Justice for Francesca (Six Paths to Justice #1)

15. Anytime and Always

15

ANYTIME AND ALWAYS

Tripoli

A fter his impromptu surgery, he’d moved her to his bed to sleep off the sedative he’d given her. While she slept, he did a deep clean of his bathroom, hallway, and dining room. He’d stripped her of all her clothes and put her in one of his dress shirts so that he could open and close the material easily to check the wound without disturbing her too much. All the clothes she’d been wearing and the ones he’d been wearing went into a trash bag, which he took down to the incinerator off of the kitchen, left over from when the building was first built. He threw the bag in and stood there while it burned to ash. Only then did he go back upstairs.

“Ethan?” Her voice was sleepy yet, but he heard the trepidation.

“Hey there, beautiful.” He brushed the hair off her forehead, the back of his fingers lying against the skin to make sure there was no fever, then pulled back the covers and unbuttoned the shirt she had on just enough to look at where he’d stitched her up. There was some minor blood seepage, but the skin was cool to the touch. So far, so good.

She looked like she wanted to talk, but it was too difficult.

“You came through like a champ, but it’s going to take a little longer for the sedative to clear. Take this.”

He started to move a white pill toward her mouth, but she weakly pushed his hand away. “No drugs.”

“Sweetheart, it’s a bit late for that. Just take it. Trust me. You’re going to need it when you wake up.” He pushed the pill between her lips, then helped her drink some water to wash it down. Tucking her back into bed, he kissed her forehead.

“Stay?” she whispered.

“You couldn’t kick me out even if you wanted me gone.” He smiled softly at her. “Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

There was no way she could work today, and probably not the next day either. It was going to be difficult to keep her in bed to rest. His brain scrambled on what to do. Could he call Cruz and tell him she was sick? He had a sneaking suspicion that Cruz would insist on coming to check on her. Worse, she had just taken a sick day. To take two more would be an instant red flag.

Francesca stirred at his side, her eyes fluttering open. When she tried to turn over, she hissed. “Don’t,” Tripoli warned. “I’ll help you sit up in a minute. Twisting might open the wound, and I would really like to prevent stitching you up a second time.”

“I feel fuzzy.”

“Brain fog. The sedative mixed with the painkiller. It will pass as the sedative works its way out of your system. You might have some dizziness from the pain pill, especially since you don’t take them regularly, but I’m here to watch over you.”

He got out of the bed and stretched the kinks out of his back from leaning against the headboard all night.

As he reached down gently to help her recline against several pillows, she asked, “What did you give me?”

He refused to look her in the eye and grimaced. “It’s better if you don’t know.”

“Tripoli.” Her voice was insistent.

“I liked it better when you were calling me Ethan,” he grumbled. When she fixed him with her silver stare, he confessed. “I used a fentanyl lollipop to sedate you. We used them in the field for soldiers. When the soldiers pass out, the lollipop drops from their mouth, or it at least goes slack. That’s when I knew they were out and weren’t likely to overdose.” Once he was sure she was in a decent position, he pulled back the covers and her shirt.

As he checked her dressing, Francesca asked, “You have access to fentanyl?”

Without looking at her, he replied, “Yes.”

“You’re not a doctor.”

“No.”

“So you have illegal access to fentanyl?”

“Yes. I’m going to change this dressing.” He rose from the bed and crossed to his bathroom.

He looked in the mirror.

The bang of a flash grenade went off to his left. He wasn’t prepared. The light blinded him temporarily, and his eardrums felt like they exploded. Falling to the ground, he saw outlines, like body-heat-indicator images, of other bodies doing the same. Disoriented, he tried to rise, but he was dizzy. His teammate, Chaos, had been to his left and even closer to the blast. He wasn’t moving. Tripoli crawled as best he could toward the body. His teammate lay still. Tripoli’s eyes still weren’t working properly, so he had to go by touch alone. He felt for a pulse. Nothing. Or was it there?

He could hear moans behind him. Someone else had been hit. Slowly, the afterimages from the flash began to fade. Turning his head, he saw Oz, their overwatch, trying to pull himself up off the ground. Tripoli could see Oz’s mouth moving—he was yelling—but he couldn’t hear the words, and his eyes were still too hazy to read Oz’s lips. Finally, he saw the man point further up the line.

Tiguan, their point man, was moving on two feet to their team leader, Honcho. From the position the man lay on the ground, Tripoli noticed his arm was missing from just below the shoulder socket down. Beneath him lay a rebel soldier, dead. Tiguan was attempting to tourniquet Honcho’s arm.

As Tripoli crawled up the line, his eyes continued to adjust to normal. He heard gunfire being exchanged.

Two more bodies lay unmoving.

Mayhem, their sniper—a hole so big in his chest, eyes wide open, limbs sprawled, his gun loose in one hand, Tripoli didn’t need to look for a pulse. He’d obviously died protecting Keys, his best friend, who lay next to him.

Keys, their drone flyer, blood emerged from his nose, mouth, and ears. Tripoli felt for a pulse, his own sensations returning. Nothing. Keys was gone.

Distant yells, continued gunfire, Tripoli turned and began to crawl back to Chaos. Maybe he could save one of his friends. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

In an instant, Tripoli was back in his bathroom. A fine sheen of sweat had developed on his skin—his breath was sawing in and out of his lungs, his heart was pounding, and his extremities were shaking. The need to vomit rose up his esophagus, but he tamped it down. He needed a clear head. He couldn’t let Francesca see that the entire situation—her injury, her questioning, his failure to save Honcho, Mayhem, and Keys—was causing him to lose his ability to think clearly.

The sounds of the ambush were still present in his brain, but they were dimmer than they had been moments ago. His hands were still shaking, so he clenched them tight around the supplies he’d collected and willed his legs to support him as he returned to her side.

He did not want to discuss the fentanyl with Francesca or the other illegal drugs he had on hand, but he knew she was going to ask. He was probably going to jail. While his lawyer would bail him out, no matter the reason, this wasn’t going to look good.

He changed the dressing as he explained, “You were lucky. Your sweatshirt might have saved your life because it’s so thick, and all the material kept the knife from getting as deep as I originally thought. However, by not calling an ambulance and moving around, you lost a lot of blood. That could have been fatal if you’d wandered around much longer. A couple of days and you’ll be able to move around again, but you’ll have to be careful because of the stitches. Better come up with a reason for your slow movement.”

Done changing the bandages, he remained sitting on the edge of the bed, one arm caging her on either side of her body. “I moved and cleaned your car. You gonna tell me what happened? I’m guessing I’m going to go to jail for what I just did and because of the fentanyl and the hydrocodone. Probably deserve to know for what.”

She stared at him. Her eyes were unreadable, but her body was pliant, probably due to the painkillers in her system. She gave a short laugh, then winced at the pull it caused. “You’ve got a connection with the FBI that can probably prevent that. I think I can vouch for you in regard to protecting an agent in the face of danger. If I can’t keep this quiet, that is.”

“You’ll be disciplined for your failure to report information if that happens. Another rule broken, Special Agent McCabe.”

He waited her out, watching her face. She asked, “Do you want me to turn you in?”

“No. You’d be within your duty though. I have illegal drugs on my premises. I used them on you without your express permission, and even if I did have your permission, I performed an illegal surgery on my dining room table, life-saving surgery notwithstanding.”

The struggle on her face was heartbreaking. “I’ll risk it,” she whispered. “If we have to, we tell Cruz. You have people to help you with anything I can’t smooth over. It will likely be the end of my career, not just because I sought you out and covered it up, but because of what happened last night and what I’m not reporting.” He knew that doing this would cost her greatly as far as her moral compass went. She attempted to sit up further, so he helped her get situated. “Cruz called because we received an anonymous tip that reported someone was coming and going from Mila’s house at night. I went to stake it out. When the guy showed up, I went to investigate.” He watched her eyes fill up with tears he knew she’d never let fall. “It was Michael.”

“Why would he be there?”

“If he killed Mila, he could be looking for anything that might incriminate him. They were sleeping together.”

“Mila? Sleeping with Michael?”

“Apparently, they hooked up a few months after you broke up with her. He claims they were in love. That he spent most of his nights at her house. The FBI found some of his things when they searched her house.”

Tripoli digested the news. He didn’t care that his bar manager was involved with Mila, but even he had to admit that it looked worse than the drugs in his bathroom. The FBI might jump to all kinds of conclusions about a McCabe being in bed, literally, with a principessa. “Did he say what he was doing there?”

“No. I didn’t ask. I was so shocked. So mad that I’d been proven right again about my family. He was searching her office, particularly her desk. I made the mistake of turning my back on him to go out in the hall to call Cruz. I heard him yell my name, then he hit me from the back, and I felt the knife go in. He pulled it out, and I passed out almost immediately.”

“ Michael did this?”

She nodded.

“Did you see him at any point in time with you after you’d been stabbed?”

“No. Who else would it be? There wasn’t anyone else in the house.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Did you clear it before confronting him?”

“Well, no… I’d been sitting outside for several hours. No one else went in or out.”

“There are several entrances to her house. Someone could have snuck in while you were talking to him. Someone could have been hiding there all along.”

She frowned. “It had to be him.”

He decided to let it go. Upsetting her by insisting she was jumping to conclusions wouldn’t help her rest and heal. Instead, he chose to deal with the here and now. “You need to call Cruz or whoever you report to. I know you don’t want to report this, but you have to. It’ll be ugly. You’ll probably be suspended, but if Michael did murder Mila and Jessa, you can’t let that go. Especially if he’s responsible for your injury. I’m not kidding, Francesca. You could have died on my table.”

Her eyes closed.

“For what it’s worth,” he told her, “I don’t think it was your brother. He doesn’t have an alibi for either timeframe, which I get. But it goes against everything I know about your brother over the last two years. I also get that my intuition means jack with the FBI.” He brushed a lock of hair off of her forehead. “Think, Francesca. Your natural inclination was to protect your brother. You didn’t call Cruz after your attack. You’re not reporting me, and you’re not reporting Michael now. Somewhere in your heart, you know it’s not true.”

“I can’t go off of what I want to be true.”

“You already are though.”

Gray eyes opened, and to his surprise, tears leaked from them. Tripoli brushed them away gently. “What happened to me?” she asked. “For my whole life, I’ve played by the rules. Never bending them, let alone breaking them. Why now?”

“Maybe until now, you weren’t ready to accept that sometimes in life, the rules don’t apply. No matter what our family has done or how many times they’ve done it, we hold out for the best in them. We hope that they redeem themselves somehow.” His hand grasped hers. “As for me… do you remember what you told me before you passed out last night?”

She shook her head.

Placing a kiss on her forehead, he whispered, “No matter what you think I’ve done by having dangerous and illegal drugs in my home, you know in your heart that I’d never hurt you or anyone else. Your emotions are involved, whether you want them to be or not, Francesca McCabe. You admitted that you don’t like me an inch but that you like me a mile. I’m going to hold you to that statement.”

He pulled back, knowing that if he stayed where he was, he’d want to continue kissing her, and she was far too injured for that. “There’s no way you can move out of this bed for a couple of days. Four would be best, but I know you, and you’ll push it.”

She smiled. “Yes, I will.”

“Two days.” He held up two fingers to her face. “No movement out of this bed for one full day other than to the bathroom, and I will take you back and forth. One additional day’s rest before getting upright for any length of time. Go against any of those instructions, and I will call an ambulance and have you in the hospital where you should be anyway.” His thumb brushed back and forth across her knuckles. “You really should tell Cruz about last night.”

“I know, but I just can’t. I’ve got to keep him away from me somehow. Calder too. They’ll know in an instant I’m hurt.” Thinking for a minute, she said, “I’ll tell him I’m going to bury myself in transcriptions of interviews. He’ll gladly hand that over to me because he hates that stuff. Plus, he’ll assume I’m doing it so I can work in your office.” She confessed, “He knew where I was on my sick day.”

“Figures. Not much gets past him. Transcripts should keep you busy, as well as phone calls and follow-ups. Let him think you’re pushing the physical stuff onto him because you want to be with me. The sick day will lend credence to that. If he shows up here, we can always throw you behind my desk to work for the short while he’s here. If everything looks good with your wound at the end of day two, I’ll allow you to work at my desk. Day four, maybe , you can go back to work if you promise not to chase any bad guys or do anything strenuous.” The pause was tense. “What are you going to do about Michael?”

She closed her eyes, bringing her hand up to hold her forehead. “I don’t know. I should just confess what happened to Cruz, but something keeps holding me back. Michael was always such a sweet kid. I thought for sure he’d manage to escape my family’s grip. I want so badly to believe what he says about Mila, what everybody has said about him, but part of me just can’t. Why can’t I let them go?”

He delicately climbed over her body and curled into her uninjured side. “I told you. They’re family. Their moral compass has been at odds with yours all of your life. You’ve had to fight them every step of the way, even when you left and made your own life. Even when our families do terrible things, we can still love them and want their approval. The fact that Michael seems to have succumbed to their way of life—which I’m not convinced he has yet—hurts.”

He checked the clock. “Call Cruz to update him on your work plan, then I’m going to give you another pain pill, and you’re going to sleep some more. When you wake up, we’ll try a little bit of liquid food and some more sleep. If you’re good, maybe some ice cream and I’ll read to you.”

Quirking one eyebrow, Francesca teased, “Are you sure you’re not a Daddy Dom?”

“I’m sure, but it is my job to take care of you.”

He began to haul himself out of the bed, every muscle screaming that it didn’t want to leave her side, even to get her medicine, but the sooner he got it, the sooner he could get back in bed with her.

“Ethan?”

He looked back at her over his shoulder. “Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Thank you for taking care of me.”

“I will take care of you anytime and always.”