Chapter 37 Grayson
GRAYSON
Every second feels like eternity as I wait for an update on Macy.
I’ve been pacing the hallway outside the operating theaters since they took her in, praying for a miracle.
Crew arrived hours ago, but I haven’t left my post for even a second.
I used my credentials to stay as close to Macy as possible, and it’s the first time I’ve felt honored by the privileges my badge grants me.
After what feels like a lifetime, the double doors halfway down the corridor swing open, and a nurse walks through them. I don’t pay any attention to the bloodstains on her scrubs. I focus on the tiny bundle wrapped in blue in the incubator she’s wheeling my way.
The baby is wailing too loudly to mistake his prognosis.
He made it.
Macy’s son made it through the ordeal that almost claimed both his and his mother’s lives.
The nurse looks up from the baby, who is crying so distraughtly that his little face is as blue as his blanket, and recognition dawns when our eyes collide. She’s the nurse who held me back hours ago, the one who said she’d do everything she could to save Macy.
Her lips hike at one side when she spots my gawk. Her smile is kind but tired. “Congratulations, Daddy.” She wheels the incubator closer, thawing a piece of my heart that froze over hours ago. “You have a tiny but extremely healthy baby boy.”
Though my mouth twitches, not a word seeps from my lips. I’m too stunned by the familiar features of the little boy’s face to speak. He looks so much like Macy that it is eerie.
Instead of correcting the nurse on the title I’ve not yet earned the right to claim, I crowd Macy’s son’s incubator like I’m a bodyguard protecting the recently born crowned prince.
His heartbreaking wails echo in the corridor, and his strength loosens the noose around my neck enough for me to speak. “I wonder if your nose will have as many freckles as your mommy’s?”
His lips tremble as his eyes rapidly move beneath closed lids, but after a handful of snivels, he stops crying, and his eyes sluggishly open. He looks up at me with the same wonder I feel looking down at him.
The nurse’s big, beaming grin makes it seem as if things aren’t as dire as they are. “I think someone recognizes your voice.”
I smile back, but the pain in my chest grows instead of weakening. If Macy is okay, then why isn’t her son with her instead of with me? That seems odd, and it surges my panic to a point I can’t control.
Ignoring the blood on the nurse’s smock, I swallow the lump in my throat before asking, “Macy? How is she?”
The nurse’s smile falters as unease darts through her eyes. “She’s still in surgery.” I gasp as if she sucker punches me when she adds, “It’s touch and go. If she has family members nearby, ask them to come in.”
After offering me a halfhearted grin that’s supposed to display optimism but only twists my stomach more, she waves over a nursing assistant at a desk near the theater’s entrance. “Can you please take Baby Machini and his father to the nursery? I need to get back in there.”
“Of course.” The nursing assistant gestures to our right with her hand. “This way.”
She leaves, anticipating me to follow.
My tone shows I am torn and conflicted. “I can’t. I promised his mother I’d stay at her side.”
She tugs on my heartstrings in a way I never thought possible.
“He needs help we can’t give him. He will only get that in the nursery.
” She steps closer, drawing me in with her kind eyes.
“They’re doing everything they can for your wife, and now we need to make sure we give her more reasons to fight.
Ensuring her son has the best care possible will give her that. ”
Absentmindedly, I nod. Macy’s a fighter, and motherhood will make her fight more. I know that.
With my mind made up, I follow the nursing assistant down the corridor, wheeling Macy’s son in front of me. I am present yet absent, functioning on autopilot. Taking care of Macy’s son will give me something to focus on amid the blur. It also seems right.
He’s crying so hard that his eyes are nearly closed, and he clenches a fist outside his blanket. The nursing assistant is right. I can’t offer him the comfort he needs; only his mother can. However, I’ll take care of him as long as he needs.
As the sterile scent of the OR weakens, I lean toward the incubator and whisper promises I’ll die striving to keep. I assure him that everything will be fine and that I will always be there for him. As long as he wants me, I’ll be on his team.
The more I talk to him, the calmer he becomes. He seems at ease, as if he believes in me.
My heart swells with pride as I recall my father’s face when he carried my siblings through the front door of our home. He made similar pledges to them, and I believed every word he spoke.
As far as I am aware, I’m the only child he didn’t keep his promise to.
Sighing so hard it sinks my chest, I steer the incubator toward the elevator that will take us to the nursery. When the doors open, Crew bursts through them, almost knocking over the nursing assistant.
Suddenly, he freezes before he jackknifes back. His pupils dilate when his eyes lock onto the bundle of blue wedged between us. He looks stunned, like he’s seen a ghost. Then his expression shifts to horrified.
“Is she…?”
He can’t finish his sentence, and I’m glad. I can’t think of Macy like that. I refuse.
When he searches my face, needing answers, I murmur, “She’s still fighting.” I should say more and offer him the comfort I need, but I can’t speak. The words are trapped in my throat, as tangled and messy as my heart feels when Crew’s rigid form sinks back enough for me to spot his co-riders.
Alex, Brandon, Adeline, and Markwell stare at me, their faces awash with worry. Their presence is a reminder that we’re not going through this alone. The bureau is family before anything else.
The support takes me aback, but one figure stands out more than the rest.
My dad is in the corner of the elevator, barking orders into his phone.
His low, commanding tone exposes that he knows what I don’t want to admit.
Aspects of Macy’s attack don’t add up. She was getting close to the outfit responsible for the baby-making trade on this side of the country.
They could have attacked her to silence her, but why would they orchestrate that coup in a parking lot miles from her home base?
They also injected a sedative into her neck, most likely to induce labor, and used the elderly-lady-in-need ruse.
They’re not calling cards of a baby-making syndicate.
They keep their surrogates in prime breeding condition.
They’d never risk damaging the merchandise by forcing a mother into preterm labor.
That would increase the chance of a caesarean, which would lower the number of children they could produce.
Even with my head a blur of confusion, my profile on this case would steer my law enforcement colleagues to a criminal entity that has members capable of befriending mothers-to-be so they can steal their babies from their wombs and sell them to the highest bidder.
I freeze as a thought too disturbing to consider pulsates through the sludge.
“Macy said Cameron’s name while she was fighting for her life. More than once.” The words flow from my mouth with as much conviction now as they did when I told Cameron I was in love with Macy. “She wouldn’t have done that unless it was urgent. Jealousy doesn’t guide Macy’s motives. Ever.”
Alex nods first, and then a collective whirr of agreeing murmurs follows his lead.
“Cameron’s stomach also folded. She stood up to me.
She pressed herself right against me”—I pat on the area of my stomach where our bodies collided when she tried to intimidate me into backing down—“but her stomach didn’t wiggle against me.
It folded. It fucking folded.” Once I discover one truth, the deluge continues.
“Her stomach was also the same size last night as it was in surveillance footage from eight weeks ago. She said she was five months along, so she shouldn’t have had a bump in the footage. ”
Agent Markwell is coordinating with on-scene agents to bring Cameron in, but I still feel like I have to prove myself and earn their trust. “I think Cameron had something to do with Macy’s assault.
She arrived at the Lamaze class after Samuel announced it was free of agents, but neither her name nor her alias was on any of the class lists.
They attacked Macy in the parking lot of her building minutes after I told Cameron I loved Macy. ”
“Keep going,” my father encourages, stepping closer. “Give us what we need to bring the people who did this to Macy to justice, and then go back to doing everything you can to bring your family home.”
The worry lines etched on his face are deeper. However, his eyes still hold the same steady, unwavering control they’ve always had.
This is him. Protective. Brave. He isn’t the antagonist Cameron painted him to be.
He can’t be.
“Cameron sent messages during our fight. One was after she realized I had joined the bureau, and the second time was after I admitted I loved Macy.” My voice chokes during my last three words.
This is my fault. Macy is fighting for her life because of me.
“Love,” I correct, not wanting any dishonesty to stain this investigation.
“I said I love Macy.” A memory smacks into me so hard and fast it staggers me back a step.
“Cameron said that it’s embarrassing to have a child without a partner.
That if we were meant to procreate by ourselves, it wouldn’t require parts of a man and a woman. ”
Alex steers this investigation toward a slam-dunk conviction.
“The victims we’ve recovered thus far were all going it alone.
There were no father details cited on their birth plans or in their medical records.
” He directs his eyes to me. “This could be how she excuses her actions. If she believes the victims are unworthy of the child they’re carrying, she’d feel no guilt taking them and giving them to someone she deems worthier.
” He hesitates for barely a second before he asks, “Does that profile match Cameron? Is that someone she could be?”
I want to say no. I want to protect Cameron as I failed to do years ago, but alarms scream too loudly to ignore. So instead, I nod.
Alex matches my gesture, wordlessly thanking me for my honesty, before he issues orders to Markwell and Adeline.
They resemble the ones Markwell gave earlier, but with a personal edge that only someone who cares deeply about Macy can issue.
He even assigns tasks to Brandon and Crew, uncaring that they’re not a part of the bureau.
They’re my family, and to Alex, that’s good enough.
In a matter of minutes, the corridor goes from a bustling hive of activity to dead silent. A baby’s faint coo is the only sound, along with the occasional uncomfortable swallow from the nursing assistant, who feels out of her depth.
She’s not the only one struggling.
My lungs are screaming for air like my head is being held underwater, and I’ve never felt more helpless.
My father registers my fight in an instant. He requests the nurse to give us a minute before he approaches me without a snick of hesitation crossing his face.
For a brief second, I consider maintaining my anger, to deny his wordless offer of help, but I can’t. I’m drowning, and the pain is so much that I can’t catch my breath.
I gasp in a sharp breath when he bundles me up in a hug like the night I fell out of my treehouse and broke my collarbone. I was seven then, and he issued promises similar to the ones I gave Macy’s son earlier. He told me he’d never let anything bad happen to me, and he never did.
The treehouse looked more like a prison than a clubhouse when he installed a dozen safety rails to ensure I’d never fall again.
He’s protected me for years, so when he tightens his grip around my shoulders, I let him share the weight of the burden I’m carrying, while also praying his suit jacket will soak up the handful of salty blobs I can no longer hold back.