Every time, I changed an action of mine. Kicked down the back door sooner, because it had taken too long. Not left Mallory in the first place. Killed Davis as soon as he’d appeared during our fake fight that had been laced with real hurt from all our recent arguments. Forced Mallory to stay back at Shadow and took care of the entire thing myself.
But I knew, no matter what I did, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome.
Mallory would’ve found a way to follow me to her condo, fuming and looking for a real fight. The second man in her apartment would’ve been ready, and would’ve caught both of us unaware—caughtherunaware, because I knew he’d been hiding somewhere deep in the back, where she would’ve stormed off to first. And if I would’ve kicked down that door any sooner than I had, Davis would’ve just stabbed her sooner.
But then she might not have lost all that blood.
I was staring numbly at my blood-stained hands, arms, and shirt when I felt a heavy, familiar hand land on my shoulder and squeeze. I didn’t react, just continued staring as grief gripped at my throat and squeezed.
Why didn’t you yell?
I knew the answer, but it hadn’t stopped me from thinking the question a hundred times.
Mallory hadn’t yelled because it would’ve killed her. She hadn’t yelled because she’d been trained not to. She hadn’t yelled because she’d grown up needing to prove herself.
But even if she hadn’t had that knife in her back—in her lung, as the paramedics had confirmed while the ambulance had raced back here—there’d beenso much bloodpooling from her neck and soaking into her shirt. A terrifying amount of blood.
When you’d lived the lives we had, blood no longer fazed you, but you understood it. I’d understood that amount of blood. The sight of it had also nearly dropped me to my knees, because I’d known in an instant that I was going to lose her.
“Briggs just arrived,” Thatch finally said when I didn’t respond to his grip. “Let’s go talk to him.” When I didn’t move, Thatch moved around to the other side of me and forced me to look at him, not even trying to mask his worry. “The surgeon will come talk to you in the waiting area when they’re done. You don’t have to be standing at the doors.”
Yes, I did.
It was the closest they were letting me near her—them—and I didn’t want to be farther than I was now.
As if sensing that, Thatch gripped my shoulders tighter, his jaw clenching as he glanced at the double doors for long moments before meeting my stare again. “I get it, Gray. I swear, I do. I would’ve done the same thing you did—fighting to follow my wife anywhere. But I need you to sit somewhere. I need you somewhere—” He cut off abruptly, swallowing as he did.
It took too long to realize what he’d been about to say. Took too long to realize his worry wasn’t only for the girl he’d also loved for over a decade, just in an entirely different way.
He was worried about what I’d do.
He wanted me somewhere he could watch me...control mewhen I received news.
Before my mind could fully grasp that, Thatch was reluctantly stepping away from me just before the back of my neck was grabbed, and I was pulled into a tight, unexpected hug.
“I’m sorry,” Briggs rumbled.
And that embrace, those words, broke me.
I shoved away from him as tears burned my eyes. “Don’t say that,” I snapped. “Don’t say that like she’s already gone.”
“Not what I meant,” Briggs muttered as he watched me drag my hands through my hair, gripping tight as my chest heaved like it was mocking me because hers had gone so still.
A sob ripped from deep in my chest and tore from my throat as I stumbled back to the wall and slid down it. “She wasn’t breathing. She stopped breathing. She was responsive, but only—she stopped breathing,” I rambled. “They got her breathing again, but it—I dunno how long. And there was—” I held my arms out, like they might not have noticed the blood before then. Like they might understand just how much there had been.
I wasn’t even sureshehad understood how much there had been.
Briggs crouched in front of me, face solemn as he listened. Thatch stood just behind him, arms folded across his chest and looking more worried than before.
“Tell me what happened, from the beginning,” Briggs softly demanded, prompting a harsh laugh from me.
“The mission went south, Briggs,” I seethed. “My wife and baby might be dead. And you’re asking for a review?”
He just nodded. Slowly, gravely. “Tell me what happened, from the beginning,” he repeated.
I launched into everything from the time we left Shadow, hissing the details at him like I was holding him personally responsible for making me relive this failure, when I’d already been doing it to myself. Repeatedly.
But his focus was on the job, when mine was on Mallory.
