you, and you can be alone with her. Please trust me on this, Alex.”

  “All right,” he said.

  “We’ll be just outside,” Tank said as he put his hand on Alex’s shoulder and everyone stepped out of the room.

  “Are you coherent?” Blackwell said to me.

  “Define coherent.”

  “Are you hovering along the ceiling, or are you here with me?”

  “I’ll always be here with you.”

  “Don’t you dare make me cry.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Well, then. So it is for me, too.”

  I looked at her and was surprised to find that physically, she was completely pulled together in a new black suit. “How in the hell did you get a new Chanel suit?” I asked. “And who did your hair and makeup?”

  “Are you serious? I can do my own hair and makeup—and not just because of Bernie. Don’t think that I don’t have my own bag of tricks.”

  “I’d never think that…”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. As for the suit, Chanel is right here in Singapore. True, the suit hasn't been properly fitted to me, but it’s a hell of a lot better than that smelly red rag I’d been wearing for the past two weeks.” She shrugged. “When you were under the knife, I gave Chanel a quick call and they delivered the suit along with new shoes and bags filled with cosmetics. Just wait until you see what I bought for you.”

  “You're unstoppable,” I said. “And thank God for that. May I have some water? My mouth feels like the Sahara.”

  “I'm afraid you can only have ice.”

  "Is that your decision, or the doctor's?”

  “This time, it’s the doctor’s. Otherwise, I’d give you a stiff drink.” She reached for a glass on the table next to the bed, and I heard a bit of tinkling as her hand dipped inside the glass to retrieve a cube. “Here. Open your mouth. That’s right—just like a horse to a cube of sugar. I’d let you do it yourself, but I don’t want you to choke on it.”

  I did as I was told, and she offered me the ice, which sent a refreshing jolt of moisture to my mouth the moment it hit my tongue.

  “Seriously?” I said. “Like a horse to a cube of sugar?”

  “You haven’t seen yourself. Trust me on this.”

  “So, what’s this about?” I
asked after a moment.

  “I’d like to talk with you.”

  “With me or at me?”

  “You already know the answer to that—at you.”

  “This is about the baby?”

  “In a way, I suppose it is. But not how you think.”

  “I’m not ready to talk about my child, Barbara.”

  “Who said I was planning to talk about your child?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “First, have another piece of ice. That’s right. Better? Good. I have something that I want to share with you that I’ve never shared with anyone. But now—while you’re coming to terms with your own loss—is the right time.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My own miscarriage.”

  I blinked at her in surprise. “Your own what?”

  “The miscarriage I had when I was twenty-two. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t tell you about that sooner. On the island. I don’t blame you for that, but I chose not to tell you for two reasons. First, I've kept it private for years. It has always been my secret. Second, I was waiting to see how this turned out for you before deciding when and if I would share this secret with you. I decided I would only if you miscarried. Why? Because I wanted you to know that you’re not alone in how you feel. And how you’re going to feel as the days, weeks, months, and years pass. I’ve never told anyone about my miscarriage, not even Charles. He had no clue that I was pregnant when I lost our baby. You’re the first.”

  "How couldn’t he have known?”

  “Because I didn’t tell him that I was pregnant. I’ll explain why later. What you need to know is that I miscarried very early in my pregnancy—just like you. I kept silent out of shame. And guilt. And embarrassment. Even now, all these years later, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don't feel the weight of that loss.”