Chapter Thirty-Six
Kay
Angel.
My sweet Karina.
My love.
You were the only one…
My head snapped up as my eyes opened.
The steady beeping of the heart monitor got louder as my vision cleared.
The hum of the machines by the bed reminded me of where I was.
In the seventh circle of hell. I looked at Col, who was lying in the bed, his pale, tattooed skin free of any blood and dirt.
His eyes were closed, tubes and wires were sticking out of his arms and mouth.
Dr. Stevens said he was keeping Collin’s trach in until his heart gained its strength back.
The surgery was successful. He managed to repair the tissue and stop any internal bleeding.
That was hours ago. It was now three in the morning and the hallway outside was quiet, despite Dean sitting outside the door.
We were no longer on the prisoner floor, and I suspected Haley had something to do with that.
The rest of the group were down in the waiting room last I heard.
Gwen and Haley brought me a change of clothes, and I showered in here.
I didn’t remember eating it but there were scraps of a grilled cheese sandwich on the tray by the window.
Uncle Sullie came in briefly and broke down in front of me.
He took my face in his big hands and kissed my forehead.
His words are engraved in my mind and would be until the day I left this planet.
My sins were the cause of your nightmares, and I will never forgive myself for it.
I told him protecting this city from monsters wasn’t a sin. Jer hadn’t come by, not that I expected him to, but it still hurt like hell. James came in shortly after Collin was brought back from surgery. He stood at the end of the bed and stared at the man before focusing on me.
You were right, by the way. He has saved countless lives, but I will be in his debt because of her.
My soul was hopeful James would help Collin, but I knew it was out of his hands. Deacon, the masked man who brought us into the tunnel, was in custody at the field office, being questioned. Casey stopped by to tell me and also slipped me a note from him as well.
He’ll survive. Mr. Stevens is the strongest man I know. I sent word to the island. They are laying low.
Movement to my right caused me to jump. Dr. Stevens came in, wincing at my reaction. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s alright.” God, my voice.
I sounded like I had been smoking for forty years.
I sat back in the chair, putting a foot on the edge of the seat, and watched the doctor work.
He was very diligent. He told me the bullet was still in Collin’s heart and that it was too dangerous to remove it.
It was extremely rare to have a bullet embed itself into the heart and the victim survive, but my demon did.
“You're a good woman.”
I blinked and looked up from my hand wrapped around Collin’s tattooed one. Dr. Stevens gave me a warm smile as he gestured to my lover. “The love you have for him is breathtaking.”
I struggled to swallow the lump in my throat, but I found myself nodding, wiping my tears with the back of my free hand. He sighed and came around the bed to get eye level with me.
“I am going to be forward with you, Ms. Jones.”
Another nod.
“This man shouldn’t be alive. In fact, he should have died ten minutes after he was shot,” he said softly. I whimpered and covered my mouth. “Collin Stevens isn’t alive because of some doctor, darling. He's alive because of you. The love you have for each other is the reason he kept fighting.”
My hand fell away. “That’s not very logical for you to say, Doc,” I hiccupped.
He chuckled. “I may be a doctor, but I was raised in a house full of love. I have also seen cases, like this and the victim doesn’t survive. But they didn’t have a woman like you by their side.” He gave me a small smile and put his hands in the pocket of his white coat.
“Everyone hates him. My family hates him. My friends hate him.” I didn’t know why I was admitting all of this to a stranger, but the words just fell from my mouth. “What if he wakes up, and I can’t get them to love him?” My chin wobbled.
“Then you just gotta love for them. You can do it.” With that, he gave me a wink and assured me he would be back to check in at sunrise.
Slowly, I looked at Collin’s face, memorizing every centimeter, from his perfect eyebrows, sharp cheekbones, straight nose, to his full lips. He was a work of art, art I could die staring at. I let out a sigh and shifted in my seat, burying my face in my palms.
We would get through this. We had to. There was no other option for me—for us.
On unsteady legs, I rose up and pressed my lips to his forehead.
“I’ll do it, Col. I’ll love you for all of them. I’ll be the one to give you the love you deserve,” I croaked, my tears falling onto his skin. “Just come back to me, okay? Don’t leave me. I can’t live a single day without you on this Earth.”
****
Haley
“Princess, you're going to pace a hole in the new floor.”
I pulled my thumb away from my mouth. I’d been chewing on my nails for the last six hours. At this point, I was surprised I even had any left.
“How about you distract me and tell me why in the world we're in a new building? What the hell happened to your old apartment?” I turned to find him resting his forearms on his knees. He’d been watching me pace back and forth in front of this tiny ass window for the last thirty minutes.
A shadow fell over his face as his brow came together.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to, Haley.”
The tone in his voice caused my steps to falter. “What happened?”
His jaw tightened as he turned his head to the side. “I lost control.”
My feet began moving again, this time toward him, not stopping until I was right in front of him. “Tell me,” I demanded, running my fingers through his dark locks.
He put his forehead against my stomach, and his arms snaked up my thighs and around me. “We don’t have to talk about this now,” he sighed. He was exhausted.
“Fine, then we can talk about Collin.”
He looked to the ceiling. “Jesus,” he muttered.
“The big man upstairs has nothing to do with this, James Garner,” I quipped, pulling his hair a bit. “Are you sending the man who saved me to jail?”
He let go of me then, standing up and walking to the hideous tiny window.
I hated this apartment. We were far away from everyone.
It was outside the city, and it smelled like chemicals.
We finally got the bad guy; I was not dying because of some stupid apartment the Bureau shacked us up in.
I had a life to live. But I couldn’t live my life until I knew my friend got to live his—which would be with Kay by his side.
We all deserved to be fucking happy, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to fight for that.
“Haley, he was a hitman.”
“He killed bad people. You do that, and I don’t see you in prison.”
His hand was in his hair, and as it fell to his side, those dark eyes looked me up and down. “Maybe I should be.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he barked, grabbing my shoulders. “Do you know how hellbent I was when it came to finding you? If you knew the shit I've done since the night I lost you…”
Shaking my head, I cupped his face. “I love—no, James, look at me. I love you. We have all done –”
“If you say some bullshit line…” he growled. My hands fell away from him, and I took a step back, pointing at him.
“Fine. I’ll say what I really want to say.”
He tilted his head, and I raised my chin higher. “Fuck you, James Garner. Fuck you for thinking I can’t handle it. I was kidnapped and beaten by men who thrived on nightmares and pain. But guess what? I survived. Me. All because of him!”
My agent’s throat bobbed as he watched me let it all out.
“You are an FBI agent. You just took down a huge piece of the sex trafficking rings—Romano’s rings. And you want to know who led you to them? Collin! For you to stand there and assume I can’t handle the things you did—things that you did in order to save me—”
He rushed to me, gripping the hair at the back of my neck.
“You want to know what I did? Hm? After you were taken from me, I nearly killed Jeremy Jones,” he clipped, his nostrils flared as he stared down at my face.
He held me against him firmly. “Then, when Dean pulled me off of him, I went to every single mafia cunt lying dead in the streets and shot them three more times. In. The. Face.”
“James,” I breathed, my heart breaking for him.
“I made each one of them unrecognizable. They didn’t deserve to have a fucking identity.
They took what was mine, hurt what was mine.
” His fist tightened in my hair, yanking my head back slightly.
He looked like a madman. “You got it all wrong, princess. You can handle anything life throws at you. It’s who you are.
You are strong, Haley. You are a fighter.
You fight for the people you love, and goddammit, that only makes me love you more. ”
“Keep going,” I whispered as my hands held onto the sides of his shirt.
“You hear about Tipponi?”
I nodded. “Kay and Collin went to California to visit his daughter.”
He bared his teeth and got an inch from my face. “I tied him to a chair and forced him to tell me everything. And after?”
I waited. We needed this. His mask was finally off, and there would never be another one to cover him up again. His faults. His mistakes. His tainted soul. They were all mine, and I love every single one.
“I unloaded a clip into his face and left him for dead in my apartment.”
Tears formed in my eyes, and I nodded.
“That’s why you're in this apartment with shitty little windows I know you hate.”
“They're fine,” I whispered as I pulled my hands up his back, loving the way he felt in my arms, how warm and solid he was.
“You still love me?” he snapped.
“Even after my heart stops, James, I will always love you.”
He groaned and pressed a harsh kiss against my lips. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Yes, you do. You fought for me. You never stopped fighting for me, even when I was the one pushing you away.” He backed us up, sitting on the bed and bringing me into his lap.
I wrapped him in a tight embrace, resting my cheek on his head.
We stayed silent for a few minutes, listening to each other’s breathing.
“I missed you,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.
“I missed you too.”
“I can’t blame you for being brave, beautiful,” he admitted. When we were in the interrogation room, part of me knew it was both of us running high on emotions, fear, and lust. We both walked out of there surrounded by love, and even though it was wounded, I knew we would heal.
“Is Ray Romano really dead?”
James’ head left my body, and he looked up at me, raising a brow. “His body looks like a piece of swiss cheese, Haley. Why are you asking me that?”
I began to count off my fingers. “He was supposed to die at his Sunday dinner with Gwen’s dagger in his chest. Then, months later, he shows up at my company event.
According to Kay, Collin blew up a building with Romano inside of it.
Then, days later, he kidnaps Karina.” I sucked in a breath.
“I just need to know if I need to be prepared or is this finally over?”
Amusement danced in his eyes and he rose up on his feet. He gripped my chin as his other hand pressed my body against his once more. “It’s really over. Ray Romano is dead. His body is being shipped to Washington.”
“Washington?” I asked, putting my hands on his chest.
“Yes. Don’t ask me about that. That shit is above my pay grade.”
A different type of tension settled in the air. Unfamiliar. I looked up at him. “Where do we go from here, James?”
He lowered his face, and as his lips brushed against mine, he whispered, “Wherever you go, I will be by your side. You want to explore the world? I’ll make the travel arrangements. You want to go back to New York? Our apartment is waiting. You want to stay here—”
“I am not living in this apartment, James. The windows are tiny,” I said, leaning back.
He smirked down at me, and my lips twitched in response.
“You are my everything, Haley Austen. I’ll make sure you have everything you want.”
“And what if I want to stay here in St. Louis? What if I want you to actually turn in that badge for good?”
His hand slid into my hair, pulling me back into him. “Consider it done, princess.” His lips met mine and just for a moment, I could taste our happy ending.
We just had to get through the rest of this shitshow first…