Chapter Thirty
The department finally began to slow sometime after three in the morning.
The chaos had dulled at the edges, the waiting room thinning, the constant ringing and shouting settling into something less frantic.
My body ached with exhaustion. Every muscle heavy.
Every thought slower than it should have been.
More than normal. Like I’d been weightlifting tension all shift.
I stood at the nurses’ station, scanning through Magnet’s post-op notes on the screen in front of me, cold coffee untouched beside the keyboard.
Emergency exploratory laparotomy. Splenic rupture. Significant internal bleeding. Bullet lodged posteriorly beneath the scapula. Massive transfusion protocol initiated. Ventilated and sedated in intensive care. Critical but stable.
Stable.
Such a deceptive word.
I rubbed my eyes briefly, reading through the observations again despite already knowing them. Blood pressure stabilising. Oxygenation improving. Drain output slowing. It should have reassured me. It didn’t.
“He’s a tough bastard.”
The voice made me glance up. Indie stood on the opposite side of the station, forearms resting against the counter, his cut hanging open over a dark hoodie. He looked exhausted too. The hard kind of exhausted that came from carrying responsibility for too many people at once.
“You should be home,” I murmured.
A faint smile touched his mouth. “Same could be said for you, Doc.”
I glanced back at the screen. “He was lucky.”
“Magnet always is. That’s why we called him Magnet. No matter what happened, luck always found him, like he was a magnet for it,” Indie continued when I cocked my head to the side.
Indie’s gaze moved to the notes for a moment before settling back on me.
Calm. Steady. But I didn’t miss the authority that rolled off him.
It was nothing like my father. Not oppressive.
Not sharp-edged and demanding obedience.
Indie’s control felt different. Quiet. Certain.
Like no matter how bad things got, he would stand in the middle of the chaos and force it back into line.
“But this time, luck had fuck all to do with it,” he answered quietly. “You saved him.”
“I…I…he’s not out of the woods yet.”
I didn’t quite know what to do with praise from men like them. Men, I’d spent most of my life being warned about. Men, I was increasingly beginning to understand weren’t monsters at all. Dangerous? If you harmed what was theirs. Violent? When it called for it. But not monsters.
My father would hate how easily that thought came now.
“You can see him if you want,” I offered after a moment. “He’s still sedated.”
Indie nodded once. “Suzy’s with Emmie downstairs getting a drink. Thought I’d check before she goes up.”
I moved away from the station, leading him through the quieter corridor towards ICU. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Somewhere nearby, a patient coughed violently behind a curtain.
“You always this calm?” Indie asked suddenly as we walked.
“No.”
That earned a soft huff of amusement from him.
“You hide it well, then.”
I shrugged slightly. “Patients need their doctors calm.”
“Aye,” he answered. “S’ppose they do.”
We reached the unit’s doors. I pushed through first, the familiar smell of antiseptic and machinery wrapping around me instantly. Magnet lay in the corner bed space, pale against white sheets, tubes and wires everywhere. Machines breathed for him in slow, rhythmic sighs.
Indie stood silently beside the bed for a long moment. Not touching him. Just there. Present.
“He’d hate this,” he muttered eventually.
I glanced sideways at him. “Most men like him do.”
That earned another faint smile. Sad this time. The doors to the unit opened again behind us, and quieter footsteps entered. Emmie first. Petite. Curvy. Light copper hair tied up messily. One hand wrapped protectively around a takeaway coffee while the other guided Suzy beside her.
Suzy looked wrecked. Eyes swollen red raw from crying.
Fear still clinging to her like a second skin.
And behind them, an older woman shuffled slowly into the ward, carrying a plastic shopping bag and wearing a thick knitted cardigan over a floral dress, like she’d walked out of somebody’s family kitchen rather than into intensive care.
“We don’t normally allow so many visitors at once,” I muttered to Indie. “Don’t stay too long, but I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”
The older woman’s sharp eyes landed on me immediately.
“Well,” she announced softly into the silence. “You’re prettier than Reap said.”
I blinked in surprise.
“Mamma Dot,” Indie warned tiredly.
“What?” she frowned. “Girl’s been saving lives all bloody night. She deserves a compliment.”
I smiled. Just slightly. Mamma Dot marched straight past all of us to Magnet’s bedside, tutting under her breath as she adjusted his blanket like she was tucking a child into bed. If she’d pulled out a book next, it wouldn’t have surprised me.
“Men,” she muttered. “Always making work for women.”
Suzy let out the smallest, broken laugh at that, instantly dissolving into tears again. Emmie wrapped an arm around her shoulders immediately.
“He’s gonna wake up, pet,” Mamma Dot soothed gently. “And when he does, we’ll remind him he owes Sophie flowers and chocolates for all this fuss.”
My chest tightened unexpectedly at how naturally they folded me into the conversation. Like I already belonged somewhere near the edges of their world.
Dangerous thought. Very dangerous.
Mamma Dot turned back towards me then, studying me openly. Not hostile, just assessing.
“You’ve brought that spark back into our lad’s eyes.”
Heat crept unexpectedly into my face. “I don’t know about that.”
“Oh, I do,” she dismissed easily. “That boy’s walked around like a ghost for years. Then suddenly he’s wearing new clothes and eating properly again and actually answering his bloody phone.”
“Mamma Dot,” Indie sighed.
“What? I’m old, not blind.” Her eyes flicked back to me, softening slightly. “He always loved you, pet.”
The words landed harder than they should have. I looked away first, my gaze falling back to Magnet’s monitors. Steady beeping. Artificial breathing. Safe things. Easier things.
“My father would disagree with you.”
It slipped out. The thought that had formed in my head, let loose like I was being interrogated. The room quietened slightly at that. Not awkward exactly. More careful.
Mamma Dot snorted softly. “Your dad always saw what he wanted to see.”
My stomach tightened.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Indie shifted slightly then, subtle but noticeable. Watching Mamma Dot now. Measuring her words before she spoke them. But the older woman just shrugged.
“Only that Reap was a good lad before all that trouble. Loyal. Bit wild maybe, but what young lad isn’t?” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “And some people around you were very motivated to make sure he stayed away from you.”
I stared at her. Not quite understanding. Or maybe understanding too much. Indie shot Mamma Dot a warning look, but the older woman waved it off dismissively.
“I’m not saying your father planted evidence or hired hitmen, pet,” she muttered.
“Just saying the police were very interested in Reap very quickly back then. It was all a little too convenient. And the sentence? What you’d expect, but Reap never did get out on good behaviour like anyone else would. ”
My chest tightened sharply. Ryan’s face flashed through my head. His nightmares. The scars hidden beneath tattoos. The quiet way he’d said I was just a kid. Indie stepped in smoothly before the silence could sharpen further.
“Mamma Dot also thinks Elvis works at Greggs.”
She gasped. “That man has the exact same hips.”
And just like that, the tension cracked enough for Suzy to laugh wetly through her tears again. Even I smiled despite the storm now building quietly inside my chest. But the seed had already been planted. And judging by the look Indie gave me across the room, he knew it too.
*****
The next few days settled into a strange sort of routine. Magnet improved. Slowly. Painfully. But enough.
Enough for the ventilator to come out. Enough for the sedation to lighten. Enough for him to open his eyes and mutter insults at his brothers while Suzy cried all over him and Emmie threatened to smother him with his own pillow if he scared them like that again.
The club rotated through ICU constantly. Brothers in cuts lingering quietly beside machines and monitors like they belonged there now. They brought noise with them. Presence. Life. Even the nurses had stopped looking startled every time leather filled the corridors.
And somehow, somewhere in the middle of it all, I’d become part of it too.
Mamma Dot started appearing near the end of my shifts, carrying plastic tubs full of homemade dinners wrapped in tea towels. Cottage pie. Broth. Sausage casserole. Panacalty.
“You’re all skin and bad decisions,” she’d mutter every time I protested.
And every time, I ate it.
Suzy and I started sitting together in the quieter moments. Sometimes talking. Sometimes not. Just existing side by side while machines breathed and monitors beeped around us. Ryan came when he could. Never making demands on my time. Never asking for more than I could give.
But always there. Like somewhere along the line, without either of us noticing, he’d become something steady in the middle of all this chaos.
And in all the noise and bustle of leather, brothers and a family I’d never asked for but apparently needed, my father messaged.
‘Your car hasn’t moved in five days.’
My stomach tightened instantly. Somehow my father still reached in. Still watched. Still controlled. I stared at the screen a moment before replying.
‘I’m staying with a friend’.
The typing dots appeared almost immediately.
‘Does this friend wear a cut and ride a Triumph Rocket?’
Ice slid down my spine. I lifted my head automatically, gaze darting towards the hospital entrance beyond the waiting room windows, even though I knew he wouldn’t be there himself. My father never dirtied his own hands when someone else could do it for him.
Another message appeared before I could answer.
‘You’re making dangerous decisions, Sophie.’
My fingers tightened around the phone. Suddenly I was seventeen again. Watching windows. Explaining myself. Being monitored so subtly that everyone else mistook it for protection. Except now I could finally see it for what it really was.
Control.