Chapter 13 – Grey
GREY
“ W e’re falling apart,” I sighed into the sterile hospital room, scrubbing my palms over my face as I watched Becca’s for any signs of life.
She looked so fragile lying there, with the tube down her throat and the IV in her arm and the monitoring devices stickered all over her body.
She wasn’t out of the woods yet. They put her in the coma to give her body a better chance at healing, but they still weren’t sure if they’d be able to wake her up after. That would be up to her.
“Corvus lost it,” I continued as though she could hear me. “He never loses it.”
I lifted the Styrofoam cup of cold coffee to my lips and took a long swallow, not knowing how much longer I could stay awake.
“And Rook…”
A dark chuckle.
I set the coffee down on the linoleum tile and steepled my fingers, putting them to my lips. “I don’t know, but there’s something wrong there too. He didn’t sound himself on the phone… we’re breaking without her.”
The back of her hand felt like ice under my fingertips.
“We need you to wake up, Becca. you might be the only one who can tell us who this motherfucker is.”
I grit my teeth against the selfish request. Here I was urging her to wake up so that she could help me save her friend; meanwhile, somewhere inside of that beautiful broken body she was fighting to survive herself.
If only she’d finished the drawing we might’ve been able to avenge her, and maybe AJ, too.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
The sound of a man shouting down the hall touched my ears and I sat up straighter, craning my neck to see if I could get a look at him through the window by the door.
I leaned down, feeling the outline of the gun holstered at my ankle, waiting to see if the heavy thudding footfalls of the man were headed in our direction.
I saw his face in the window only a second before the door was wrenched open, and Mr. Hart entered the room with a nurse close on his heels.
“What is this?” he roared at the nurse, not even noticing me sitting silently in the darkened corner beside Becca’s bed.
“You call this a private room?” he spat. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Yes, sir, of course. I’m going to put her on the waitlist for one of the larger rooms right now.”
“And get the goddamn doctor in here right now, I want to know exactly what happened to my daughter.”
The nurse raced back down the hall, and Mr. Hart inhaled shakily, putting his hand to his mouth as he took in Rebecca lying prone on the hospital bed. He noticed me a moment later and removed the hand that was covering his mouth, his big money mask back in place.
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my daughter’s room?”
I met his hard stare with an even harder one of my own, remembering what Becca told me about her father forcing her to go to MIT instead of the school she really wanted to go to. I didn’t think that was the only thing he’d ever forced her into.
“A friend.”
Mr. Hart’s cold brown eyes tracked from my head down to my feet and back up again, clearly deciding I was not friend material for his precious daughter only a second before recognition sparked.
“I know you. You’re one of Diesel St. Crow’s sons, aren’t you?”
“Grey,” I supplied.
His eyes widened.
“ You, ” he sneered. “This is all your fault, isn’t it?”
He cleared the space between us, his chest puffing up beneath his tailored suit. I stood, but made no move to attack or defend. This dog was all bark and no bite.
I wouldn’t lie to him, but I also wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of a reply.
“What?” he hissed. “It wasn’t enough to take my wife from me? Hmm? You had to take my… my daughter too.” his voice cracked.
“I’m sorry for the loss of your wife, sir,” I said, monotone. “But it wasn’t the Saints who took her life, and I think you know that.”
“No?” he pressed, the cracks in his voice filled with acid now. “I’m not talking about her death, boy. Your kind took her from me long before she died, and I’ll be damned if I allow you to drag my daughter down with her.”
It was time for me to leave. I turned to Becca and bent, taking her delicate hand in mine despite her father’s protests behind me. I gave it a small squeeze. “You can do this,” I whispered. “We need you.”
“Get away from my daughter this instant.”
I felt something on her palm and pulled back, flipping it carefully to see the smears of dirtied paint drying in the cracks there. I peeled her fingers back and found paint under her nails, too.
Smiling, I brought her hand to my lips before laying it back down on the bed.
I shouldered past her father and out into the hall, already typing out a message to the group chat, ignoring her father’s shouts to not bother coming back.
I jabbed the elevator button.
GREY
Meet me at Briar Hall. Becca might’ve left us a gift.
The doors dinged open.
“Greyson?”
“Uncle Damien?”
I stared at the man who was unmistakably Damien St. Vincent standing alone in the elevator with a knot in his brows.
I hadn’t seen him in a few years but he looked the exact same.
With a salt and pepper shadow of scruff along his jaw and jet black hair that only deepened the contrast of his slate gray eyes.
Anyone else would’ve taken one look at him and run, seeing him for the predator he is. Much like Diesel, Damien commanded an air of respect and violence. But for me, he offered a small smile. And even though his attention clearly tracked to the bandage over my eye, he didn’t stare.
“How you been, kid? I have to say, you’ve looked better.”
He stepped out of the elevator and drew me into a quick embrace, slapping a palm on my back. “Hope you got the fucker that did that to your face.”
“We did. What are you doing here?”
“Happy to see you, too.”
Damien peered down the corridor, toward the room I’d only just left and it was all the answer I needed, but he gave me his own version anyway.
“The hospital informed me when she was brought in.”
I frowned. “Rebecca?”
“She’s Eden Matthews’ daughter.”
The woman he loved more than anything in this world before this world took her from him.
Damien nodded, something souring in his expression as he settled a cold stare on me, maybe reading the guilt I was sure was on full display there. “Did you have something to do with this, son?”
“Not exactly.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“There’s someplace I have to be,” I said, knowing I’d be here all fucking night if Damien wanted the full explanation of why Rebecca Hart wound up in the ER at four in the morning and was now fighting for her life in a coma. “Are you staying in town?”
He didn’t seem at all placated by my response, but nodded. “For the night at least.”
“Good. Go talk to Dies. He’ll fill you in.”
“This have to do with the Aces?”
I remembered Diesel had Uncle Damien on standby in case we needed him when things were getting bad, but mostly, our gangs ran independent of one another. And Uncle Damien had his own territory to look after. A much larger area than we had.
“They’ve been taken care of,” I said, jabbing the elevator button again. The doors opened, and I stepped past my uncle and into the box. “Talk to Dies. We’ll come by and help explain if there’s time.”
Damien’s eyes flashed a warning in the fluorescent lighting overhead.
“Oh and you might not want to visit just yet,” I said as the doors began to shut. “Her father’s in there with her.”
His jaw ticked, and the doors sealed, carrying me down to what I hoped was the key we’d been looking for. The one that might open the door to take us back to our girl.
Rook shifted foot to foot at the front entryway, seemingly uncaring that one boot was tapping away at a dried pile of blood. Apparently Kit had come to ‘check on’ AJ, and he must’ve said or done something to make Corvus snap.
Not an easy feat, but with the way he’d been at the edge of his rope lately I wasn’t as surprised as I should’ve been. We knew only from stories how he’d been when Diesel first took him in, it seemed now we’d get to see the monster for ourselves.
Speaking of the devil, the engine of Corvus’ Ducati snarled as he revved around the corner and pulled into the lot.
“What’s this shit about?” Corvus growled, stepping off his bike helmetless, with heat still lingering in his gaze.
He turned his attention to Rook. “Have you been here this whole time?”
Rook lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the morning sun as he squinted at Corvus. “Would you have rather I took the Rover, Bro?”
Corvus bristled at the reply, but I ignored them both, stalking past Rook to the front doors of the academy. “Let’s go. You two can bicker later.”
Corvus lengthened his strides to keep up, the three of us walking through the atrium, scattering students milling around between classes in our wake.
“Mind explaining why we’re back here. I was on my way to Lennox when I got your text.”
Rook punched the elevator button and then leaned against the wall, waiting, rolling a coin over his knuckles. “What do you mean she might’ve left a gift?”
I sighed. “I think Jericho is AJ’s stalker.”
No point in dragging it out.
“Jericho’s dead.”
“Is he? Becca said she made herself look at every face on her way out of the Docks. He wasn’t there.”
Rook shrugged, but I could already see his mind working behind the blasé gesture. “Then he died in the attack on Sanctum.”
“I don’t think so.”
Corvus pinched the bridge of his nose, upper lip curling. “I’ll ask you again, Brother, what the fuck is this about?”
“It was something he said in the recordings,” I explained, ignoring my brother’s misplaced hostility as we rode the elevator up to the third floor. “It made me think we weren’t his only target. Think about it. He was asking about AJ. Wanting Becca to find out where she was.”
“To get to us,” Corvus said, but the conviction in his voice was gone. Even he was starting to see it.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Becca didn’t have any pictures of Jericho, but she’s an artist. A fucking good one. I asked her if she could draw him for us.”