Wife's Bitter Revenge Against Neglectful CEO Husband-Chapter 168: Now What

"I have to go to the hospital, Alec."

Alec nodded. "Let me drive you."

"If you have work to do, Wyla can take me."

"I’d rather be by your side."

"Hey, Alec, I appreciate your support, but this company is your baby. I won’t have you sacrificing your priorities for King."

Alec put a hand on my cheek. "Tee, this isn’t for King. It never was. My priority is you. I may have screwed up in doubting you, but I never will again."

"On my wedding day."

"Huh?"

"You forgot to mention the timing of confessing the doubts. My idea or yours, it was my wedding day. We were on the way to the chapel when you blindsided me."

"You’re right. I’m sorry. I handled the whole night poorly. It won’t happen again."

"Yes, it will. And probably worse. We both will. We’re human. But right now, I’m not over it. I’m getting there."

"What will it take for you to get over it? Flowers, Chocolates? Groveling?

"I’ll let you know when I know."

Wyla texted that she was waiting out front, so I packed up my stuff. Leaving Alec to do his job as CEO of a bustling medical facility.

Ben and Joshua met me in King’s room.

"Do we talk in front of King or elsewhere?" I asked. It would feel weird talking about King in front of him as if he weren’t there, regardless of the fact he was in a coma. No one could tell me for sure what people could hear or retain while in a coma. Would King feel stressed if he heard us say something he disagreed with? While he was in no condition to participate in the plan, I’d feel more comfortable discussing it elsewhere.

"Follow me." Joshua led us to his office.

I filled them in on what I knew about the medication. I was getting ready to share what I knew about the Pacer sisters when I received a text from Stiff.

Stiff: Found the connection.

"One sec, guys. I’ll be right back." I stepped out of the office and found a quiet corner where I called Stiff.

"What did you find?" I asked.

"We were looking to tie King to the Pacer sisters. We got it all wrong. It isn’t King. It’s Joshua."

Holy hell. And I was just about to tell Joshua about Dr. Pacer. "Tell me more."

"Joshua was in the same faculty as Dr. Pacer. In fact, she tutored him through many of his classes. The tutor-student relationship turned into something more. Eventually, Josh was spending weekends at the Pacer family home."

"Where he would have met Dot."

"Where he met Dot. But it gets better."

"How so?"

"Joshua dumped Dr. Pacer for Anya at the insistence of Lettie."

"That’s not cool."

"Yeah, and Dot took it personally. She cut his brake lines, and Dot ended up back in jail, only she was an adult now, so no more kiddy prison."

"Was anyone hurt?"

"Josh lost control of the car, and it veered off the road. Before the car went down an embankment, Josh bailed out.

"Now is when things get fuzzy. The initial police report stated the car exploded, but not before the patrolmen saw a woman slumped in the passenger seat.

"However, in the later reports, all mention of a passenger was scrubbed clean."

"You’re thinking the passenger was Pacer? Does the timeline work out? I thought Joshua and Anya married right out of university. The doctor was last seen after university when she worked at IPX."

"The good doctor was an upperclassman when they met. She graduated ahead of Joshua."

"Wow. But how is King tied in? Assuming you are correct, wouldn’t Dot target Joshua and not King?"

"Take a look at this."

Stiff sent me a video file. In the video, Dot and Josh were in the elevator at the Heavenly building. I’d been in that elevator enough to recognize the décor. Besides, the Pacer therapy office was in that building. It was a logical assumption. As soon as they were alone in the elevator, Josh and Dot were all over each other. There was no way this was a first encounter. It was too practiced.

"Well, I’ll be damned."

"What do you want me to do?" Stiff asked.

"Get with Jake. I want coverage on Joshua and Dot. I don’t want either of them to be able to sneeze without me knowing about it."

"You got it."

I hung up the phone and took a minute to compose myself. This was a twist I wasn’t expecting. I thought Joshua was part of the solution. Now, I had to wonder how much of a problem he was.

I knew for certain that I had to get King out from under Josh’s care.

Min approached me and handed me a bag. "This is all the medication I could find."

"Thanks, Min."

Six bottles. Two were large enough to contain a couple hundred tablets at least.

"Is Ben in with King?"

"No. He’s waiting for me in Joshua’s office. We were discussing the new treatment plan."

"Is there anything I can do?" Min asked.

"No. Yes. Maybe."

Min waited while I gathered my thoughts.

"You know Joshua better than me. What do you think of him?"

"I don’t."

"What do you mean?"

"I don’t think about Josh anymore than I think about a sofa. No one does."

"Do you trust him?"

"Do you trust a sofa?"

Did I trust a sofa? Well, sort of. I trusted a sofa to be sturdy but comfortable. I trusted it to stay where I left it. Beyond that, however, I didn’t think about it either.

Joshua had always been a background player in the Heavenly household. Lettie and Anya had such strong personalities that it was hard for anyone to stand out, but Josh faded into the background as if he didn’t want to be there, to begin with.

It wasn’t just that he was quiet. King was quiet, but King exuded an aura that filled a room even when he was ignoring everyone. With Joshua, it felt like he traveled with a shadow around him that suppressed his presence.

The only time anyone paid attention to him, I mean really paid attention, was when they wanted medical care from him. It was as if the only value he brought to the table was his medical training.

Other than when he was instructed to perform procedures on me, Joshua had been kind to me. I’d always given him a pass on the atrocities because of his kindness since it was such a rare commodity in the Heavenly household. But what if Josh wasn’t a good guy? What if he was fully involved in the downfall of King Heavenly? How would it benefit him?

Easy answer—money and power. Since Ben had totally disassociated from the Heavenly name and Daniel had died in prison, Joshua and King were the only two heirs left. With King out of the picture, Joshua would hold the seat of power, and with so few relatives left alive, odds were good Josh would inherit a fair portion of all the family wealth that had been handed down from Lettie to King.

Total supposition, but what if Josh held a grudge against Lettie for separating him from Dr. Pacer? What if later, Lettie made the doctor disappear? Plus, living with Anya for all those years had to be hell. There was no way Josh and Anya were in love. Now add to it that Lettie left Josh nothing in the will. It was as if just letting him live and paying for his education was as far as her affection for him went. Which, let’s get real, was about as much as most people received from the woman. Lettie wasn’t about love and affection. She was all about control and deception.

In the meantime, King was treated as a prince. Every benefit was lavished on the man. He was the sun around which the entire Heavenly empire revolved.

Yeah, that was enough to make any man a little psychotic.

I returned to Joshua’s office. "Sorry. Minor emergency at Crazy Code. Where were we?"

Joshua said, "From what you told us, we need to put King back on his medication stat."

"Agreed. On the way here, I called Min to go through King’s bedroom and office to find his stash. We have plenty of pills to work with for a while. Meanwhile, the doctor who did the chemical analysis is confident she can fabricate more as we need them."

"That is good, isn’t it?" Ben said. "At least if we can pull King out of a coma, he can function on the drugs until we find a way to wean him off them."

I said, "Yeah, that part is good. The big concern is the way the drug works is the longer he is on them, the bigger the dosage he will need to maintain the same level of sanity. In the meantime, the larger the dosage, the harder it is on his body to handle the chemical reactions without failing."

"I can monitor his condition. Keep him on an even keel." Joshua rubbed his forehead as if he was fighting off a headache.

"Josh, I don’t think that is a good idea. You barely have time to breathe now with your schedule. We should find someone who can stay by King’s side, especially until we determine an adequate starting dosage.

"What we can’t do is let King gulp down pills willy-nilly based on how he feels at the moment."

"I can take care of my own brother," Josh protested. "If I have to, I can take a sabbatical from the hospital."