26. Lena
Lena
I’m still shaking when Knox’s phone rings.
Not dramatically. Just those aftershocks that come when your body hasn’t caught up with what just happened to it.
My knees are sore against the carpet. My mouth feels swollen.
I’m only just starting to come back into myself, pulling breath in slowly, trying to get my head clear, trying not to think too hard about the fact that I just came on the floor between two men while they watched me.
Then the ringtone cuts through the room. Something tells me the call is important.
Knox answers on the first ring.
I don’t hear much at first, just the way his whole face alters. Whatever heat was in him a second ago is gone so fast it’s almost frightening. His body tightens. His voice drops into something clipped and hard. “What happened?”
I look from him to Havoc.
He’s watching Knox, no trace of a smile left on him. Just focus.
I push myself upright too quickly and have to grab the edge of the bed to steady myself. My legs feel unreliable. My heart is still racing from the orgasm, but the reason for it has changed so abruptly my body doesn’t know where to put the panic.
Knox says, “Where are you?”
And I know.
Even before he says the name, I know.
Vale.
Something cold moves through me. The room feels wrong all of a sudden, the air heavy and stale and too warm against the fear rising in my chest.
Havoc is already pulling up his pants.
Knox says something else into the phone, sharper this time, and then the line goes silent. He stares at the screen for half a second like it might come back to life if he demands hard enough.
It doesn’t.
“What?” I ask. “What happened?”
Knox looks at me. “He was attacked,” he says.
The words hit me hard enough that I actually sway.
Havoc is moving already, grabbing his shirt, his gun, whatever he needs. Knox is doing the same, dressing at speed, every motion stripped down to purpose.
My mind trips over itself trying to catch up.
“Attacked where?”
“Your building.”
The room tilts.
For one stupid second I think of Vale in my apartment, in my kitchen, touching my things, packing my life into a bag for me because I didn’t want to lose the last of what felt like mine. And then I think of him on the ground outside it, hurt, bleeding, calling Knox.
I shake my head once, too hard. “No.”
Havoc looks at Knox. “How bad?”
“He was still conscious when he called.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s what I have.”
I’m already reaching for my shoes, for my jacket, for anything, because there is no version of this where I stay behind while Vale is lying hurt somewhere because of me.
“I’m coming.”
Both of them look at me.
“No,” Knox says immediately.
I stare at him. “Are you out of your mind?”
“It won’t be safe.”
“It’s not safe here either,” I shoot back.
Havoc is tugging on his boots now, moving faster than I’ve seen him move all day. “He’s right.”
I turn on him. “Don’t.”
His expression doesn’t change. “If whoever hit Vale is still there, bringing you is a bad idea.”
“You think I care?”
“Yes,” Knox says. “That’s the problem.”
The room is closing in. I can still feel the heat of what happened a minute ago on my skin, and now I hate it. Hate how quickly the body can go from pleasure to dread, how one thing can still be echoing through your nerves while the next thing is already tearing the ground out from under you.
“I’m not staying here wondering if he’s dying,” I say.
Knox crosses the room in two strides and catches my shoulders before I can push past him. “He is not dying.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” he says. “I don’t. But standing in our way won’t help him.”
I stare at him. “No?”
“It won’t be safe.”
“It’s not safe here either.”
“That’s not the point.” His voice is low and hard in that way of his that makes it almost impossible not to listen even when I want to fight him on principle.
“I need to be able to look at him and decide whether he needs a hospital without worrying about taking you somewhere public,” he says.
“If I’m making that call, I cannot also be wondering whether you’re exposed. ”
That stops me.
Not because I like it. Because it makes horrible, practical sense.
I look past him at Havoc, hoping for something less reasonable and knowing that’s stupid even as I do it.
But Havoc shakes his head once. “Not this time.”
“Don’t do that,” I say. “Don’t act like I’m supposed to just stay put and be good while you go deal with it.”
His mouth tightens. “This isn’t about being good.”
“It feels like it.”
He exhales through his nose, frustrated now, but not with me exactly. “Lena.”
“No.”
I know it and I still want to go. Maybe because Vale went there for me. Maybe because he got hurt for me. Maybe because if I stay here while they disappear out that door, I have to sit alone with that truth.
Havoc steps closer then, already dressed, already armed, and for once there’s no joke waiting on his mouth. “We’ll get him,” he says.
His eyes stay on mine. Then, without a word, he reaches into his jacket, pulls out the spare key card, and presses it into my palm.
I look down at it. The thin rectangle feels absurdly light for how much it suddenly means. They’re not locking me in. They’re letting me make a decision and trusting that I will stay.
I curl my fingers around the key card.
The fight is still there. I still want to go. Still want to see Vale with my own eyes and know how bad it is instead of imagining worse. But the sharp edge of panic shifts shape around the little piece of plastic in my hand.
Knox says, “Don’t open the door for anyone but us. If Vale can walk, I bring him back here. If he can’t, I decide from there.”
“You decide,” I repeat.
“Yes.”
Because he used to be a combat medic, I think. Because this isn’t new to him in the way it is to me. Because he knows how to look at blood and breathing and pupils and decide whether someone can be moved or whether moving them is what kills them.
I say, “And if it’s bad?”
Knox holds my eyes. “Then I deal with bad.”
I don’t know how long I wait.
Long enough for the room to change shape around me.
Footsteps on the walkway. A door opening three rooms down. A car engine starting. Voices that drift and vanish before I can decide whether they belong to anybody I should fear.
I sit for a while.
Then I stand.
Then I pace.
Then I sit again.
The key card Knox left me is still in my hand half the time, like I need the weight of it to keep from doing something stupid.
I keep checking my phone even though it’s dead and useless and not even mine, just something Knox shoved into my hands before he left so I wouldn’t feel completely cut off from the world.
I tell myself Vale was conscious when he called.
I tell myself Knox knows what he’s doing.
Then there’s a knock.
Not loud. Just two quick hits against the door.
I’m moving before I think. The lock clicks back, and I pull the door open.
Vale is there. Bruised, pale, upright only because Knox and Havoc have him between them. One of his eyes is swollen almost completely shut, the skin around it already darkening. His mouth is split at one corner. There’s dried blood at his temple. He looks wrecked.
The relief hits me so hard it almost hurts.
Vale sees the door open and says, voice rough, “Rookie move. Opened it without confirming.”
I don’t even care. I throw my arms around him.
It’s not careful. It’s not thought through. I just do it. I feel him go still for half a second in surprise, then let out a breath that sounds like pain and relief getting tangled together.
“Sorry,” I say immediately, loosening enough not to crush whatever’s already broken.
“You should be,” he mutters. “That hurt.”
But there’s no edge in it.
I shut the door fast and lock it behind them while Knox gets him to the bed. Havoc helps lower him down with surprising care, then steps back and rolls his shoulder like he’s worked harder than he wants to admit.
“Sit,” Knox tells Vale.
Vale gives him a look with his one good eye. “Excellent suggestion. Was planning a jog.”
Knox doesn’t react. He’s already opening the medical kit from under the sink like he knew exactly where everything was before he came in. Maybe he did. Maybe men like him always know where the exits, the weapons, and the bandages are.
Havoc leans against the dresser, breathing a little harder than usual, trying to look normal. He doesn’t say anything about the fact that I’m still standing exactly where they left me.
Neither does Knox.
But I notice both of them notice. I didn’t leave.
Something eases in the room because of that, just for a second. Not enough to call it comfort. Enough to feel.
Knox kneels in front of Vale with the kit and starts working.
Vale hisses when antiseptic hits skin. “You enjoy this too much.”
“No,” Knox says. “You just make it difficult to stay polite.”
I move closer before I realize I’m doing it. “How bad is it?”
Knox doesn’t look up. “Concussion, maybe mild if he’s lucky. Bruised ribs. Wrist’s ugly but not broken. He’ll live.”
“That glowing bedside manner again,” Vale mutters.
Havoc’s mouth twitches. “You look awful, if that helps.”
Vale lifts his good eye toward him. “You always know what to say.”
I look between all three of them and then back at Vale. “Who did it?”
That quiets the room.
Knox keeps working but slower now, listening.
Vale stares at the carpet for a second, then says, “I didn’t see him.”
My chest tightens. “But?” I ask.
He exhales through his nose, one hand braced on the mattress while Knox tapes gauze over the worst cut. “I heard his voice.”
No one says anything.
Vale looks up then, straight at Knox first, then at Havoc, then finally at me. “I think it was my father.”
The words sit there for a second without meaning anything.
Then they mean too much.
I stare at him. “I thought you said he died.”
“I thought he did too.”
Knox’s hands stop completely for the first time since they walked in.
Havoc straightens off the dresser.