Unwanted Blood (Harper) novel Chapter 63

Chapter 63

Ryder’s POV

6:00 am East Vancouver.

We came to the nurse address. The building was a narrow two-storey walk-up with cracked stucco, peeling paint, and a rusted fire escape that leaned at an angle.

I stood on the front steps, my breath pluming in the cold morning air. Colton had the back exit covered. Ethan was parked across the street in a borrowed sedan, engine idling, watching for anyone who didn’t belong.

I knocked three times.

The silence inside was thick. Then footsteps came to sound.

“Who is it?” A woman’s voice. Gravelly. Guarded.

I kept my voice low. “Are you the nurse who worked night shift in the maternity ward at Vancouver General? Seven years ago?”

“I’m the eldest son of Johnson Wilson. My mother died in that delivery room. I need to ask you a few questions.”

Nothing for a long moment. Then the scrape of a chain. The door opened.

Standing before me was a woman in her late forties. Her grey hair pulled back into a tight bun Deep lines around her mouth and eyes. But her gaze was sharp.

“Your mother,” she said slowly. “The one who died in the delivery room. Twenty years ago

My heart jumped. “You remember.”

Her eyes moved past me, scanning the street, the parked cars, the quiet morning. Then she looked back at my face. Then she stepped aside and let me through.

“Come in.” I nodded.

The apartment was small and clean. A sofa, a television, a shelf of paperbacks, a kitchenette visible through a doorway. She led me to the kitchen table and poured a glass of tap water without asking if I wanted it.

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She sat across from me

“You want to know about that night,” she said. Not a question.

“Yes.”

768 Wouters

“I was on duty.” Her voice was flat. Measured. Like she’d rehearsed this version of the story in her head a thousand times and never let it out. “Three nurses total. Your mother was admitted at 1 17 p.m. that afternoon, but the delivery didn’t start until late. Complicated labour. They moved her to the main delivery suite.”

She paused. Her fingers traced the rim of her own glass. “At around 2:10, just before the baby was born, a man came into the ward.”

My body went still. “A man?”

“Yes.” She looked up at me. “He was wearing a suit-dark, expensive. He walked in like he owned the place. He just went straight to the delivery suite, and the doctor on duty opened the door for him. Like he was expected.”

“What happened?”

“The doctor dismissed all the nurses. Said he needed the room cleared for a procedure. We were sent to the break room. When I came back, twenty minutes later, your mother was hemorrhaging.”

I gripped the glass so hard I thought it might crack. “The man. What did he look like?”

“Older. Late fifties, maybe sixties. Grey hair. Heavy build.” She hesitated. Her eyes dropped to the table. “His left hand had a scar. Across the knuckles. A long one. White and old.”

My breath caught. “Did you ever see him again?”

She nodded slowly. “A few months later. His face was in the newspaper. He was the founder of Westbrook Enterprises.” She looked at me, and her eyes were tired.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” My voice came out rougher than I intended.

She looked down at her hands. They were trembling.

“I wanted. But someone came to see me the next day,” she said quietly. “They put an envelope on the table. Cash. Enough to cover my daughter’s treatment-she was sick, leukemia. They said those money was enough to her. The only requirement to get it is I never talk about that night.”

She swallowed. “My daughter was dying, so I didn’t have anything else. And I left. And I never

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Chapter 63

talked about it. Until now”

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