Chapter 27 Stay With Me
TWENTY-SEVEN
STAY WITH ME
TROY
Pain dragged me back to consciousness in slow increments.
My ribs ached with every breath. My head felt like it had been split open and poorly stitched back together. Even my eyelids protested when I tried to open them, the effort requiring more energy than I had to spare.
But I was alive.
The realization came with a rush of disorientation that made the room spin before I'd even fully opened my eyes.
I was lying down on a surface that was too soft to be concrete.
Clean sheets instead of damp floor. The smell of antiseptic instead of mold and blood.
Steady beeping from the machines I couldn't see yet.
A hospital.
Which meant I'd made it out of the warehouse. Meant Rafael was gone. Meant I wasn't chained to a floor waiting for the next round of waterboarding or the psychological torture designed to break me into pieces.
Declan.
I forced my eyes open despite the way the light stabbed through my skull. Blinked against the brightness until the room came into focus. White walls. Medical equipment. A window showing the gray Chicago sky beyond glass that looked smudged with old rain.
And there, slumped in the chair beside my bed with his head tipped back against the wall and the exhaustion carved into every line of his face, was Declan.
He was alive. Bruised to hell and back with a fresh line of stitches running across his temple and his left arm in a sling, but alive and breathing and here.
I must have made a noise because his eyes opened immediately. Went from half-asleep to fully alert in the space of a heartbeat. He sat forward and winced at the movement, his gaze locking onto mine with an intensity that made my throat close up.
“Troy.” My name came out rough and wrecked, like he'd been saying it over and over while I was unconscious and hadn't quite believed I'd answer. “You're awake.”
“Yeah.” My voice sounded like I'd been gargling glass. “How long was I out?”
“Thirty-six hours. Give or take.” He reached for the water pitcher on the table beside my bed and poured a cup with the hands that shook just enough to make the plastic rattle. “The doctors said you'd wake up when your body was ready. The concussion and blood loss just needed time.”
He helped me drink. Held the cup steady while I took small sips that hurt going down but eased the desert in my throat. When I'd had enough, he set it aside and just looked at me like he was cataloguing the damage and making sure I was real.
“Rafael?” I asked.
“Dead.” Declan's expression went flat and hard. “You put two bullets in him. He didn't get back up.”
The memory came back in fragments. The gun in my hand. Rafael turning toward me. The recoil jarring up my arm. His body hitting the floor.
I'd killed him.
The thought should have meant more than it did. Should have carried the weight or guilt or horror. But all I felt was the grim satisfaction that the bastard was gone and couldn't hurt anyone else.
“Good,” I said.
Declan's mouth twitched in almost a smile. “Yeah. It is.”
“Everyone else make it out?”
“Mostly.” He shifted in the chair and adjusted the sling. “Dmitri took a bullet to the shoulder. Ash has a concussion. Luka's fine, which is somehow both expected and deeply irritating. Mara showed up at the hospital threatening to kick my ass for not calling her sooner, so she's also fine.”
“And you?”
“Fractured ribs. Dislocated shoulder. Concussion number two, which the doctors were very concerned about until I told them to fuck off and let me stay with you.” His eyes met mine and held them.
“I'm fine, Troy. We all are. Rafael's people scattered once he went down.
Luka's cleaning up the rest. It's over.”
The word felt impossible. Like a concept I'd forgotten existed somewhere between the first assassination attempt and waking up chained in a basement.
“I thought you were dead,” I said quietly. “At the arena. I saw you go down. There was so much blood. They were dragging me away and I couldn't get to you.”
“I know.” Declan reached out and took my hand in his with a gentleness that made my chest ache. “Dmitri got me out. Got me stitched up. I was conscious again within an hour. And the second I could stand without falling over, we started hunting for you.”
His thumb brushed across my knuckles in a back and forth rhythm that grounded me when nothing else felt solid.
I looked at him. Really looked. Saw the exhaustion carved into his face. The bruises. The way he held himself like he was still braced for the next hit even though the fight was over.
He'd gone to war for me.
Tortured information out of Rafael's men. Fought through a warehouse full of armed guards. Almost died trying to reach me because the alternative was unthinkable.
“I love you,” I said. The words came out easier than they ever had before. “In case that wasn't clear.”
Declan's expression shifted. Went soft in a way I'd only seen glimpses of before. “It was pretty clear. But hearing you say it when you're not half-dead or in the middle of a firefight is nice.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He lifted my hand and pressed a kiss to my bruised knuckles that made my breath catch. “I love you too. Have for longer than I probably should. Definitely longer than was smart or appropriate or any of the things I told myself would keep us both safe.”
“Smart and appropriate.” I tried to smile and winced when it pulled at something in my jaw. “That ship sailed a while ago.”
“Understatement of the fucking year.” His mouth twitched. “We're a disaster.”
“Best disaster I've ever been part of.”
“That's a low bar considering your track record.”
“Fair point.” I squeezed his hand. “But I'm still keeping you.”
“Good.” He settled back in the chair but didn't let go. “Because you're stuck with me now. I killed people for you. That's pretty much a binding contract.”
“Pretty sure that's not how contracts work.”
“It's how my contracts work.”
The absurdity of it hit me then. The two of us sitting in a hospital room joking about murder and commitment like they were the same thing. Like we hadn't just survived something that should have killed us both.
Maybe that's what love looked like when you stripped away all the bullshit. Just two broken people choosing each other anyway.
“You know most people just buy a ring or some shit,” I said. “Not storm a warehouse and shoot their way through armed guards.”
“I'm not most people.”
“No. You're really fucking not.” I looked at him. At the bruises and the stitches and the exhaustion carved into every line of his face. “You're better.”
Something in his expression cracked open then. Just for a second. Just enough that I saw how much those words meant.
“I'm glad you came back,” Declan said.
“Even with everything that happened after?”
“Especially with everything that happened after.” Declan's expression went serious. “Because now I know. Now we both know what this is. We don't have to keep pretending it's just grief or guilt or any of the other excuses we used to keep from admitting the truth.”
A nurse came in then. Checked my vitals with brisk efficiency while asking questions about pain levels and nausea and whether I could remember what happened.
I answered on autopilot and watched Declan the whole time.
When she finally left us alone again, the silence felt heavier.
More loaded with the possibilities that hadn't existed before Rafael.
“Luka came by yesterday,” Declan said. “While you were still out. He wanted to make sure you were okay and to discuss what happens next.”
“Next?”
“The rehab center. Chicago. Whether it makes sense to stay here after everything Rafael did.” He shifted in the chair. “He suggested moving the main operations to London. Opening a branch at Ravenswood while Mara takes over here.”
My heart kicked against my ribs. “What did you say?”
“That I'd think about it.” He paused. “That it was a big decision. Chicago's been my home for a long time. Uprooting my entire life wasn't something I could do on a whim.”
“But?”
“But then I sat here for thirty-six hours watching you unconscious and realized staying in a city that Rafael poisoned feels wrong.” He looked at me. Really looked. I saw the hope there underneath the exhaustion and fear. “Tell me about Ravenswood.”
I blinked. “You want the sales pitch?”
“I want to know what it would mean. Moving there. Building something with you in a place I've never seen.”
So I told him.
About the mansion Adrian had built as a symbol of everything he'd survived and turned into a home for the people who needed somewhere safe to land.
About the training facilities and the massive kitchen and the library that took up an entire wing.
About the gardens that went wild when nobody was maintaining them and the rooms that sat empty waiting for the right people to fill them.
“It's too big for one person,” I said. “Even with the rotating Sentinel members coming through, half the house stays unused. But with a rehab center? With staff and clients and actual purpose? It could be something better than a monument to Adrian's trauma.”
“You'd live there too?”
“Yeah. If you came with me.” I held his gaze.
“I'm not asking you to give up Chicago for nothing, Declan.
I'm asking you to come to London and help me turn Ravenswood into a place that actually helps people instead of just housing ghosts.
Mara can run Chicago. She's earned it. And we build something new somewhere that doesn't have Rafael's blood all over it.”
“And us?” His voice went quiet. “What would we be in London?”
“Together.” The word came out simple and certain. “Not hiding. Not sneaking around. Not pretending we're just stepfather and stepson who tolerate each other out of obligation. Just us. Building a life that's ours.”
Declan was quiet for a long time. Long enough that the anxiety started crawling up my throat. Long enough that I wondered if I'd pushed too hard or asked for too much.
“I've never been to London,” he said finally.
“It rains a lot. The food's questionable. And everyone sounds like they're about to offer you tea while stabbing you.”
His mouth twitched. “Sounds charming.”
“It's home.” I squeezed his hand. “Or it could be. For both of us. If you're willing to try.”
The machines beeped in the silence that followed. Outside the window, Chicago sprawled gray and cold and familiar. The city that had raised Declan. The city I'd fled from and come back to and nearly died in.
“Ask me,” Declan said quietly.
“What?”
“Ask me to come to London. Don't just present it as an option. Ask me.”
My throat tightened. “Why?”
“Because I need to hear you say it. Need to know this isn't just logistics or convenience or you trying to solve a problem. I need to know you want me there because you want me. Not because I'm useful or because the center needs a director or because Luka suggested it.”
He was right. He deserved better than my roundabout way of saying what I actually meant.
I took his hand in both of mine and held on like he was the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth.
“Come to London with me,” I said. “Move into Ravenswood and help me build something good there. Let Mara take Chicago. Stop sacrificing yourself for a city that doesn't deserve you. Choose me the way I'm choosing you.”
His eyes were bright. Suspiciously bright in a way that made my chest ache.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
“Yes. I'll come to London. I'll move into Ravenswood with you.
I'll help build the center and trust Mara with Chicago and stop pretending I can go back to a life that doesn't have you at the center of it.” He leaned forward, careful of his injuries and mine, and pressed his forehead against mine in a gesture that felt more intimate than any kiss.
“I choose you too, Troy. I choose us. And I'm done lying to myself about what that means.”
The relief that crashed through me then was almost as overwhelming as the fear had been in Rafael's warehouse. Almost as suffocating as the water over my face. Almost as brutal as thinking Declan was dead.
But this was the opposite of drowning.
This was air.
“Now rest,” Declan said. He kissed me. Soft and careful and achingly gentle. “You're still recovering. The doctors will have my ass if I tire you out.”
“Stay?”
“I'm not going anywhere.” He settled back into the chair and kept hold of my hand. “Sleep, Troy. I'll be here when you wake up.”
I believed him.
For the first time in my life, I believed someone would stay.