“Is he conscious?”
“He was… in and out. They’re running tests.” I swallow.
I can hear voices faintly in the background where he is, the low murmur of men, movement, and the kind of controlled urgency that lives in clubhouses after midnight.
“Is he stable?”
“They haven’t said yet.” The words feel brittle in my mouth. “They’re not saying much at all.”
“Okay.” It’s not reassurance, it is acknowledgment. The kind that lets you know he’s already processing possibilities. “You alone?”
“Yes.”
Silence again, heavier this time.
“I’m sending someone,” he says.
“You don’t have to,” I reply automatically, because that is the reflex my father raised me with, the instinct to reduce my own need until it becomes manageable.
“I know.” His voice shifts slightly. It’s not softer, but more intentional. “Will would want us there.”
I close my eyes against the words.
“He’d be there himself if he could,” Sin continues, calm, matter-of-fact. “You know that.”
My fingers tighten around the phone. “Yeah. Should we tell him?”
Sin pauses for a moment, then lets out a long exhale. “Probably for the best that we don’t. He will worry because he is in there, and he can’t do anything about it except worry. He might do something stupid to try to get to you.”
Closing my eyes, I swallow a lump down my throat because even though I hate keeping this from Will, I know Sin is right. “Yeah… you’re right.”
“We need you to focus on your Dad right now, Millie. Okay?”
Sniffing, I swipe a stray tear from my cheek and pull myself up before I let any more fall. “Okay.”
“And Jonas…” he adds after a second, “… he’s one of ours whether he likes the label or not. We don’t leave our people sitting in hospitals alone at three in the morning.”
The tightness in my chest becomes something sharper. “I don’t know if he’s going to be okay,” I admit quietly, the first time I’ve said those words out loud. “He looked… I’ve never seen him like that.”
Another pause. “Then we deal with what’s in front of us,” Sin says. “One step at a time. You focus on being his daughter. Let us handle the rest.”
Sin’s words almost undo me.
“Millie…” My name again, firm but not unkind. “You don’t have to hold everything by yourself… not anymore.”
After this, Sin’s going to find out about Dad’s cancer. It’s inevitable. But maybe he’s right, maybe holding it in isn’t the right thing to do anymore.
I breathe in, slow and shaky. “Okay.”
“Good.” I hear the faint scrape of movement on his end, the sound of him already acting on the decision. “I’ll have someone there in twenty.”
“I don’t need—”
“I know,” he says again. “Still happening.”
A tiny, helpless huff of something that might be a laugh escapes me. “Thank you.”
“Call me if anything changes. No matter what time.”
