The Prison-Made Queen novel Chapter 817

If Judie hadn't been there holding her together, Yvonne didn't want to think about what she would have done on her own.

She took a shaky breath and continued. "We were completely out of options... so I swallowed my pride and called Leilani..."

"In the end, it was Mr. Langley who pulled some strings to get the actual truth out of the club owner. That's how we found the alley."

Milford froze, staring at her in disbelief. "Leilani?"

He couldn't fathom that Leilani would actually go out of her way to help find him. And Mr. Langley... that had to be Callahan Langley, her fiancé.

"Yeah," Yvonne nodded, entirely missing the utter shock on his face. "But that's not even all of it."

"When the ambulance got you here, you were in bad shape. Really bad. Your ribs were shattered... you were completely crashing. Leilani is the one who scrubbed in and did the surgery."

She watched her brother's jaw drop and quickly added, "The attending surgeon literally told me that if she hadn't been in that operating room, things would have gone very differently."

Internal bleeding during surgery could kill a patient in seconds. Milford had survived purely on blind luck and incredible timing. He had made it to the hospital just in time, and Leilani had been right there to pull him back from the edge. If even one of those factors had been missing, he wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

Milford lay completely still.

The blurry memory of a woman in green surgical scrubs standing over him right before he went under... it hadn't been a near-death hallucination.

It was really her. It was Leilani.

Milford shook his head. He had no intention of burdening her with his guilt. He would find a way to repay Leilani himself. Yvonne had already suffered enough over the last few years; she didn't need to carry his baggage, too.

A heavy silence settled over the room, broken only by a soft knock on the door.

Leilani pushed the door open, casually walking in with a bag of fresh fruit.

Milford had been staring blankly at the wall. Hearing the door, he turned his head. The second he saw her, his body went entirely rigid, his eyes filling with a profoundly complicated mix of emotions.

Leilani set the fruit on the bedside table and spoke as casually as if she were visiting an old friend.

"I figured you'd be waking up around now, so I dropped by on my way. How are you holding up? Anything feel wrong?"