Love Hate Love, page 33
“What the hell are they doing here?!” Annabelle snapped, sidestepping Nico’s sister. She pushed past the other Bilans, who all turned to see what she was yelling at. “Get oot! Get oot!” she bellowed at the blonde reporter and her crew.
A microphone was thrust in front of her face, the reporter asking Annabelle a question. Annabelle swatted the microphone away like it was an annoying fly, also looking like she wanted to punch the woman, something she’d previously done to another, pushier reporter. That horrid reporter had hounded me for a story on Nico, even offering me money, only stopping when I threatened to lay a harassment charge against him. So, the stupid idiot had moved onto Annabelle, getting a punch in the face for his trouble, her court case in two weeks. She didn’t care, said she’d get off the assault charge no problem, that the scumbag didn’t have a shit show in hell of winning against her ‘Scottish charm’. She’d batted her eyelashes at me comically, saying, ‘Judges love me’ in a breathy voice, making me wonder just how many times she’d been taken to court. Twice was the answer, and both times she’d gotten off without it being put on her record, the judges believing her account of events. She’d laughed at that, making me wonder whether she’d perjured herself. I didn’t bother to ask, the answer more than likely a yes, Annabelle able to lie through her teeth without blinking.
Two policemen, who’d been talking to an older woman, headed for the news crew, one of them barking, “You can’t be in here! Leave!” The officers herded the complaining reporter and her crew towards the sliding doors.
At the same time, Mrs. Bilan pushed past me, heading for the nurses’ desk, asking to see her son.
The nurse gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but the doctor hasn’t given clearance for any visitors yet.”
“But, I’m his mother!” Mrs. Bilan said loudly. “I demand to see my son.”
“I can’t let—”
“Don’t give me excuses, I want to see my son now.”
“If you just wait over there,” the nurse said, indicating to where we’d been sitting, “I’ll call the doctor to see if he’s any closer to letting visitors in.”
“I’m not a visitor, I’m a mother,” she said snootily, conveniently leaving out the now when it served her, “a mother who needs to be with my son.”
“I understand, ma’am, but I still have to check first.”
Mrs. Bilan waved a hand at the nurse. “Do it in front of me, then.”
The harried-looking nurse nodded and picked up her phone. I moved closer to hear what she was saying. Annabelle did too, along with the others, everyone crowding around the desk.
“I have Nico Bilan’s mother here, demanding to see her son,” the nurse said into the phone. “There are also other family members. When will they be permitted to go through?” She nodded at the reply. “Okay, I’ll tell them.” She hung up, focusing on Mrs. Bilan. “Your son isn’t in the right condition for visitors, but yourself and—” Her eyes went to Mr. Bilan, who’d put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Are you the father?”
He nodded.
“The doctor said that only yourself and your wife can go through.”
My heart sank.
Annabelle spoke up for me, pushing me up to the counter. “This is Nico’s partner, she should be allowed to go through, too.”
Mrs. Bilan threw Annabelle a glare. “She’s his girlfriend, which is not the same thing.”
The nurse nodded. “I’m sorry, only two people can go through.”
“Which will be us,” Mrs. Bilan said, indicating to her husband, who’d removed his arm from around her shoulders.
“That’s nae fair,” Annabelle said. “Kady has been ’ere longer. She’s also the one who figured oot where Nico was. Nae only that, she lives with Nico, so is more than jus’ a girlfriend. She should be allowed through, too.”
“And we’re Nico’s parents!” Mrs. Bilan snapped, taking hold of her husband’s hand. “And if Kady didn’t leave Nico alone, he might not have gotten kidnapped.”
“Ye cannae blame Kady!” Annabelle snapped right back, her green gaze just as fiery as Mrs. Bilan’s. “This is all Melanie Samson’s fault.”
“Then, how did Kady know where Nico was?” Mrs. Bilan raised her brows. “Because it sounds more than a little suspicious to me.”
“It’s ’cause she was oot there, asking questions, unlike ye, ye pompous auld cow!” Annabelle bellowed, finally losing it.
Mrs. Bilan thrust a finger at her. “And that’s why you and your lot are not permitted to see my son.”
“Ye cannae stop us!” Annabelle shouted, going red in the face.
“We’ll see about that!” Mrs. Bilan spun around to the nurse. “Only family members are allowed into my son’s room.”
“No!” I said, panicked, the argument getting out of hand. “You can’t do this, Nico’s my partner, you can’t stop me from seeing him. I love him!”
Mrs. Bilan turned back to me, her eyes flashing with anger. “How can you say you love him and not stop him from stripping? I heard what the police said, heard what the news said, that Nico’s abductor was obsessed with him after she saw him stripping, that the club even banned her from entering due to this obsession, but instead of making him stop like I asked you to, you let him continue.”
“I couldn’t stop him, and I didn’t know about Melanie’s obsession,” I said, not mentioning the texts that Nico had told me about, or what he’d revealed the night he’d been taken, afraid that Mrs. Bilan would stop me from seeing him.
Her glare didn’t lessen even slightly. “Don’t make excuses, because if you truly loved my son you would’ve tried harder.”
“I did try hard, almost lost him in the process.”
She sneered at me. “Which means he can’t love you if he chose his job over you. You’re just like all the other girls he’s been with. He’ll eventually get bored and toss you aside, like he did to Annabelle.”
“Ye’re a bitch!” Annabelle hollered. “No wonder Nico hates ye!”
Mrs. Bilan whipped her head around to Annabelle. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that, you little trollop. You were related to him when you slept with him. You’re disgusting,” she spat. “You aren’t allowed to see him either.”
“Ye cannae stop us!” Annabelle yelled louder.
“I most certainly can.” Mrs. Bilan’s hard gaze whipped around to the policemen, who were watching us warily. “These people aren’t allowed here, officers, please remove them.”
“This is a public place,” Annabelle said. “I have as much right to be ’ere as ye do.”
“Officers,” Mrs. Bilan persisted, pushing past Annabelle to go to them.
It happened so fast I almost didn’t see Annabelle’s foot whipping out. Mrs. Bilan screamed as she went down, Annabelle tripping her up.
Mr. Bilan quickly helped his wife up, who was screaming, “She attacked me, arrest her, she attacked me!”
Mr. Bilan tried to stop her from losing it more, but she pushed him out of the way, yelling at the police, “You saw it, she purposely attacked me. Arrest her!”
“I didnae attack her,” Annabelle said. “It’s nae ma fault the clumsy cow barged forward, tripping over me. It’s her fault.”
“She put her foot out. She’s always been trouble, always—”
“Be quiet!” Mr. Bilan hollered, jolting his wife and everyone else. His hazel eyes flashed angrily at her. “I’ve had more than enough of your hollering and yelling. I want to see my son, and if you prefer to argue, you can stay out here with Annabelle while I take in the one girl who helped get Nico back.” He held out his hand to me, making me blink in surprise.
“You can’t be serious!” Mrs. Bilan shrieked.
He glared at her. “More than serious. You can wait out here.”
“But I’m his mother.”
“His now mother,” Mr. Bilan growled, “while I’m his father. So, if you want to go on pretending, you can, but I refuse to. He’s my son, my biological son, and I will not have you dictate to me anymore, forcing me to lie to my own child and everyone else all because I made a mistake, not that poor kid. And if you can’t handle that, I’ll happily pack my bags and move out.” He went to my side, aiming a hard stare at the nurse. “My son’s partner will be going through with me instead of my wife.”
“Jon,” Mrs. Bilan said, now looking panicked, “you can’t do this.”
“I should’ve done it a long time ago,” he replied coldly, following the nurse. I did too, so happy he was letting me see Nico. I was also happy that he’d put his wife in her place, the woman far worse than I’d realised.
“You can’t leave me!” his wife said, shadowing us. “And you can’t stop me from seeing Nico. I raised him, love him—”
He cut her off, “If you love that boy, you wouldn’t have lied to him for all these years, blackmailing me into lying too,” he said, not looking back at his wife. It was almost as though he couldn’t look at her, too disgusted by her behaviour.
She continued following us. “I’m sorry, I was devastated by what you did. I wanted to punish you.”
“And in turn, I allowed you to punish my son.”
She grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks. “Please let me see Nico,” she begged.
“When you start acting like his mother.” He jerked free and took hold of my hand, pulling me through the door that the nurse was holding open for us. “She’s not coming with us,” he said to the woman.
“Jon—” his wife cried, the closing door drowning out the rest of her words.
He continued forward, still holding my hand, and I wasn’t letting go if it meant that I got to see Nico. We followed the nurse the rest of the way in silence, rounding a corner and heading up in a lift, then down a passage and along another one, finally coming to a halt at a room with a security guard. The nurse said a few words to him. He nodded and opened the door, allowing us in.
And that’s when I saw him.
Nico was lying on a hospital bed, the only one in the room, hooked up to a drip and out cold. Mr. Bilan let go of my hand and rushed over to his son. I followed just as fast, upset at what I saw. There were bandages around Nico’s head and right wrist, as well as a cast on his left forearm. The white casing partially extended over his hand, with his thumb sticking out of it.
A distressed Mr. Bilan looked over at the doctor. “What happened to my son? And why is he on a drip?”
“Antibiotics,” the doctor replied with a strong New Zealand accent, even though he looked Chinese. “He has an infection, which was caused by either his head or wrist injuries. The head trauma happened a while ago because it’s mostly healed over, though the wrist injuries were open wounds, sustained while trying to get out of cuffs. Luckily, his fractured wrist appears to be a recent injury, probably happening in the last day or so. We’ve set it, it should heal back to normal. He also has other injuries, which are mostly minor, though,” his brow furrowed, “there are some cigarette burns and cuts that suggest he was tortured.”
I gasped, “Tortured?”
He nodded, his expression sombre. “In particular, the cuts on his chest. His kidnapper carved their initials inside a heart, like what you see on trees.”
My hand shot to my mouth, unable to stop my sharp cry.
“Will he be all right?” Mr. Bilan asked, his hazel eyes glistening with tears.
“Physically he’ll pull through, but emotionally,” the doctor frowned, “only time will tell.”
~
27 ~
I returned to the hospital the following day, finding Mrs. Bilan sitting next to Nico’s bed, holding his hand, talking softly to her sleeping son. She looked over her shoulder at me, clearly not happy I was here.
“You’re not standing in my way of seeing my boy,” she said, looking like she hadn’t slept, the rings under her eyes dark.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I replied.
“You did yesterday, and no matter what my husband says, I won’t tolerate it again.”
I wanted to remind her that it was her own actions that had stopped her from seeing Nico, not mine, but instead I forced my pride down, not willing to get kicked out over an unnecessary argument, but she didn’t stop laying into me, letting me know in no uncertain terms that there was no way she would allow me to push her out of Nico’s life. I didn’t bother to tell her that her husband was already planning on doing that. Mr. Bilan wanted to confess everything to Nico, something I learned the previous day.
“I had an affair with my boss’s cousin,” Nico’s father had told me over his son’s sleeping form, the hospital bed in between us. “She was beautiful, absolutely stunning, it’s where Nico got his looks from. I would’ve left my wife for her, but Elena was only here for a month, visiting her family, plus she was also married. Though, she didn’t tell me she was pregnant when she flew back to Romania, may not have even known. I found out a few years later when she called, telling me she was leaving her husband to be with me. I was in shock, after all, I hadn’t seen this woman in years, and although I regretted not leaving my wife for her, I didn’t want to make a commitment to someone I didn’t know anymore. So, I told her I couldn’t be with her since I was still married. She said she remembered me telling her how unhappy I was in my marriage and asked if that was still true. I didn’t reply, because it was. She persisted, pulling it out of me. She went on to tell me she was also unhappy, that her husband was a cruel man who beat her. She’d wanted to leave him so many times before, but never did anything since he was the sole breadwinner. She didn’t think she could raise a child on her own, then corrected herself, saying ‘our son’, letting me know the child was mine. I spluttered out a ‘What?’ which was when she told me she could prove it, that she would email me a photo of Nico. When I opened the photo, I saw a beautiful little boy of about three with green eyes and hair just like mine, brown with blond streaks and curly as hell. Whenever the Bilan men grow their hair long enough, it looks just like this,” he brushed his fingers through Nico’s curly locks, sadness infusing his features, “like I used to wear it. Elena also mentioned in the email that although Nico’s eyes were green in the picture, one of them had changed to blue after her husband punched him in the face. At that, I told her I’d pay for her and Nico to fly over, basically emptying my savings account to do it. When they didn’t turn up at the airport, I phoned her, but no one answered. I thought she’d scammed me, and was absolutely furious that I’d fallen for it.”
He paused, seemingly lost for a moment in the past, then resumed talking, “I basically stormed into my boss’s office, yelling at him because Elena was his cousin. At that point, I didn’t care whether he fired me or even told my wife, because Maisy was going to find out after she saw our empty savings account. But my boss told me that Elena hadn’t been lying. Her husband had found the tickets and beat her to death. Nico was in a neighbouring apartment when it happened, having a playdate. The neighbour had heard the yells and called the police, but they didn’t arrive in time. Nico’s stepfather started banging on her door, demanding that she hand Nico over. She’d already hidden Nico and her son in a closet, telling his stepfather through the door that he wasn’t there. He didn’t believe her and kicked the door down when she refused to open it. She was prepared, shooting him dead. Of course I was in shock after hearing this, had to sit for a while before I could process any of it, but as soon as I did, I went straight home. I confessed everything to my wife, letting her know that I was going to get Nico. She raged at me, told me that I wasn’t allowed to, and even if I was, we had no money because I’d squandered it on some,” he’d grimaced, “hussy. Elena wasn’t a hussy, she was a wonderful and kind woman, unlike my selfish wife. I told Maisy this, also told her that my boss had offered to pay for me to get Nico. She threatened to leave me if I went.” He’d snorted at that, as though her words had been a joke to him, and I soon found out why.
“I didn’t care if Maisy left me,” he said. “Even told her so. I also told her that if I had any balls, I would’ve left her a long time ago to be with Elena. She basically screamed at me, saying the cruellest, most spiteful things you could imagine, so I walked out on her, thinking my marriage was over. I got on the first flight I could to Romania, bringing Nico back with me. I’d intended on raising him by myself, but found out that my wife was pregnant.” He grimaced, the look of a trapped man twisting his features. “Maisy told me that she’d stop me from seeing our child if I divorced her, so I stayed, curtailing to her demands, going along with her ridiculous story about where Nico came from to salvage her precious pride. I even let her cut his beautiful hair short so the family wouldn’t suspect he was mine. Though, they did find out years later when Nico grew it longer, my brothers pulling the truth out of me. They hated Maisy for it, I hated her too, but I hated myself even more, because I should’ve come clean from the start, made sure that my beautiful boy knew he was mine regardless of the consequences. Though, my wife is finally learning that there are consequences for her too, because I’d be damned if I’ll live with that woman another second, and I will use her lies against her if she tries to stop me from seeing Cleo. I’ll throw them in her face in court, telling the judge everything if she doesn’t give me shared custody.”
I’d smiled at that, thinking good for him, because I couldn’t stand the woman. Still, I did feel a touch of sympathy for her when she started crying over Nico’s still form.
“Please wake up, son,” she said, brushing his hair back. “And you are my son, not that woman who birthed you. She didn’t raise you, I did, she’s not here to love you, I am. You may not believe me, but I truly do love you, no matter how many times we butt heads. I’m so sorry I didn’t always show that, so sorry I was so hard on you, but it doesn’t change the fact that I need you, Nico. Your father needs you too, so does your sister, Alek as well, and,” she glanced at me, “Kady too. We all need you.”
