Page 59 of To Claim A King
“I will never forgive you for what he did to her. What he did to him.” He nodded toward me, but her eyes never left his face. “Leave.”
“I can’t offer you your old job back,” Trish replied, sounding nonplussed, as if he hadn’t spoken at all. “But I can offer you contract work. Your skill set and—”
“I’ve heard of your intelligence, Agent Stanhope, but I see the rumors are untrue.” Disregarding my predicament, I spoke up, done with the callous disregard of the trauma she’d forced her top agent to endure.
Her attention snapped to me, and a brief flicker of anger filled her expression. Still, I continued. “We do not forgive betrayal. You are not wanted here, and you are not welcome in the future. Leave.”
“You don’t have a leg to stand on, Aaron Rodriguez.” Her harsh glare was callous, but as empty as the fish stare she was named after. “I allowed you this luxury.” She waved her hands around the hospital room. “Me. Your little stunt with Carmen Delgado means I lost a key witness in this case. I’m not welcome? You’ll be welcomed with open arms into prison when I try you for her murder.”
My gut had not failed me. I’d known this moment was coming. My penance was due for my rash decision to kill the woman who’d harmed mine. The muscles within my stomach clenched, but I drew in a slow breath to dissipate the cramping, refusing to break eye contact as she continued.
Her laugh was a bark, aggressive and rough. “There were a dozen witnesses, and you want to talk about intelligence—fine. I’m sure Alvarez would love to get his hands on you when you share the same cell.”
Kellan stiffened beside me, his entire body emulating a stone gargoyle.
“Trish,” he stated slowly, as if working hard to maintain his patience. “Leave. Now. I have so muchevidence against you and how you operate, the media would destroy you in days, and I am done playing around. Fuck. Off.”
The severe woman’s glower rivaled a laser, but she filled her lungs and squared her shoulders, stealing our air as we stole her dignity. Without uttering another empty offer or loaded threat, she turned on her heel and strode toward the door without a backward glance.
Before she turned the handle to walk out the door and out of Kellan’s life, she cocked her head, leaving us with a final thought.
“Antonio escaped our capture. I thought you’d want to know.”
She left us in stunned silence as her heels left a resounding melody along the hallway. Antonio Carlos was still a threat. Kellan wasn’t yet free from the burden of his birthright.
Our fresh start was still a dream, perhaps never realized. That thought was the most depressing of all.
“Come on, come on,” I chanted under my breath, as I wiggled my hands behind my back with just the right amount of counter-pressure. It’d been a long time since I’d wormed my way out of a pair of handcuffs. The challenge would have been a fun one if I wasn’t worried to feck my family was dead in a torture chamber somewhere.
Da was dead. Shayna was dead. Ma might as well be dead because she was no more of a mother figure than Mother Teresa was to me. The only people in the world who knew the real me were already gone.
Except that was as big a lie as the ones I told pretty old ladies whose pockets I was looking to getinto. I had a new family now, but I had no feckin’ clue if they were dead or alive. If they were dead, I’d rather rot in the misery of an American prison than have to live a life outside without them.
I’d tried not to think about it in the last few hours with no one but myself to talk to. The guard at the end of the hall completely ignored me after I’d told him my best Irish joke about a priest and a leprechaun, and I’d counted every single floor tile in my sights five hundred times, just to be sure there were actually 312 tiles. I’d write up a report about the poor grout quality for the Carlisle police later, just to close the loop and feel good about my contribution to the hard-working police force that locked up retired con men instead of nasty murderers.
Gits.
A nice little layer of sweat coated my skin as anxiety and I became good pals. Fidgeting with the cuffs was my last line of defense before sinking into madness, and the mechanism released just as I was about to give up and start again.
Before I could bask in my elementary skills, heavy footsteps tramped down the hall. I snapped my head to the alcove to see the guard with zero sense of humor. Weston Williams, in all of his glorious, manly beauty, followed, which hopefully meant I was out of here.
And… Joey?
Wasn’t gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. “Hi, folks,” I exclaimed brightly despite my exhausted brain and starving belly. “I’m going home?”
“To the hospital.” Weston stated with a grimace while the guard opened the door and glared daggers at me when he discovered my handcuffs were unlocked.
I tossed a wink at him and scooted out of the cell before anybody could change their mind, too eager to—
Wait—the hospital? Of course, they were in the hospital. Blondie had been half-dead the last time I saw her, eventhough I’d blocked that image in my mind and replaced it with the one of her between Aaron and me just to keep myself sane. I stopped in my tracks and turned on a dime, panic rocketing through my chest in a wave strong enough to make a lesser bloke puke.
“Weston, you’d better tell me they’re all alive with that kind of segue, mate. They made it? They’re okay?”
The smooth nod almost brought tears of relief to my tired eyes. Thank feck. ThankEpona, and every god and goddess in the universe, and thank feck blackmail was still the most effective bartering chip known to man.
“Ms. Lane has just been released from surgery, but we don’t know her exact prognosis yet.” The handsome man completely burst my bubble of hope with that one sentence. “Joey’s going to take you to them.”
Fear sat in my belly like I’d just swallowed a watermelon. Blondie had been hurt bad enough to go through surgery. But she was alive—I had to hold on to that fact. They were all living, breathing, tough-as-feck machines, and I had to get to them right away.
