Declan glancedat the battered and bruised young man lying in the hospital bed. Inwardly, he cringed at all the derogatory things he had said and thought about River being a lazy little shit by allowing his not-much-older sister to be the family breadwinner.
And all the time, River, who was only twenty, had been sick with a chronic illness that could end up killing him if he didn’t receive a new kidney.
“I’ll leave the two of you alone for a few minutes to talk,” Nikolai murmured.
Declan waited only long enough for the other man to leave before turning back to Fawn. “You should have told me your brother is ill.”
She looked at him coolly. “Why should I?”
“Because—”
“None of this is any of your business,” she told him through clenched teeth. “Nothing about my life, or River’s, is any of your business.”
“If I haven’t made it clear before now,you, and as a consequence River, are now very much my business.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“Do I?”
The wariness in her gaze told Declan that she definitely did. “We don’t have time to talk about that now. Without a kidney transplant, River will die.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” she exploded, drawing the attention of everyone standing in the hallway, as well as a concerned River and the doctor. “It’s fine,” she reassured her brother with a tight smile and a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s all fine,” she said again to the rest of their group waiting in the corridor, Nikolai among them. She turned slightly away so that now only Declan could hear her as she hissed, “I know exactly how precarious my brother’s health is, thank you very much. I certainly don’t need you to point out the obvious to me.”
“I was only?—”
“I’m well aware of what you wereonly.” Her eyes flashed a dark amber as she continued to glare at Declan. “But we’ve lived with this situation for the past three years, ever since River was first diagnosed. He’s on the list for a transplant, and we’re waiting for a suitable donor. But in the meantime, we’ve been saving every penny we can so that we can purchase a dialysis machine to keep in our apartment. Either I or another nurse when I’m at work could carry out the dialysis. That way, at least River wouldn’t have to keep going through the trauma of having to go to the hospital three afternoons a week.”
Which was why, Declan realized, the extra money Fawn was earning from looking after him was so important to her.
A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. “What happened to him today?”
“He says he just felt dizzy when he stood up after breakfast, that everything went black, and the next thing he knew, Danny was breaking in and insisted on bringing him to the hospital.” She grimaced. “As I hadn’t told River the patient I was caring for had been shot, or that the brother of the person who shot you is looking to exact revenge, River is still a little confused as to who Danny is and why he was outside our apartment guarding him in the first place.”
“Hm,” Declan murmured distractedly. “I’ll explain all that to him later when I also reassure him of your continued safety. The important thing right now is to find River a healthy kidney.”
“I told you, he’s on the list for a transplant?—”
“Which might be too late to help him.” Declan regretted his bluntness when he saw how pale Fawn’s cheeks instantly became. “I really don’t mean to upset you.” He touched her arm gently, knowing she was too tense right now to accept any more than that light reassurance. “But some chronic kidney disease patients are just too ill to have the operation by the time a suitable kidney becomes available. I know I’m telling you what you already know,” he placated when he saw the tears glistening in her eyes. “But I’m only repeating it because we obviously need to find River a suitable kidney ASAP.”
“We?”
“We.”
“This isn’t your problem?—”
“I’ve already told you it is,” he reminded grimly.
Fawn looked at him searchingly for several seconds before shaking her head in frustration. “You seriously think I haven’tbeen trying to find a kidney for him?” she choked. “I immediately offered one of my own kidneys when they said River was going to need a transplant. They did all the tests before telling me I’m not a good match.”
“Why aren’t you?”
“Our blood groups aren’t compatible.”
Declan knew it wasn’t unusual for siblings to have different blood types. Unfortunately, for River, in this case, that difference was dire to his well-being.
He scowled. “I would be willing to be tested to see if I’m a suitable donor,” he added decisively. “I’ll ask around and see if any of the other guys I work with at Wynter Security would be too.” He already knew that Danny, for one, cared enough about what happened to River to say yes to being tested for that compatibility.
