Undeniably His

by Amanda Chayse

  “But?”

  “I would still miss us hanging out. It would be sad to say goodbye.”

  “You might have to soon.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want you to move in with me.”

  I press my hands on his chest and look up at him with hopeful gaze. “Do I have to sign anything?”

  Kalin smiles at me and pulls my hand over his chest. He looks up into the ocean air, and a wave of his hair flutters in the warm breeze. He looks so sexy right now, and I feel desire rushing through me. “I just want this moment with you right now, Annabelle. Don’t ruin it with your legal talk,” he teases.

  I playfully pound my small fist into his broad chest. “Okay, Mr. Contract.”

  Kalin takes my fist and kisses the knuckles on my hand. His warm soft, lips caress the tender skin between my knuckles, and a shock of heat surges through me. “I’m just claiming what’s mine.”

  I exhale and lean my head into his chest, glancing up at his strong profile against the beautiful starry sky, and I think this is the closest thing to heaven on earth.

  The valet brings Kalin his SUV to end a perfect evening. On the way back, he flicks the stereo on and a band of colorful lights comes to life. The sound is rich and crisp and powerful. I smile and sing with “Eternal Flame” by the Bangles. Kalin gives me a playful smile that washes all my self-consciousness away. I sway in my seat and sing to the sweet music, my eyes wide and glowing like a teenager’s on a Saturday night. Kalin presses his hand over mine when I sing the lyrics “give me your hand, darlin.’” I giggle and he sings with me. We both laugh at our goofy display, and he leans in to harmonize with me.

  I sway in my seat again and Kalin chuckles. His eyes are aglow with playfulness as he presses his hand over mine. We both laugh together. Suddenly, a loud smash causes the SUV to swerve and screech into the opposite lane. “Oh, my God!” I scream.

  “What the fuck was that!” Kalin regains control of the vehicle and steers it into the right lane when another smash causes the vehicle to careen and spin to the side. A third loud smash against the side breaks the windows out of Kalin’s driver’s side window. I am screaming as Kalin tries to regain control, and yet another loud smash causes the SUV to careen and twist toward the embankment.

  “Oh, my God! Kalin!”

  The SUV rolls in one violent smash after another, and I watch the world crashing and spinning around me. The motion slows, and I am sure we are both about to die. The SUV spins and rolls down a steep embankment, and comes crashing hard onto the roof. We are both upside down, and I turn my head to Kalin to see that he is bleeding badly. “Kalin!” I scream in a state of hysteria. My body weight strains against the seatbelt, holding me upside down, and I click the button but my weight against the belt keeps it from unbuckling. My heart races in my chest and a feeling of terror pounds from my chest, to my lungs, to my throat. My hands are trembling, and I press the seat belt release again as hard as I can. It clicks open, and I fall hard on my shoulder onto the roof of the vehicle.

  “Kalin! Kalin!” I scream his name, but he is unconscious. I squirm toward my purse spilled out across the roof, and search for my phone. I glance back at Kalin, his body suspended by the seat belt, his head dangling lifelessly. I am sobbing and trembling, and my heart is pounding in my ears. “Kalin! Oh, my God! Kalin!” I reach for my phone, my hand shaking, and dial 911.

  “911, what is your emergency.”

  “A truck rammed us on the highway. They were trying to kill us!”

  “Ma’am, I need you to calm down and tell me where you are.”

  “I don’t know. We’re upside down in the car off an embankment. Kalin is bleeding. He needs an ambulance. Please. Can’t you find the coordinates from the phone or something?”

  “No, ma’am. We need to know where you were when you went off the road.”

  “We left East Hampton heading to Southampton. We’re on Highway 92, I’m guessing about fifteen miles between East Hampton and Southampton.” I begin to cry. Kalin is bleeding more profusely now. “Please. The driver is bleeding badly. We need an ambulance.” I’m hysterical now.

  “Ma’am, I need you to calm down. Are there any landmarks, distinguishing signs or addresses— anything that will help the paramedics find you?”

  “I don’t know. I’m in the vehicle, upside down.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Can you feel your fingers and your toes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you move without any pain?”

  “Yes. I think I’m okay.” I run my hand over my forehead and feel warmth. My hand is covered in blood. “I’m fine. What do I need to do?”

  “Make sure the ignition is turned off. If it’s safe for you to do so, get out of the vehicle and get to the road. Find something to tell us where you are.”

  I reach over Kalin’s slumped shoulder and turn the ignition off. I cannot get out from the front, and wriggle to the back of the vehicle. I reach down and unlatch the back, push open the hatch with my legs, and manage to squirm out onto the grass.

  “Okay, I’m out.” I climb up the embankment and find a mailbox. “509. 509 Highway 92. Please, hurry.” I kneel on the ground and begin to cry.

  “Ma’am, do not move the driver or enter the vehicle. We have an ambulance and fire crew on the way. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I sob.

  I walk around the vehicle to Kalin’s side. What I see is more than I can take. The entire side is bashed in and angled into Kalin’s crumpled body. I approach the broken window. “Kalin! Kalin! Oh, my God! Kalin! Please!” Kalin’s head hangs limply upside down against his crumpled shoulders, and blood is all over the car. I sink to the ground next to him, crying and confused. His head is bleeding badly. “Kalin, goddamnit, answer me!” Tears are streaming down my face, and I taste a mix of tears and blood on my tongue.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When the paramedics arrive, Kalin is still unconscious and bleeding badly from his side. The firemen arrive on the scene and use hydraulic cutters to cut off the driver’s side door. The paramedics check Kalin’s breathing and pulse, and place a neck brace around him before putting him on a stretcher. “Is he alive?” I ask through trembling lips and tears.

  “He’s unresponsive, Miss.”

  I place my hand over his. “Kalin, I’m here. Please wake up. Please. Just wake up.”

  He is completely unresponsive. “Kalin,” I breathe through trembling lips.

  “Please clear this area, Miss,” one of the paramedics commands.

  I feel a lump in my throat as Kalin lies lifelessly on the stretcher.

  “What hospital is he going to?” I wipe my eyes, now drenched.

  “Southampton.” The paramedics secure his neck and back on the stretcher.

  “I need to get there too.”

  Another paramedic walks toward me from the ambulance. “Were you the passenger, Miss?”

  “Yes.”

  “We need to check for any neck and back injuries.”

  “Sure. But I need to get to the hospital.”

  The paramedic shines a light in my eyes to check the reaction of my pupils. He presses around my back and neck. “Do you feel any pain?”

  “No.”

  The paramedic checks my arms and a small abrasion on my face. “You will need to have those wounds checked out. Another ambulance will be here shortly.”

  As the paramedic speaks, two police cars, one marked and one unmarked, pull to the side of the road about fifty feet from the top of the bank where the SUV careened off. Another police car swerves back and forth to warn any oncoming drivers of the hazard, while an officer follows on foot, placing flares on the road about five hundred feet from the accident. I fold my arms and one of the officers approaches me.

  “Miss, I’m Officer Collins. What is your name?”

  “Annabelle Ried.”

  “Miss Ried, you were with Mr. Kalin Davis this evenin
g, correct?”

  “Yes, we were having dinner.” My eyes wander to the back of the ambulance. The paramedics begin the resuscitation process on Kalin as the ambulance sirens light up. The ambulance speeds around and accelerates onto the highway. Its siren blares into the distance.

  “Can I have a ride to the hospital?” I ask.

  “Another ambulance will be here shortly to take you,” Officer Collins replies.

  I clutch my upper arm and elbow, shifting and trying to calm the shaking of my body.

  “How do you know Mr. Davis, Miss Ried?”

  “He recently hired me. We’re also seeing each other. The Southampton police already have a record of all of this. His place was ransacked in Southampton, and Kalin filed a report.”

  “We will be sure and look into it. Who is the detective on that case, Miss Ried?”

  “Um, Detective O’Donnell.”

  The officer writes some notes on his pad and returns his gaze to me. “Can you tell me what happened here?”

  “We were driving home from dinner. All of a sudden we were rammed by another vehicle. It looked like a very large truck. Like a Mack truck without a trailer. All I really saw was the grille in the back window. We swerved into the oncoming lane, but Kalin regained control of the SUV. That’s when the truck hit us again. Really hard this time. Harder than the first time. We skidded off the embankment and down the ledge.”

  “Did you happen to get a look at the driver, or a clear picture of the vehicle? A license number?”

  “No. No way. It was way too fast. It looked like it was black, but I couldn’t tell. It was too dark. All I could see were its headlights and grille, and when we spun onto the embankment, I could see there was no trailer. That’s all I really saw. It just looked like a diesel truck.”

  “Did you see or hear the vehicle accelerating behind you?”

  I glance down and caress my arms with my hands. I lift my head up and my face tightens. “We weren’t really expecting a semi-truck to plow into us and run us off the road.”

  “Of course. Did you have anything to drink?”

  “We had about two glasses of wine for dinner. That was almost three hours ago. We went dancing for two hours after dinner, and walked along the bay, and we didn’t drink anything since then. Kalin was stone cold sober.” I am surprised at the sharpness of my tone.

  “Do you have any idea why someone would want to do this?”

  “Yes, I do, officer. Money. If you read the police report, you’ll see they were looking for a stock transfer contract. They tried to intimidate my roommate, too. I’m sure it’s the same lowlifes.” Adrenaline and anger rush through my veins.

  “Okay, Miss Ried. We will check into it.”

  The second ambulance pulls up and one of the paramedics jumps out and walks toward us. “Miss, were you the passenger?”

  “Yes.”

  “You should be checked out as well. We will need to perform some routine x-rays to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Yes, of course. Am I going to Southampton?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  I jump into the ambulance. One of the paramedics takes my blood pressure as I glance out the back window. Two policemen survey the area, and a detective takes pictures of the tire skids on the bank. He scurries down the embankment toward the upside-down SUV.

  When we get to the hospital, I am directed to an emergency waiting area. One of the nurses takes me in for some routine x-rays and tests. There is only one abrasion on my face and one on my arm. Otherwise I am completely uninjured.

  I walk back into the waiting room. A mother who is disheveled and looks like she has been here all day is given an update on her son, who was in a boating accident. A man, probably her husband, holds her by the shoulders as tears stream down her face. I find myself swept up in their grief for a moment. The hell some people go through. I shake my head and dab my nose with a tissue.

  I take a breath in an attempt to calm my nerves, and ask the receptionist for an update. “The doctor will be out soon.” She lifts her eyes from her paperwork long enough to give me a small, consoling smile.

  I pace around the waiting room for about ten minutes before the doctor enters the waiting area.

  “Mrs. Davis?”

  I blush. “Um, no. I am Miss Ried. Kalin and I are just seeing each other.”

  “Pardon me. Miss Ried, I’m Dr. Brandt.”

  “How is he?” I grimace.

  “Mr. Davis suffered a pulmonary laceration. Three of his ribs are broken, and part of his lung is torn and punctured.”

  “Oh, my God.” My stomach knots and twists.

  “Miss Ried, his heart was also damaged. There’s a laceration on the left ventricle from one of the fractured ribs. We need to operate immediately to repair his heart. If you know the contacts for his immediate family, you should probably notify them now. We don’t know if Mr. Davis is going to make it through the night.”

  “What?” Shock crushes my body and I am unable to breathe.

  “These types of heart lacerations, those caused by punctures from a fractured sternum or ribs like Mr. Davis suffered—these types of injuries have very high mortality rates. Now, we are going to do everything we can, but the odds are not in his favor. You should know that his chances are not good. Do you understand?”

  A tear rolls down my face and I stare at the floor. “Yes. I understand.” I lift my eyes to search the doctor’s face, searching for any sign of hope. “But this is one of the best hospitals in the world. We have a better chance here, don’t we?”

  His mouth forms a grim line. “We are going to do our best, Miss Ried.”

  My body sags in place, and I gasp for air but my lungs are too weighed down by sorrow and grief. My heart seems too heavy to beat, and coldness shoots through my body and to my fingers. I crumple in a chair and begin to sob. The only warmth in my body comes from the hot tears searing down my skin and crashing to the floor. I gasp for air between shaking breaths, but my body is too constricted to breathe normally, and I feel like I’m going to die.

  After ten minutes of gathering my thoughts, I call Kalin’s attorney and ask for his contacts. I relay the message that Kalin is in the hospital with a punctured lung and heart. His attorney notifies his family immediately. His lawyer calls me back and tells me Kalin’s parents are scheduled to fly in from Boca Raton, Florida, the same morning.

  After only a few hours, Peter and Lauren Davis arrive in the waiting area. Peter’s strong and handsome features are shadowed by exasperation. His thick dark hair is streaked with gray and slightly windswept. Under his grim expression and strained eyes is an uncanny likeness to Kalin.

  Lauren is a classic, natural beauty, like the movie stars I used to see in old movies. Her beauty is shadowed by a mother’s worry, and her big brown eyes loom with sadness and distress. I can see the pain mar their faces, and I want to tell them everything will be okay, but I know I would only be lying.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Davis, I am Annabelle Ried. I work with Kalin.” I run my finger over my neck. “I mean, he just hired me.” I take a breath. “We’re also seeing each other.” My lips tighten. “Kalin is fighting for his life right now. He has a lacerated heart and lung.”

  Lauren clinches her hand to her chest and her face blanches.

  Peter holds her next to him while she begins to sob. They must have been such good parents to have raised someone like Kalin. They don’t deserve any of this. I want to break my eyes away and scream at God right there in the waiting room. Right now I just have to tell them what happened, even though I’m not sure myself.

  “A truck rammed us from behind. It ran us off the road.”

  “What? Who?” Peter asks.

  “I don’t know.” I shake my head. I keep my suspicions to myself for now.

  Peter helps his wife regain her balance, and she turns to him with damp eyes. “Sweetheart, are you okay?” he asks her.

  She pauses to regain her composure. “I’l
l be fine. We’re going to get through this.” She turns to me. “How about you, dear. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Davis. I’m fine. Just what’s on my face and arm.” I point to my face and frown.

  “How did this happen?” Peter asks.

  “The police don’t know yet, Mr. Davis.” I pause and become more certain that I should tell them everything, especially since Lia was threatened. “I think this has more to do with Kalin’s company. But I can’t be sure. My roommate was threatened a while ago too.” I explain the situation to his parents.

  When I mention the stockholder agreement, Peter and Lauren look at each other. “We turned it down. We didn’t want any part of managing the company.”

  “Yes, he told me.”

  “So these sons of bitches hired someone to get rid of my son to prevent the stock transfer?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Davis. This is all speculation. We can’t jump to any conclusions. I’m just saying I don’t think it was an accident.”

  “This is unbelievable. I want to see the doctor. Do you know who he is?”

  “Dr. Brandt, sir. He is the surgeon operating on Kalin.”

  Peter rushes toward the receptionist area and asks to see the staff for an update. Lauren puts her arm around me, and I hug her.

  I take a deep breath and feel a small release of tension. I hadn’t realized how much I needed a hug. “How did you get here so fast?” I ask after we part.

  “We had a private plane standing by for us. Part of the perks.” Lauren gives me a weak smile. “Though in moments like this, I would give anything just to have Kalin without the hoopla and the money.”

  “I know what you mean.” A soft smile quivers on my lips, and I wipe another tear threatening to fall down my cheek.

  We sit in the waiting room for an hour while Peter is attempting to get updates from the hospital staff and the police. Lauren is showing me pictures on her phone of Kalin from his childhood, through high school, and college. A picture slides across the screen, displaying Kalin with an arm wrapped around Rebecca. They look so happy and in love and carefree.

  “I can’t imagine the pain he went through when she died.”