Chapter 50
SLOANE
Cami didn’t sit.
She stood at the foot of the bed with her arms crossed, eyes locked on the monitors as if she could force the numbers to behave by pure will.
The private room was too clean for what we’d dragged into it. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that didn’t mean peace, just a pause between disasters.
Nate lay motionless beneath a thin hospital blanket, his face swollen and bruised, mouth taped around a tube that stole his voice and gave it to a machine. The ventilator hissed softly, steady and indifferent, doing the work his body couldn’t. The monitor beeped in a rhythm I couldn’t trust.
I stood beside him with my hand hovering over his arm, afraid to touch. Afraid I’d feel something I wasn’t ready for. Afraid he’d feel too alive, and I’d forget for half a second what it cost to get him here.
Cami glanced at me. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine.”
Her expression softened. “Of course you are.”
My throat felt scraped raw, as if I’d been screaming for hours.
“Where are they?” I asked.
“Holland and Ella are taking care of what they need to,” Cami said. She was the only one of them who hadn’t had blood on her, so she’d offered to stay and help with Nate’s care. “They’ll be back as soon as possible.”
As soon as possible. That could mean ten minutes or ten years in the kind of world they lived in.
I stared at Nate. “He looks … worse in this light.”
Cami’s expression filled with compassion. “It’s because you can see everything.”
I took Nate’s hand anyway, my fingers moving cautiously around the IV and tape. His skin was warm. His fingers didn’t curl around mine, though. He didn’t acknowledge that I was there.
For three years, I’d trained my mind to accept two possibilities. He was dead, or he was alive. I’d learned to live in that suspended place because the alternative was falling apart beyond repair. Now that he was here, my mind still didn’t know what to do with it.
It kept reaching for the missing pieces.
What did they do to you?
Where were you?
Why didn’t you come home?
And underneath all of it, one sharp, vicious question that felt like betrayal even thinking it.
Will you leave me again?
The monitor beeped.
I flinched.
Cami noticed. “It’s just the monitor.”
I pressed my thumb lightly to Nate’s knuckles, small circles, a habit from childhood I didn’t remember choosing. “He’s still … out.”
Cami nodded. “He’s sedated. His body’s been through hell.”
A nurse came in quietly, checked the drip lines, noted numbers on a chart, then left without saying more than, “I’ll check in later.”
As if I might blink and he’d be sitting up, asking why my face was so red. My chest ached as my mind once again replayed the earlier events. Ryker forced his way into my thoughts again.
His mask lifting. His mouth on mine. The pressure of his forehead on mine.
Remember this moment. Burn it into your memory.
Tears pricked my eyes. I couldn’t stop seeing the crow mask sliding back on, him turning away, his voice muffled when he’d said it again.
I love you.
And me, frozen.
Unable to say it back. Shock had held me hostage with a fucking gun to my head. No matter how much my mind screamed to respond … I couldn’t move my mouth.
The shame came fast and hot, an ugly thing that didn’t care Nate was fighting for his life only feet away from me.
Cami’s voice cut through. “You’re spiraling.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.” She stepped closer. “Talk.”
I shook my head once. “If I talk, I’m going to say the thing out loud.”
“Say it.”
My lips parted. Nothing came.
Cami waited, patient in a way that was gentle, understanding. The kind of patience you used on someone bleeding out.
“He … traded himself,” I whispered.
Cami’s expression didn’t change. “Yeah.”
“He said he loved me.” My voice broke on the word as if it hurt to even say it.
Cami didn’t look away.
“And I didn’t say it back.” The sentence came out ugly and raw. “I didn’t. I couldn’t. I froze. My brother’s life was hanging in the balance, and Ryker was walking away, and I … I couldn’t process it fast enough.”
Silence swallowed the room for half a beat.
Then Cami spoke, measured. “That’s not a sin.”
“It feels like a sin.” I rubbed my arms.
“No, hon. It’s called being human.” Cami’s attention moved to Nate. “You think the universe keeps score like that?”
I didn’t answer because some part of me did. Some part of me believed the world had decided to even the scales. It gave me Nate back.
It took Ryker.
Payment.
I tightened my grip on Nate’s hand. “If he dies …”
“Don’t do that to yourself.”
“If he dies,” I repeated, because I couldn’t stop the thought once it started, “if Ryker never comes back to me … then the last thing he ever said to me was that.” I swallowed hard, the words scraping. “And I gave him nothing.”
Cami’s jaw tightened. “You gave him you. You gave him a reason to live again, Sloane.”
That didn’t soothe me. It made my chest hurt worse.
A soft alarm chirped on the monitor, and Cami’s head snapped up instantly.
My whole body went cold.
The nurse returned in seconds, checked the screen, adjusted a setting. The alarm stopped.
I didn’t breathe until it did.
Cami exhaled through her nose. “He’s touchy. He’s not stable yet.”
I stared at Nate. “Why aren’t they waking him?”
“They can’t,” Cami said. “Not right now. His lungs are compromised. His body needs rest.”
“So I just … sit here.”
“Yeah,” she said, and her tone softened. “I know it’s unbearable, but you sit here. You keep him tethered. You talk to him. You breathe. You don’t disappear inside your head.”
I leaned closer to Nate. “Hey,” I whispered. “It’s me.” My voice shook. “It’s Sloane. I’m here.”
Nothing. No flinch. No squeeze. No eyelash flutter.
Tears stung my eyes. “You’re going to wake up,” I told him. “You’re going to wake up and you’re going to be pissed at me for crying, and I’m going to let you make fun of me, okay?”
The laugh that tried to come out broke in the middle.
“You don’t get to leave me again,” I whispered.
Cami watched me. “That’s the right thing to say.”
“I don’t know what the right thing is anymore.”
“You do,” she said. “You’re doing it.”
The door opened softly.
Ella stepped in first, hair damp, face scrubbed clean. Holland followed, equally cleaned up, her expression concerned yet focused. They looked too normal for women who had been covered in blood an hour ago.
They closed the door behind them.
Ella’s looked at Nate. “He’s still with us. That’s good.”
I rubbed my arms. “Yeah.”
Holland crossed to the foot of the bed, scanning the monitor. Her attention traveled over the IVs, the ventilator settings, the numbers. “Cami, can you give us an update?”
She answered in clipped phrases.
I hated how calmly those words could be spoken when they described my brother almost dying.
“How are you acting normal?” My voice came out sharp.
Ella looked at me. “We’re not. We’ve lived through some fucked-up shit, so we appear calmer than we are.”
“You’re just saying that. You both walked in here like this is just another Tuesday.”
“We’re holding it together for you.” Holland’s voice stayed steady, not unkind. “If you fall apart, we’ll hold that too.”
I swallowed, my chest tight. “I want to understand,” I said, quieter. “I want to understand who you are. What you are. What the hell I walked into.” I scrambled to hold on to something to keep my shit together for Nate. Answers from Ella, Holland, and Cami might give me that.
Ella came closer, staying at my side. “Ask.”
I looked at all three of them. “The other men. The masks.”
Cami didn’t hesitate. “Kip and Sebastian.”
The names settled into place. I’d suspected it. Some part of me had known. But hearing it said out loud was different. “Sebastian. Ella’s Sebastian.” I repeated.
Ella nodded. “Yeah.”
“And Kip,” I whispered, staring at Holland. “Your Kip.”
“Yes,” Holland said.
I dragged in a shaky breath. “Why were they there?”
“Because Ryker needed them,” Ella said.
“Why?” I asked. “Because it was dangerous?”
“Yes,” Cami said. “And because it mattered.”
Holland’s gaze stayed steady. “They wouldn’t let Ryker go in alone.”
The words should have comforted me, but they didn’t.
Instead, they made me picture Ryker standing in the woods with men at his back and still choosing to trade himself anyway.
The same men who were with him when he killed Mick.
I thought these people had secrets, but it was so much more than that. They were family.
My hands clenched. “And they didn’t stop him?”
Cami’s expression tightened. “He made the deal before any of us could stop it.”
“You told me to leave,” I said, and my voice broke. “You told me to go.”
Holland’s jaw flexed. Her tone stayed gentle. “Because you had your brother in your arms.”
“And Ryker was—” I couldn’t finish it.
Ella’s hand squeezed my shoulder. “We’re not leaving him.”
“Then why does it feel like I am?” I whispered. I was here. He wasn’t. I’d let him down like I had Nate.
A knock sounded, and the doctor entered again, tablet in hand, nurse behind him.
My whole body tensed.
The doctor’s attention traveled to Nate, then to me. “Ms. Ramsey?”
“Yes,” I said. “Tell me.”
He continued. “We’ve got more information. Some good. Some concerning.”
My mouth went dry. “Okay.”
He spoke clearly, measured. “He aspirated, which is why we intubated. His lungs are inflamed from inhaling stomach contents. That can become a serious infection. We’ve started antibiotics and we’re monitoring him closely.”
I nodded, forcing myself to absorb it.
“His imaging suggests a splenic injury,” he continued. “Not ruptured, but bleeding. At the moment it’s slow. We’re watching his blood counts. If the bleeding worsens or his blood pressure drops, we may need to intervene.”
Intervene.
My fingers tightened around Nate’s hand.
The doctor returned his attention to his tablet again. “Toxicology came back. He has drugs in his system.”
I felt my stomach drop. “What kind of drug?”
The doctor’s expression stayed neutral, but his tone sharpened slightly. “A veterinary-grade sedative combined with an opioid. The pattern suggests it was given to immobilize and suppress awareness. At these levels it can depress breathing, cause vomiting, and increase aspiration risk.”
My pulse spiked. “And memory?”
The doctor looked up, surprised by the speed of the question. “Yes. It can cause confusion, disorientation, and memory impairment. Sometimes temporary. Sometimes not. It depends on duration, dose, and what else is in the person’s system.”
Duration.
My mind dragged up Ryker’s fractured memories, the gaps he’d described, the blank spaces that never filled. It clicked too cleanly. They hadn’t just wanted Nate unconscious. They’d wanted him changed.
I tucked a stray hair behind my ear, needing to move instead of stay still. “When will he wake up?”
“We’re keeping him sedated while intubated,” the doctor said. “As his lungs stabilize, we’ll reduce sedation and assess neurological function. Right now, waking him would stress his body when it needs rest to heal.”
He paused, his expression filling with compassion. “He has a real chance. But tonight is critical.”
I had to force my question out. “Can he die?”
The doctor didn’t lie. “Yes, it’s possible. But we’re doing everything to prevent that.”
He left a minute later, the nurse following.
The door clicked shut. The room felt smaller. Fragile.
I stared at Nate’s face, bruised and still. Then I looked at Holland, Cami, and Ella, standing in a triangle around my brother’s bed as if they could physically block death from entering the room.
“That drug …” I swallowed hard. “I think Ryker had it too.”
Cami frowned. “Ryker had what?”
“When he was eleven,” I said, words tumbling out before I could stop them. “He was drugged. It didn’t just knock him out. It messed with his memories. It broke them into pieces, and he never got them all back.”
Ella went still. “Sloane …”
Holland’s jaw flexed once. “He told you this?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “We just learned it. And now Nate has the same thing in his system.”
Cami stared at the ventilator for half a beat, then back at Nate, as if she could see the drug sitting under his skin. “Jesus.”
My hands clenched. “What if he wakes up and doesn’t know me? What if I have to introduce myself to my own brother?”
Ella’s hand found my shoulder. “Hey, don’t do that to yourself.”
“Don’t borrow pain you don’t have yet,” Cami said.
“I’m already in pain. I can’t lose him twice.”
“You won’t,” Holland said.
I shook my head. “You don’t get to promise me that.”
Holland held my gaze. “Then I’ll promise you something I can control.”
“What?”
She placed her hand on my shoulder. “If someone tries to touch him again, they won’t walk out of this hospital.”
A shiver ran through me. This was their world. The one Ryker lived in. The one he’d bled in. I was standing inside it now, with my brother tethered to machines and the man I loved somewhere in the dark.
I looked down at Nate. I was losing my grip and the world kept acting normal. I leaned in close to my brother and whispered, “Stay.” I lifted my head. “Tell me what to do.”
Holland didn’t give me direction. She didn’t give me reassurance. She looked at my brother’s still body and the machine breathing for him, and something hard settled into her face.
“Right now?” she said quietly. “You do nothing.”
My stomach dropped. “What does that mean?”
“It means you sit in this room, and you listen to those monitors. It means you watch his chest rise and fall. It means you don’t close your eyes for too long. It means you let us help you.”
Ella’s hand tightened on my shoulder.
Cami glanced toward the door, then back to Nate, then back to me.
No one spoke the fear out loud, but it filled the room anyway. The truth was simple and brutal.
My brother was alive. But he wasn’t safe yet. And the man I loved had disappeared into the dark as payment for this moment.
I squeezed Nate’s hand, and the silence answered me with the steady hiss of a machine.
Outside the window, the night pressed against the glass, thick and endless.
And somewhere in that darkness, the world held its breath.
Waiting to see which one of the people I loved it would take next.