But eventually, the darkness claimed him, and his last conscious thought was of his son, who would soon receive a phone call. Guilt hit him in the heart as he thought of getting the very phone call Holt had always dreaded getting about his son.
The dreams came in waves, fragments of memory and imagination mixing together in his unconscious mind. He saw his father’s face the morning he’d left for work for the last time, heard his own fifteen-year-old voice swearing vengeance over a fresh grave. He relived cases from his years with the BAU, faces of victims and criminals blending together in an endless parade of violence and justice.
And through it all, threading between the other images like a golden thread, was June.
June, as she’d been at eighteen, fierce and determined. June, fighting him about Virginia because she had her own dreams to pursue. June, as she’d looked the night he’d walked out of their apartment, her face pale but resolute as she told him there was no path forward for them. June, as she might be now, a successful attorney in her own right, probably long since moved on from their brief, intense marriage.
The dream that felt most real came hours into his recovery. He was back in that Cambridge apartment, but older now, and June was there beside him. She wasn’t eighteen anymore but mature, beautiful in the way that came with experience and hard-won wisdom.
“Was it worth it?” June asked, and her voice carried the weight of all the years between them. “All this pain, all this risk. Was it worth nearly leaving your family for a ghost?”
In the dream, he tried to explain. Tried to make her understand that he’d done this not just for his father, but for every family that had lost someone to violence. Every child who’d grown up without a parent because monsters like Volkov thought human life was disposable.
But even in his unconscious state, he could hear the hollowness in his own arguments. The truth was simpler and more complicated than noble motives. He’d spent his entire adult life chasing his father’s killer because he didn’t know how to be anyone else.
“You gave up on us to avenge your father,” June said, and the accusation hit him like a physical blow.
“No,” Holt tried to argue. “You were the one who gave up. You chose your career over our marriage.”
“I left so you could pursue your dreams,” June replied, and even through the haze of morphine and head trauma, Holt could hear the truth in those words. “You were the one who gave up on our dreams. Not me.”
The conversation felt so real that when he reached for her, when he tried to hold onto this last chance to explain, to apologize, to somehow bridge the gap of nearly four decades, the disappointment of finding empty air was devastating.
“No, June, wait,” he called out, fighting against the medical equipment and the fog in his brain. “Please, please wait.”
“Dad!” A familiar voice cut through the dream, anchoring him to the present. “Dad, stop. Calm down. You’re going to pull out your drips and rip some stitches.”
Holt’s eyes flew open, and the sterile white of the hospital room swam into focus. The dream faded, leaving behind only the lingering ache of old wounds that had never properly healed. Strong hands were holding him down, preventing him from sitting up, and gradually the face above him resolved into someone he recognized.
His son. Thirty-four years old, who had inherited his height and build, dark hair, and blue eyes that looked exactly like Holt’s own. He was wearing civilian clothes, which meant he’d probably driven straight from home without stopping to change.
“You’re here,” Holt managed to say, his voice coming out as a croak.
“Yeah,” his son laughed, relief evident in his voice. “What the heck were you thinking, Dad?”
The question was fair. Holt had gone into that warehouse knowing the odds, knowing that Marcus Volkov hadn’t survived his years as a criminal by being careless or sentimental. The smart play would have been to wait for backup, to set up surveillance, to build an airtight case that could be prosecuted in a courtroom.
But Holt had been fifteen when his father died, and some part of him would always be that angry, grieving teenager who wanted to look his father’s killer in the eye and deliver justice personally.
“I finally got the people who killed your grandfather,” Holt said, the words coming out with difficulty. His throat felt like sandpaper, and talking required more effort than he’d expected.
His son’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Dad, that’s...” His eyes widened as the implications sank in. “That’s huge.”
“Yeah,” Holt agreed, feeling a wave of exhaustion wash over him. The simple act of conversation was draining what little energy he had left. “I need water.”
A nurse entered the room as if summoned, a middle-aged woman with kind eyes and the efficient movements of someone who’d spent decades caring for patients in various states of medical crisis.
“You can have some ice chips for now,” she said, checking the various monitors and IVs that surrounded his bed. “Hello, Mr. Dillinger, welcome back. How are you feeling?”
“Like I got shot three times and hit my head on a desk,” Holt said, managing a weak smile.
“That’s about right,” the nurse replied with professional humor. “The good news is that all three bullets missed anything truly vital. The chest wound was the most serious, but the surgeon was able to remove the bullet without complications. The head injury is what we’re watching most closely, but your cognitive responses seem normal.”
His son helped him with the ice chips, the cold providing blessed relief for his parched throat. “You gave me such a fright,” his son said quietly. “When I got the call from the hospital, I thought...”
“Sorry.” Holt sighed, understanding exactly what his son had thought. In their line of work, phone calls from hospitals rarely brought good news. “How did you get here so fast?”
“A friend of mine who owns a plane flew me down,” his son replied.
