She didn’t respond, but the line of her jaw softened slightly, as if her body knew his voice better than the meds. He watched her chest rise. Fall. Every breath bought from pain.
Dante pressed his forehead to the back of her hand. “I need you to come back. You hear me?”
A faint sound escaped her throat. Not a word. But something.
His eyes snapped up. He shifted closer, brushing her hair gently back from her face. The bruises beneath her eyes had started to yellow at the edges. She looked younger. Like someone who hadn’t crashed through the world and survived it.
“I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He glanced out the small port window. The sun was rising over the Gulf. The clouds blushed with gold and blood-orange light. Below it, New Orleans waited.
“Almost there.”
He didn’t realize he was crying until her fingers twitched again, not a spasm this time, but intentional. Searching. And then, her lips parted just slightly. Not a full word. But the breath formed a shape. “Dante.”
His heart clenched hard. “I’m right here.” He shifted, gently curling his body toward her. She was too injured for much contact, but he made space, the kind of space that let her feel surrounded.
The medic clocked his movement. He didn’t stop him. He didn’t need to.
TWENTY-NINE
CHASE MEDICAL NEW ORLEANS – TWO WEEKS POST-CRASH
The Gulfstream’s wheels hissed across the wet runway before the plane slowed to taxi. A thin mist clung low to the ground, rising from the tarmac in pale streaks where the sun hadn’t burned it off yet. The air that swept through the cabin when the hatch cracked was comfortable but humid.
Dante stood before the stairs lowered, one hand braced on the overhead rail, muscles tight and useless. He hadn’t slept in… he didn’t know how long. The last clear moment was Shannon’s hand slipping off his arm mid-flight as her consciousness thinned again.
Below, the Chase transport corridor glowed under floodlights. Hunt Montgomery was already striding toward the jet before the wheels stopped, gloves halfway on, eyes sharp and unblinking. Lucas Hale shadowed him with the receiving cot, murmuring updates into his headset.
Dante barely heard them. He only saw Shannon.
Sam Johnson sprinted across the wet pavement wearing his West Point cadet grays, wrinkled and stained from travel. One hand clutched a half-zipped duffel; the other pointed at the med team blocking his path. “That’s my sister!”
They let him through.
The door finally dropped. Dante stepped down first.
Hunt met his eyes. “Status?”
Dante swallowed. His voice felt scraped raw. “She responded once. Said my name. Didn’t last long.”
A single nod. Then Hunt moved, climbing inside the jet without another word. Dante followed.
Shannon lay cocooned in blankets, lashes beaded with sweat, breaths shallow from exertion and altitude. Her skin looked too pale against the straps.
Hunt checked her vitals, then Hale cut the flight straps with a smooth flick. “Okay, sweetheart. Let’s get you where you need to be. On three.”
Dante watched their precision with a soldier’s eye and hated it. He knew that kind of efficiency. It meant they were scared.
They transferred her without a jostle. As they rolled her toward the ramp, her brow twitched. Dante’s chest clenched.
“Dante,” Sam said, voice tight. “Is she…?”
“Fighting,” Dante answered. “She fought the whole way.”
Sam nodded once and climbed into the ambulance without hesitation. Dante followed.
Inside the main entrance of Chase Medical New Orleans, Mack Browning, tall with a gray-flecked beard, sleeves rolled past his elbows, waited with a clipboard. His expression was of a man who’d already read three reports and didn’t like any of them. “You boys took your time.”
