“Yeah.” I pull back, sniffling and carefully tucking a length of mahogany hair behind her ear before it tickles her cheek and drags her out of her sleep. Straightening my spine, I ignore the vibrations of my phone in my pocket. I’ll deal with them later. When I can.
“I need instructions,” Harrison rumbles. “Anyone else I’m told to watch, I watch and get them where they gotta go. I doubt she wants to stay here all night, but she’s asleep, which means I have to wake her up and force her to walk home in the heat, or I pick her up and?—”
“You don’t get to carry her,” I growl. “You don’t get to touch her, unless not touching would immediately lead to her death, and if she dies on your watch,youdie long before you get to explain why you did or did not touch in the first place.” I drag a shuddering breath into my lungs and bring my focus back around. Then I spy Minka’s heavy purse on the floor, the leather neatly tucked by the bed’s wheels. “Get her bag. I’ll carry her back to her apartment.”
He darts around me, fast on his feet and does as he’s ordered, so I carefully,so fucking gently, dig my hands beneath her weight, gingerly tipping her back and scooping her against my chest until her head droops and her arms hang limp. “Harrison?” I turn his way and watch, eagle-eyed, as he follows my unspoken order and folds her dangling arm up, placing her hand on her belly.
When he’s done, he tears the curtain open and precedes me across the emergency room, a fearsome man, strapped to the nines, with his cute little purse dangling from one hand.
Nicki catches my eye from across the room. She tips herchin, firming her lips. But she doesn’t stop me from carrying the unconscious damsel away. She doesn’t even chase after me and tuck the bill in my back pocket.
I follow Harrison along the hall and through the automatic doors, but where I planned to turn right and walk the block back to her apartment, he steers me left, to the SUV parked in a no-parking zone, the engine still running and the air-conditioning still humming. “I know it’s only a block, Boss. But those cameras are still hanging around. I figured discretion was best.” He whips the back door open and makes space, allowing me a moment of contemplation as I consider how best to slide in without letting her go.
I just… do. I step in, silent as Harrison’s palm on my back guides me up, then I carefully sit and hug her to my chest, fixing her legs and, with her weight resting on my lap, I scoop her head up and press her ear over my heart.
Without another word, Harrison closes the door and darts around to the front, and less than a minute later, he pulls up at our apartment, double-parking once more and reversing his actions.
He cuts the engine, snags Minka’s purse, dashes around the car, and pulls our door open. He moves out of the way so I can slide out once more, then he’s ahead of me, opening the heavy glass door and holding it out of the way so I can pass.
“Jesus.” Without the breeze from outside, as pathetic as it is, the stairwell is easily ten degrees hotter. “I should’ve upgraded this shithole’s HVAC system a year ago. Freezing in the winter, boiling in the summer, sleeping in this building is akin to flirting with insanity.” I hold Minka close and make my way upone flight. Then two. Three. “Have you heard from Felix yet? Did they land?”
“Yes, Boss.” Harrison moves just three steps ahead of me, scouring the stairwell with fierce, watchful eyes. “They landed a few minutes before I re-entered the ER. Zora’s struggling with the air pressure in her ears. She screamed her little lungs out. Felix wanted an update. Agent Hale andformerAgent Hale assure us everything is smooth on the New York front.” He peeks over his shoulder. “Ya know, with the Agosti stuff.”
My jaw clenches and releases. It aches and grinds. “How much doyouknow about all that?”
Do we have more noses in Minka’s business? More witnesses to her crimes? More fucking men sitting in the box inside a courtroom, ready to convict a woman for doing what’s right.
For doing what the law couldn’t.
Hesitant, Harrison slows his steps. “I’d say I have a reasonably extensive understanding of the situation. The, uh…” He clears his throat. “The NDAs Felix has us sign cover the whole family, though. So you don’t have to worry.”
There are no NDAs. There never have been. There’s just the promise of an early grave, and anyone with half a brain knows it.
“You overheard that stuff at the house yesterday?”
“Only snippets, actually. But I’ve been around a while now, and I’ve heard things while on duty.”
“From other people talking about her?”
He chuckles. “From her, mostly. Micah had me look into some stuff last year, and soon after that, Chief Mayet herself was in the backseat of my car having somewhat of an existentialcrisis. I believe she was talking to you on the phone at the time.” His cheeks warm, reddening as he drops his gaze. “I don’t make a habit of repeating the things I hear, Boss, but there’s not much I can do about hearing those things in the first place. The fact she’s…” He hesitates. “Who she is means I was quite surprised regarding the case she testified on in New York.”
“Which case?”
“The DV one late last year. Dude killed his wife, and Chief Mayet provided her professional testimony. She stood up for the deceased, Detective. She did well, but once we stepped out of the courtroom, I asked if she was planning to stick around for the verdict. She said she wouldn’t, ‘cos there was nothing left for her to do. She expected the judicial system to carry its weight and do the right thing by that dead woman.”
Isn’t that the crux of everything we are? Chief Mayet expects the judicial system to command justice. And sometimes… too often… it doesn’t.
“I suppose it surprised me shecouldwalk away, is all. Her ability to disconnect didn’t really gel with the viper on the stand. With the woman who…” He pauses,notsaying the thing we’re both thinking. “Ya know. With Agosti.”
“Chief Mayet cares deeply for the innocent. She risks her life in search of justice for people she’s literally never met until, too often, they’re already dead. She hurts for them, which means being able to disconnect sometimes is probably the only way she maintains her sanity in an unjust world.”
And when she can’t disconnect…? That’s when she hunts men down and doles out justice with her own two hands.
I’m just the prick who gets in the way, demanding she trade her sanity for my own.
Makes me husband of the fuckin’ year.
Not.
