Chapter 33

After Kadie left the room, Richie and Jay sat in an awkward silence, neither quite sure what to say. Jay recovered his poise first, his concern for his mom over-riding his instinctive respect for a guy who was effectively one of his employers.

“Are you seeing my mom?” He asked neutrally, and Richie looked over in sudden concern that Jay thought he’d been the one who caused Billie’s injuries. A swift glance at the younger guy’s face, though, was enough to reassure him Jay wasn’t entertaining any such thoughts.

“No. Well, yeah, but I mean only as a friend.” He shrugged. “I like your mom, but we’re just friends.”

“Oh.” Jay flushed slightly. “Sorry, Mr Sa……”

“Richie’s fine, Jay.” He grinned disarmingly. “Mr Sambora makes me feel so fuckin’ old.”

“Sorry. Richie, then.” Jay grinned. “It’s just that I knew mom had gone out a couple times with……..a guy here, but she did say she was gonna ditch him when I told her he was married.” Jay blanched suddenly as that settled into his brain. No. Surely……surely Nick wouldn’t….. hadn’t.

“Yeah - your mom doesn’t seem the type to get involved with a married man.” Richie said. Of course, she had before, but from what Jon had told him it seemed more than likely she hadn’t known about Dot back then.

Jay wasn’t even listening, though, as he tried frantically to convince himself that Nick wouldn’t have hurt his mom, even if she’d been her usually blunt self when she’d given him his marching orders. He realised Richie was speaking to him again, and he forced his thoughts to shift, to concentrate his attention again on the guy waiting with him. Anything was better than the dread that he really had contributed to the current situation by telling his mom about Nick’s wife.

“Sorry - I was thinking.” He apologised to Richie, who’d been watching the play of emotions on Jay’s face, and had a pretty shrewd idea of what his thoughts had been.

“No worries.” Richie smiled gently. “But if your thoughts were anything about this somehow being down to you, for telling your mom this guy’s married…..stop it. Nobody to blame but the blac…” He cut himself off as he almost said ‘blackmailing’, changing it quickly. “The black-hearted bastard who did this to her.”

“Didn’t she say anything?” Jay asked. “I can’t believe Nick would……….didn’t she say who did it?”

“She didn’t say much, Jay.” Richie replied before probing gently. “Nick who?”

“Huh? Oh. Nick Fabian. Our team physio? Mom went out with him a couple of times. Asshole neglected to mention to her that he’s married.”

“And he didn’t think she’d find out?” Richie remembered seeing the guy around at Wachovia, and he also remembered his almost instant dislike of him. Which was pretty out of character for someone who believed in never making a snap judgement of anyone.

“I guess not.” Jay’s eyes darkened angrily, Richie fascinated to see that Bongiovi trait carried over to the next generation. “Not sure how he expected it’d stay a secret, considering he’s been bragging all over Wachovia about how they’ve…..”

Richie’s fists tightened as Jay stopped, clearly uncomfortable with saying just what Nick had been bragging about. Didn’t take a genius to figure it out though.

At the moment, his money was fairly heavily on Nick being Billie’s blackmailing, asshole rapist. He just wished Jon would hurry up and get his ass here, because he was the only one - other than Billie - who knew the reason for this attack. Well, at the moment Jon didn’t know the whole story. At the moment it was only Richie and Billie - and Nick, assuming he was the guilty party - who knew the whole story, but as soon as Jon got here Richie would be able to fill him in on all the details. And, whether he liked it or not, Richie was going to make Jon listen to exactly what Billie had put herself through to protect him. After that, well, maybe they’d have to go get a bit Joisey on Nicky-boy’s ass.

Leaving the waiting room, Kadie walked slowly down the hallway toward the emergency room. She wasn’t honestly sure how much information they’d give her, particularly when she wasn’t family, but her suggestion had been made mostly to get Jay out of the way, because she had enough experience of family reactions to trauma to know he’d only get in the way, which wouldn’t help anyone. Right now, he was best kept at arms-length from this, safely away in the waiting room while the doctors and nurses worked on his mom. Especially in light of the type of doctor they’d just paged.

She’d almost made it to the ER when she nearly walked right into the doctor who’d been paged as he strode toward the ER.

“Sorry, Doctor Riviello.” She stepped instinctively aside, and he paused fractionally, glancing at her, slightly puzzled that someone he’d taken to be a visitor would know his name.

“You’re a nurse, aren’t you?” He frowned, thinking, recalling her name because it was unusual. “Kadie?”

“That’s right, Doctor.” She smiled, pleased by the recognition. Mostly because her chances of getting information had just risen sharply.

“You’re not back working here, are you?” He asked, then started move again. “Sorry, I have to……..”

“I know. No, I’m not working here now. I’m here with a……” What the hell. “With my boyfriend. I think you got paged to see his mom. She was just brought in.”

“Ah.” The doctor’s face was serious, since they were both well aware of his specialty.

“Yeah. I said I’d come see what I could find out.” Kadie was walking beside him as they neared the doors to the ER. “Then I heard them page you, so I knew…..”

“Does her son know?” He paused with his hand on the door, pushing it open a little as Kadie shook her head. “I suggest you go wait with him. Maybe you should warn him of what’s happened.”

As he spoke, the doctor leaned more weight on the door, opening it further, and just at that moment they both heard an all too familiar sound. The sound of a cardiac monitor flat-lining.

“Oh no.” Kadie whispered, her hand flying up to cover her mouth as Riviello pushed into the room, the doctor already there yelling for a crash cart, and even from here Kadie could see the blood on the ER floor.

“I’ll come to the waiting room when there’s news.” The doctor snapped quickly. “Go let him know how serious this is. Tell him I’ll do all I can.” He looked into the room before turning to her again. “But you may want to prepare him for bad news.”

With those parting words, he shut the door in her face, leaving Kadie standing helplessly in the hallway, staring at the door, hearing the voices inside as the medics fought for Billie’s life.

After a moment of panic and fear, Kadie swallowed hard. How the hell was she supposed to tell Jay that his mom had been raped? And raped so brutally that she’d lost enough blood to send her into cardiac arrest. How could she tell him his mom may die here today?

Without any answers coming to her, she turned away from the ER, heading back to Jay.