My Four Adopted Sons Betrayed My Daughter novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Waiting Room

At the hospital the sons demand Alessia apologize and Marisa hand over the lake house; she refuses in front of everyone, and a man from her old life brings the school's footage.

The doctor at Mercy General clipped the X-ray to the light box and showed me the crack.

"Left side, one rib," she said. "A bruised kidney, three stitches in her lip, and no damage to her head."

"Somebody kicked her once she was already down."

"She'll heal," the doctor said. "A police officer would like her statement when she wakes."

Alessia woke an hour later with the stitches pulling at her mouth.

I sat on the edge of the bed, and she reached for my sleeve again before she opened her eyes.

"Did you see them?" she said.

"I saw all of it."

"Jared texted me at lunch." Her voice was thin. "He said Sasha wanted to make peace and I should meet her in the east bathroom and be nice."

"Be nice," I said.

"I went. There were three other girls in there, and Sasha locked the door behind me."

She stopped and breathed through the pain in her side.

"Did Jared know what was in there?" I asked.

"He knew," Alessia said. "He's the one who sent me."

I had not cried in the hallway or in the ambulance, and I did not cry now.

"How long, Alessia? How long has this been going on?"

"Since September."

"Tell me from the beginning."

"The dress was first," she said. "The gold one you bought me for the Founders gala. Jared said Sasha's mother couldn't afford a gown and that sharing is what family does."

"I said fine. It was only a dress."

"Then the lake house. He told me not to wait for my birthday, that Sasha needed somewhere to breathe, and he moved my things out of the studio over the garage and put hers in."

"The studio I built you."

"Sasha sleeps there now."

She shut her eyes.

"And the proposal. I worked on it for six months, Mom. I found it on the Founders Award list with her name on it, and when I asked for it back, Jared said Sasha needed it more."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Jared said you were too busy for this." She opened her eyes. "Eli said you'd only worry."

"I'm not too busy," I said. "Not for this. Not ever."

When she slept again, I went out to sign the admission forms.

My sons were in the waiting room.

All four of them, and Sasha between Jared and my third son in a plastic chair, a hospital blanket around her.

Jared had changed his shirt.

A dozen strangers sat around them, including a man with a little girl and two women in scrubs eating from vending machine bags.

Jared stood up and waited for me to come to him.

"Mom, we need to discuss this like adults."

"Say it here," I said.

"Sasha's three friends are being suspended, and the school is talking about expelling Sasha. She has nobody." He kept his voice calm and reasonable. "Alessia needs to tell the principal it was a misunderstanding that got out of hand."

"And?"

"And Sasha needs somewhere safe to live. Give her the lake house. It's what Alessia would want if she weren't angry."

The women in scrubs stopped chewing.

Sasha dabbed at her eyes.

"It was a misunderstanding," she whispered.

"No," I said.

Jared smiled the patient smile again.

"Alessia will say exactly what happened to the police officer upstairs," I said. "Nobody gets the lake house, the studio or the gown."

"You're choosing her over your family."

"I'm choosing the one who was on the floor."

My second son checked his watch.

My third son looked at his phone.

Eli looked at his shoes and said nothing.

"Get out of this hospital," I said. "All five of you."

Nobody in that waiting room looked away from us.

Jared looked around and saw that, and the smile went out of his face.

He took Sasha by the elbow and walked out, and the others followed him.

I took the stairs down to the parking lot.

A black sedan was parked under the second light.

Dario Ruvolo stood beside it with no coat on in the cold.

He was forty-seven now, tall, with grey in his short dark hair and a nose that had been broken and set crooked a long time ago.

I had not seen him since the night I walked out of my father's house.

He looked at the blood on my shirt, and his jaw tightened.

"How bad?" he said.

"A broken rib. She'll live."

"And the man who did this?"

"There are four of them, and I raised every one."

He did not say anything to that.

"Her father?" he asked finally.

"Her father does not come into this."

Something moved in his face and then closed.

He nodded once and reached into the car for a tablet.

"A man who owes the family a favor works for the camera company at that school," Dario said. "I asked him for one thing."

He pressed play.

The east hallway, at 12:41 that afternoon.

Jared, in his good wool coat, walked up to the far door with a brass key in his hand.

He turned it in the lock from the outside, tried the handle, and walked away.

"That door leads to the faculty wing," Dario said. "No teacher could have heard her."

He swiped to a second picture, a sign-out sheet from the school's front desk.

Janitor's key, east hall. Signed out by G. Cardwell, parent volunteer.

The date was three days ago.

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