“I will,” he nodded firmly. “I’ll be right back.”
I walked down the hall to the nurses’ station and borrowed a landline phone. I dialed Mark’s cell number from memory.
He answered on the second ring, sounding exhausted from his meetings in Chicago. “Hey babe, Happy Thanksgiving. How’s the turkey?”
“Mark,” I said, my voice cracking for the very first time. “Leo is in the trauma bay. Ryan broke his rib. My mother stole my phone so I couldn’t call an ambulance. The police are on their way.”
There was a long, horrifying silence on the other end of the line. Then, I heard the sound of Mark slamming his hotel room door.
“I am booking a flight right now,” Mark said, his voice a low, terrifying growl of a father who was about to burn the world down. “I’ll be there in four hours.”
“Don’t call my parents,” I told him, gripping the phone cord tightly. “Don’t warn them. Don’t tell Carla. We are going to war.”
“Burn them to the ground,” Mark replied. And he hung up.