Chapter 22
22
JOSS
Shortly after I started working for Lee, my boss had told me how it haunted him that he’d failed to find Levi Rebik, the teenager who’d gone missing the night they saved Kelly and Jen. I was aware of his continued efforts to find Levi and the toll it took on not only Lee, but Rylan and all of the men who were on the helicopter that night.
That’s why I tried not to complain when the hacker and ex-cop from New York found Levi, and Lee had rallied the troops to go rescue him from whatever danger he’d gotten dragged into.
But it was hard. Rylan had already gotten shot at, and that was just chasing down a single asshole who ended up not having much to do with the teen’s disappearance at all. Now, Rylan was going on a covert mission in another state. I’d seen the cases of weapons they’d loaded into their vehicles before they left for the airport. No matter how many times Rylan promised me he’d be safe, I had a sinking feeling something was going to go wrong.
That’s why, when a knock sounded on my apartment door in the middle of the night, I’d jumped out of bed and raced to answer it before my brain had processed that Rylan had a key and wouldn’t have needed to knock. Not finding him on the other side of the door left my tired brain reeling.
“Jen?” Out in the hallway stood our very pregnant accountant and her husband, Vinny Leonetti. “What’s going on?”
Jen gave me a smile that felt off. “Hey Joss. Mind if we come in?”
“Sure, sure. Come on in.” I stepped back immediately, worried something was wrong with her or her baby. “Are you doing okay? Do you need help?”
Vinny shut the door behind them, then turned his attention to me. “Why don’t we sit down?”
I glanced at my second-hand couch, then at the too-fancy-for-four-a.m. clothes that Vinny was wearing, and self-consciousness hit me like a baseball bat. This millionaire was too far removed from my measly lifestyle to be here right now, asking to sit on my ratty furniture. I motioned that way, my gut churning as I waited for Jen to take a seat. She patted the cushion beside her, then motioned to me to join her on the couch.
Once I was seated, she gave me another of those smiles, and it had my shoulders rising toward my ears even as I clutched my hands in my lap.
“What’s going on?” I repeated. “Is everything okay?”
“There’s been a, umm… an accident,” Jen started before she was reaching to cover my hands with one of hers. “Everyone’s okay, but…”
“But what?” I asked as a chill raced through me.
Vinny tugged at his shirtsleeves and cleared his throat. “Rylan was shot in the leg.” He held up his hands and stepped forward before I even realized I’d stood up. “It’s okay, Joss. He’s going to be alright.”
My legs shook and I felt like I was going to collapse. I could barely speak through the ache in my throat. “What happened?”
Jen grabbed my hand again, holding it gently as I lowered myself to the couch. “There was a shootout at the warehouse they went to. Rylan caught a bullet as they were advancing on the room they had Levi in. But they had a doctor with him, Joss. Rylan had medical treatment within minutes of getting hit. He’s going to be okay.”
He’s going to be okay.
Could I believe that? When everything inside of me told me this could happen, could I believe that I could keep Rylan now that I finally had him again?
I wasn’t sure I could.
My mind raced. I glanced toward my fish tank and saw Gary tucked in the corner, asleep. No one knew about Rylan and I being together. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him about it since I confessed my love for him, because that in itself seemed monumental. I couldn’t let on that we were anything more than friends, not without talking to him first.
“Is everyone else okay?” I asked, dragging my gaze back from the tank, my voice barely squeezing out.
Vinny gave a smile that was somehow more comforting than the one his wife wore. “Everyone else is fine. They found Levi and brought down a financial scheme that could have cost thousands of people their livelihoods.”
My eyes burned and I blinked repeatedly to try to stem the flow of tears. “Good. That’s good.”
“Oh, Joss.” Jen wrapped her arms around me, and those damn tears drenched the fabric of her coat. “He’s going to be okay.”
“No…I…” I pulled away and wiped the heel of my palm across my cheeks. “I’m just…”
I couldn’t even force myself to say it. That I was glad no one else was hurt. There was no room for that gratitude in my heart. Not right now.
Still. I summoned up the lie. “I’m glad no one else is hurt. Thank you for coming to tell me.”
Jen’s face crumpled for a split second before she was looking over her shoulder at her husband. Vinny perched himself on the arm rest at her back, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay, Joss.” Jen grabbed my hand again. My hand, which was wet with tears.
“I’m sorry.” I pulled away and grabbed a tissue out of the box under the coffee table. “It’s just… overwhelming. And I’m…” I wiped my eyes and blew my nose. “I’m just really emotional right now. The guys are my family. I’d feel this way about any of them.”
“Would you?” Jen asked, and that one question had my eyes going wide as my heart thudded in my chest.
“Of course!” I tucked my hair behind my ear. “Of course, I would!”
“It’s interesting,” Vinny said, tugging at his sleeves once more. “Zo? and I were digging into backgrounds—it’s something she does for fun.” Zo?, the hacker who’d unearthed the truth about Levi’s whereabouts and found him when Lee, Vinny, and their friends hadn’t been able to in over a year. “And we happened to find that Rylan Dennis is married.”
It felt like someone was squeezing the life out of me, my entire body growing heavy and weak.
Vinny continued as if what was going on inside me didn’t matter at all. “He got married in Vegas almost four years ago. To someone named Joslyn Ward.” He shrugged, glancing toward the fish in their tank. “Even more interesting is that Joslyn Ward moved to Chicago and changed her name a few years ago. She now goes by Joslyn Monroe.”
“Please don’t tell.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. I slapped my hands over my lips, as if I could somehow stuff them back in.
“That you and Rylan are married?” Vinny asked.
“Any of it. Please, we… Oh God.” I curled around myself, fear at losing him lining my insides. “I left him, okay? Nobody knows.”
A tear ran down my cheek. I pressed a hand to my chest to try to stem the pain that had popped up. Jen was looking at me like I’d gone insane. I squeezed my eyes shut, if for no other reason than to not have to see that look on her face.
My voice was pitched too high when I tried to explain. “I was seeing someone else and broke up with him right before I met Rylan. We spent the most amazing day together and we both got swept up in each other, and we got married. But I left him to try to deal with my ex and… and…” I looked at the two of them. “I didn’t get his number. I didn’t know how to contact him.”
“How’d you find him again?” Vinny asked. “Zo? couldn’t find any record of the two of you having any contact until you started working here.”
I heard Rylan’s voice in my ear as if he was sitting right next to me. You’re my lucky charm.
My shoulders lifted toward my ears, and I curled in on myself. “I don’t know? Pure luck, I guess.”
Jen beamed, and for the first time since I opened the door, it didn’t feel off. “That’s amazing! I can’t believe you started working for the same company he worked for.”
“Must be fate,” Vinny murmured, and my chest clenched.
“You know,” Jen said, sobering a little before reaching for my blessedly dry hand once more, “Rylan’s going to need help when he gets out of the hospital. Lee’s mentioned his family isn’t around?”
I shook my head. Rylan rarely talked about his parents, but I knew he was unlikely to get help from them.
“Vinny hated it when he left the hospital, and I kept having to do things for him.”
“But I couldn’t have done it without her,” Vinny said, fingering a lock of Jen’s long brown hair.
“What happened?” I asked, as much out of curiosity as to get the spotlight turned away from me.
Jen turned her eyes toward the ceiling as she tilted her head. “He caught pneumonia after jumping into Lake Michigan in the middle of winter to try to save me.”
Vinny grimaced. “She ended up saving me, in more ways than one.”
“He was so weak,” Jen said, patting Vinny’s hand on her shoulder. “He needed help with everything, even eating and going to the bathroom.”
“I had no energy. Lost half my strength to that hospital bed.”
“And Rylan’s going to need help too.” Jen looked at me expectantly. When I didn’t respond, she said, “He’s going to need you, Joss.”
I need him too.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.
“Why haven’t you told anyone about your marriage?” Vinny asked quietly. “I mean, we know you’re married, but we all thought your husband wasn’t in the picture. And when I found out it was Rylan…”
I shrugged. “We weren’t exactly on good terms when I started here. And even though we are now, we just… I don’t know, we haven’t talked about it. And I don’t want anyone to know until we have a chance to figure it out together.”
“That’s going to make it harder?—”
Jen covered his hand on her shoulder again. “But we’ll make it work.” She smiled. “I’ll do what I can to help you, Joss. I’ll cover the front desk when you need me. Maybe you can take some time off to help him for a while.”
“We’ll both do whatever we can. But”—I cringed, waiting for the ball to drop—“if Lee asks me, I can’t lie to him.”
My eyes welled with tears again. “Thank you. Thank you both.”
“The doctor said Rylan will likely be in the hospital for a few days,” Vinny said. “The wound is going to require surgery and he’s not going to be able to walk on it for a while. The hospital advised he shouldn’t be moved until after surgery, so he’s going to be stuck in Kansas until they release him.”
“But we’ll get him home for you, won’t we Vinny?” Jen turned her face up to her husband and I had to look away.
I wanted, more than anything, to be able to look at Rylan like that. To have him look at me the way Vinny looked at her, in public and not just behind closed doors.
“Of course. We’ll bring him home just as soon as we can.”
The two of them ensured I would be okay before they left. Jen gave me the biggest hug and told me to call if I needed anything, but all I could think of was that I needed Rylan home with me.
There was no possibility of sleep after that. Until Rylan was here, in my apartment or his, I wasn’t sure I’d sleep again.