CHAPTER 8
When the detective talked to them, he was much kinder than the officers.
He apologized for the rough way the police had told Rita Healy and Connor about the other boy.
His warmth and sympathy touched her, but also highlighted her loneliness as a parent, without anyone to support her during this crisis—no loving husband to hold her hand through the nightmare…
which made the detective’s kindness almost painful and brought more tears.
Since no official charges had yet been filed against her son, he was allowed to return to their apartment with her. However, she couldn’t leave the hospital until she had seen her baby boy.
“Mom… don’t.” Connor had come back to himself a little, though he still trembled on the brink of that dark abyss. Tears streamed down his face as he gripped her arm, shaking his head. “Wait till tomorrow. Don’t look at him tonight.”
The detective, Wil Jordan, agreed with the young man. “He’s right, Mrs. Healy,” he said gently. “Go home and try to rest. I’ll take you to see your boy tomorrow.”
Rita broke then, wilting against her oldest son and sobbing. “I can’t… I can’t leave him… on a cold table… alone… I can’t…”
“He won’t be alone,” the detective assured, his voice soft. “The coroner is a good friend of mine; he will take care of your boy tonight. He’ll stay with him. He’s a very kind and caring man; he’ll look after your son. I give you my word.”
When they left the hospital, the detective called them a cab, feeling neither of them was fit to drive. Rita agreed. During the ride to their apartment building, she and Connor held each other, clinging to one another, crying together.
Standing at the door to their apartment, neither wanted to go inside. If she’d had the money, Rita would have rented them a hotel room… anything to avoid coming back here. The anguish waiting on the other side of that door was more than she or her son could bear. But they had nowhere else to go.
As she stood trembling, staring at the doorknob, her son made the first move. He gripped the handle numbly and unlocked the door. She didn’t remember locking it, nor did she remember closing the door as she’d rushed from the apartment in a panic.
Maybe the cowboy closed and locked it behind you.
She let her mind focus on him because she couldn’t bear to think of anything else. He’d said he had the wrong apartment, but something in his voice and eyes convinced her otherwise. But she didn’t know him and had never seen him before.
The distraction was brief as the door swung open and they walked inside. The apartment was cold as a tomb, and that’s how it felt—like a tomb. Her tomb. What life she had left after the horrifying call had died back at the hospital with her youngest child.
You still have a son, and he needs you now more than ever.
Rita realized she was standing alone in the narrow walkway between the kitchen and the living room.
Warm tears ran down her face. Had the tears stopped since she got the call that her boy had been shot?
Fresh ones filled her eyes and spilled over, streaming down to drip off her chin.
Could someone drown in their own tears? She felt like she was drowning now.
Her gaze shifted to the kitchen, where she was preparing dinner when the call arrived. How could life be so normal one moment and suddenly feel like her worst nightmare the next? Life can be cruel that way—offering no warning, hitting hard and blindsiding its innocent victims.
Rita wiped her face and hugged herself, her body and mind numb with grief that grew more unbearable with each passing moment. She found Connor in his little brother’s bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a baseball mitt, tears streaming down his face.
“He was getting really good,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “He couldn’t wait for high school… so he could join the team.” His head dropped forward, shaking with sobs. He pressed his face into the mitt, crying harder.
Rita sat beside him and held him, crying with him.
“I was right there, Mom.” Connor grabbed her and buried his face in her shoulder, fierce tremors wracking him. “I should’ve protected him.” He clung to her tighter, his pain and grief straining his body. “It should’ve been me… it should’ve…”
“No, sweetheart.” Rite held him closer, sobbing, stroking his hair. “It’s not your fault, baby… it’s not…”
“He should be here,” he cried. “It should’ve been me.”
“Don’t say that, baby.” Rita hugged his head and kissed his hair.
A surge of sobs gripped him, and for a moment, he could barely breathe through his cries. “I killed that boy, Mom—I killed their son.” His fingers dug into her back. “His dad should’ve killed me—I deserve to die.”
“No, no, baby, you don’t.” Rita broke. He was dying inside, and she couldn’t save him. “It was an accident, baby… it wasn’t your fault…” She held him tight and cried. “It wasn’t your fault, sweetheart, it wasn’t.”
“It hurts so much, Mom… I feel like I can’t breathe… I can’t…” He still clutched the baseball mitt in his hand, pressing it against her back. “I want him back, Mom… I want them both back… I can’t handle this… I can’t, Mom… I can’t…”
Rita held her son as tightly as she could, so completely lost in the dark with no beacon of light to shine for her child as the nightmare slowly swallowed them whole.
Rather than putting Dan Brown in the general holding tank, the detective instructed an officer to place him in a private cell and allow his wife to stay with him. Dan was grateful for the detective’s kindness and understanding; he couldn’t be apart from Nora right now.
Inside the cell—more like a “room” since there were no bars, just a solid door that confined them—Dan and Nora lay on the bunk, crying in each other’s arms. They didn't speak; what was there to say? Jamie was the center of their world, and now he was gone. Dan didn’t know if they would endure this or if the grief would ultimately swallow them.
He couldn’t think past this moment, couldn’t picture life without their son.
From the moment Jamie arrived, they had lived entirely for him.
The light of their life had gone out, leaving only darkness.
When Nora finally cried herself to sleep, her mind and body too exhausted to fight any longer, Dan envied her. He didn’t think he would ever sleep again, and if he did… he would be plagued by nightmares. He prayed that Nora’s sleep was peaceful… and dreamless.
Dan lay in the dimly lit cell, gazing blankly at the ceiling. It was his fault they were here, but it wouldn’t have mattered where they were; the pain and grief would have been the same.
He thought about the young man who had taken their world away.
Dan needed somewhere to direct the unbearable rage in his broken heart, and for a moment…
he had channeled it toward the kid. He had been wrong, and he wished he could take back that moment and undo what he’d done to a family suffering just as deeply as he and Nora.
That boy wasn’t the “villain” of their story—rather, the villain was the one who pulled the trigger. Dan imagined his hands around his throat, choking the life out of him for shooting that boy and for putting that kid on a reckless, desperate path that took Jamie away from them.
Dan didn’t know whether he still believed in God, but if there was any justice in the universe, the bastard who caused the deaths of their son and the other boy would die a fucking ugly death.
Abel and the boys looked confused as Axel, silent, hugged Luke for a long moment, clutching his son. When he finally let go, he hugged the twins nearly as hard. Abel glanced uncertainly at Clint, who stood silently, watching.
As Axel released Luke, the cowboy stepped forward and pulled the boy into a firm embrace, pressing his lips to the boy’s hair. Luke trembled slightly. “What’s wrong, Dad?” he whispered into Clint’s shoulder.
“What happened?” Abel asked quietly, his amber eyes filled with fearful uncertainty.
Clint cleared his throat, forcing himself to loosen his grip on his son. “Ask Devlin when he gets home,” Clint mumbled. He didn’t have the mental strength to retell the nightmare that had unfolded before their eyes.
Axel let the twins go and wiped his damp eyes. He looked at Abel, then hugged the young man, too. “Don’t take a second with them for granted,” he whispered in his ear.
“Axel?” Abel murmured as Axel drew back. “What’s wrong?”
Glancing at Clint, Axel said, “Devlin will tell you.” He walked over to Clint and hugged him. “I want to go home. I want to see Hope.”
Clint nodded and kissed his head.
In the car, Axel sat in the back with Luke, holding him again. Clint glanced in the rearview mirror and met his son’s gaze. Luke had endured enough trauma of his own to recognize the signs in others. He knew his dads would explain their behavior once they had a chance to process.
“I need to make another quick stop before we head home,” he told Axel as they pulled away from Devlin and Abel’s house.
Axel nodded, his head resting against Luke’s.
Clint drove to Max and Horatio’s place. Axel stayed in the car with Luke while Clint went inside.
He wasn’t gone long before returning to the car and directing them toward home.
Axel didn’t ask why he had stopped to speak with the two men; maybe he knew without asking.
Or maybe later, when they were in bed, he would ask.
He didn’t.
Once they gathered their children, Clint took a few moments to speak privately with Cochise, then they went home and put Luke and Hope to bed.
While Axel sat on the bed beside Luke, Clint explained what had happened.
At thirteen, Luke had already experienced horrors no person should face in a lifetime.
They didn’t need to explain their behavior to him; he understood their fears—more than any child should be capable of.
Checking on Hope, who was fast asleep in her crib in their bedroom, the men went into the bathroom, undressed, and showered until the water cooled.
Axel trembled as he scrubbed the boy’s bloodstains from his hands.
Clint washed the rest of him, pressing soft kisses to his wet, heated skin as water droplets mingled with the young man’s tears.
In the bedroom, they slipped beneath the blankets, their bodies still damp, skin steaming. Clint needed to forget for a while and wanted to drown himself in Axel. But he let the young man lead without pushing.
Axel pressed his warm, nude body against Clint and, for a long moment, just held onto him. Then his hands moved, tenderly caressing the cowboy’s tense muscles, his touch slowly relaxing Clint and allowing him to let go of the stress.
“Make love to me,” Axel whispered, his voice trembling, as his lips met Clint’s. “I just want to forget for a while.”
“Me, too,” Clint murmured, his deep voice thick.
The cowboy shifted, and Axel slid beneath him, curling his arms and legs around Clint’s body. He shuddered, tears seeping from his eyes, as Clint pushed inside him. Axel’s hold tightened with desperation. His hips lifted as Clint went deeper.
“Uuhhh…” Axel whimpered. His blunt nails dug into Clint’s back, and he pushed against the cowboy, his inner thighs squeezing his flanks. Axel shuddered again and pleaded shakily, “Fuck me… just make it all go away.”
Sliding his hands into Axel’s damp curls, Clint gently twisted the strands around his fingers, kissed him as hard as he needed to be, and rolled his hips, each rotation a little faster, a little harder.
His desperate need to forget, to flush away the horrors of the evening, fueled his thrusts.
Their kisses grew harder, hungrier, as their inhibitions and control fell away until they were fucking wildly, sheets and blankets tangling around their writhing limbs.
Axel gasped into Clint’s mouth, sucking his tongue, his tense fingers gouging furrows down the cowboy’s slick back as their bodies collided, shaking the bed. Their stomachs were slick with Axel’s precum, his engorged erection grinding between their bodies.
Breaking free from the kiss, Axel choked back a sob. “Harder…”
Clint wrapped his lover in his muscled arms, and as hard as he was fucking him—somehow he fucked him even harder.
He was hardly aware of his own tears as his focus narrowed to nothing but the feel of his cock sliding furiously through Axel’s slick, hot cave, the sound of their bodies slapping together—and the heat of the orgasm building in his loins.
“Clint…” Axel cried, his muscles locking up, his short nails digging deeper into Clint’s back as he arched away from the bed. “Uuuhhh… fuck me… fuck me…”
The young man’s orgasm was right there, surging toward the surface. Clint met it with deep, almost violent thrusts. His back bowed suddenly, and he shoved his face into Axel’s neck, a guttural sound twisting in his tight throat. His hips jerked hard, and he filled Axel with cum.
Axel bit his sweat-slick shoulder, stifling a scream as he shot his load between them, hot ropes of cum squirting onto their slick, fevered stomachs. Clint fucked through the orgasm, pushing in deep and hard as Axel gave up a few more spurts of cum.
When their orgasms subsided, Axel still clung to him, holding Clint on top of him, wrapped around him. His face pressed to Clint’s throat as he trembled in the cowboy’s arms.
Clint leaned into him, holding him close and softly kissing his damp curls. They remained silent; their bodies having conveyed all their feelings, thoughts, and emotions.