Chapter Twenty Tristan #2
“No.” I wanted to sit up, to stand up. Have this argument across a courtroom.
Or a dinner table. Not in a high-dependency bed when I was in so much pain my throat caught.
But I continued. Not for my sake, but for his.
Remembering how once, he was in as much pain, in my bed, and still gave me what I needed.
“I believe it explains why he saved me when walking away would have been easier.”
“That doesn’t make him safe.”
“It makes him human.”
My father narrowed his eyes. “Human beings don’t drag their lovers into warehouses filled with guns.”
“He didn’t drag me anywhere. His associates did that.
To teach him a lesson. To make him plead guilty and take the fall for something he didn’t do.
That is not justice, Father. That is corruption.
He wanted to leave. Walk away. To start a new life.
He wanted the chance to be seen as something other than what you all see him as. They made it so he couldn’t.”
“And thus, he is the reason you were there. He put you in front of that danger. With no consideration for you.”
“I walked into that world with my eyes open.”
“That is demonstrably untrue.”
“Is it?” I widened my eyes at him. “Or is it simply inconvenient to accept that I made a choice you wouldn’t have?”
Silence stretched between us, thick and brittle.
“You think this is romantic,” he said at last. “Tragic. Noble, even.”
“I think you are more comfortable believing I was manipulated than believing I love someone you don’t approve of.”
He stared at me, jaw working. “Approval is not the issue.”
“Then say what is.”
“That men like him do not escape. Not without collateral damage. And you”—his voice softened despite himself—“are too valuable to be that collateral.”
My chest ached for reasons that had nothing to do with fractured ribs.
We didn’t speak like that. Hale-Fitzroys didn’t lace arguments with feeling.
We were men who debated facts, not emotions.
To be called valuable by my father felt uncomfortably intimate.
Almost the equivalent of being called beloved.
I knew I was his child. I knew he loved me.
But hearing it said that way was something else entirely. Affectionate. Crushing.
“I’m not fragile.” I swallowed.
“You are lying in a hospital bed.” He gestured to the monitors. “With a bullet wound and a broken leg.”
“And he is under curfew with a tag. Alone. Again. Because of me.”
“That is not your burden to carry.”
“It is,” I said before I could stop myself.
My chest tightened, the movement pulling painfully at my ribs, but I didn’t care. The words had been sitting there since I woke up, lodged behind the painkillers and the fear and the things I wasn’t allowed to ask.
“I love him, Dad.” I swallowed, breath shallow, sharp where it caught.
“I love him so much it hurts. More than this.” I shifted, instantly regretting it as fire lanced through my side.
“More than when that pole came down on my leg. More than the bullet that came my way and he stepped in front of it without thinking.”
I had to pause then. Not for effect. To breathe.
“He is more than what you’ve read in a file. More than a name on an intelligence report. He was trapped long before I ever met him. Fifteen years old, given no choice, taught that survival meant obedience. Violence. Silence. He did what he had to do to stay alive. To keep his family safe.”
I felt tears prick, unwelcome and humiliating, but I pushed through.
“Then he met me.” I swallowed. “And he was trying to get out. I don’t know if it was because of me or because he never truly belonged there. He’s not here to tell you. But he was making moves. Careful ones. Dangerous ones.”
My throat burnt.
“I know it was ill-advised to get involved with him from the start. I know it was reckless. I didn’t plan it.
I didn’t go looking for it. And honestly, I believed it would fade out.
That whatever it was between us would burn itself out and I’d go back to my life.
I waited for him to be the person in that file and for me to realise he was nothing more.
” I gave a weak, humourless breath. “But he is more. And every time I saw him, he showed me who he really was. And my feelings grew. Quietly. Persistently. Now it’s too late to pretend it isn’t real. ”
I met my father’s gaze then, holding it despite the ache everywhere else.
“I didn’t fall in love with Razor. Not the man in your files.
Not the accumulation of charges and statistics and carefully chosen language.
I have fallen in love with Richie. The man I know.
The man who holds me and the world quiets a little.
Who kisses me as if I’m something to be cherished, not spent.
Who looks at me and tells me I’m beautiful as though it’s simply a fact, self-evident, not an act of mercy.
” I glanced down at my hands. “That’s who I love. ”
My father remained quiet. And I understood it. There was so much in there he shouldn’t know. That could damage everything for him. And yes, I felt guilty about that. I did. But I couldn’t deny my feelings.
“The same way you loved Oliver Montgomery?”
I snorted. “No. Very much not. This, with Rich, this is real. Ollie was…convenient. This, how I feel about Rich…I can’t help it.
If I could, I would have walked away. He is, as we can both agree, anything but convenient.
” I looked up at my father, tilted my head, softening my eyes.
“You think distance will make this go away. That if you put enough conditions around him, the risk evaporates. But it won’t. ”
“I think allowing you anywhere near one another right now would hand the men at the top exactly what they want.” He stood, came closer to the bed, lowering his voice. “You are a witness. He is a defendant. Whatever you believe your relationship to be, the law will not interpret it kindly.”
I closed my eyes. “So what? I lie here and you pretend he didn’t save me?”
“I am not blind to what he did for you.” He adjusted the drip at my wrist, brushing his thumb over wires and tape unconsciously.
“I am not unmoved by it. I am your father. I am profoundly grateful that you are alive. But I am also entangled in this thing. I know exactly who is at the top of it. And if you want justice, real justice, then this cannot go anywhere else.”
“And meanwhile, what’s happening to them?” I pressed. “The men at the top. The ones who actually did this to me. Who controlled and threatened Razor?”
“They are not going home, if that’s what you mean.”
Something cold and steady settled in my chest. “Dead?”
The word tasted wrong the moment it left me. If they were dead, if Razor had killed them, then everything shifted. Murder. Manslaughter. Charges he couldn’t walk away from. A future he couldn’t outrun.
“Remanded,” my father said sharply. “Violence on that scale? Weapons? organised crime? The court has very little appetite for risk.” He inhaled.
“They are known perpetrators. This is the first time there has been something concrete to hold onto. And in a way”—his voice lowered—“that is also down to him.”
I swallowed.
“With them unable to leave the warehouse, with witnesses, evidence preserved at the scene, the narrative didn’t move. It held. They will not be seeing daylight for some time.”
“So when do I get to see him?” My ribs ached as I shifted, the question pressing harder than the pain. “Richie.”
He held my gaze the way he used to, back when a look from him could still end an argument.
“That is a question I cannot answer right now.” He swiped the hair from my forehead like a father might.
“You concentrate on getting better. We will transfer you for proper care. Then you will come home. With us. And we will look after you while this case runs its course. There will be no negotiations.”
I didn’t have the strength to argue, even if I’d wanted to.
The door opened, a doctor slipping in with a familiar, efficient air. A syringe. A quiet explanation I barely caught. More medication, no doubt—Henry’s influence written all over it. And as it entered my bloodstream, the world softened at the edges.
By the time my father’s hand squeezed mine once, firm and final, I had already drifted back under.