Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DELANEY HAD SEEN BLOOD before, but not like this, and not oozing out of someone she cared about.
She dropped to her knees on the sidewalk beside Donovan, and her hands found the wound before conscious thought completed itself.
The bullet had hit him below the vest, which meant the vest had done nothing for him.
She couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or dumb luck, but neither option made the next few minutes any less urgent.
“Deke.” She pressed both palms hard against his side, not sure where she knew to do that. Probably some television show. She felt the warmth of the blood as it tried to get past her fingers, covering her palms. “Stay with me, Deke. Look at me.”
His eyes found hers, and she could tell that even though he seemed focused, that focus cost him some significant effort when it shouldn’t have cost him anything at all.
“I see you,” he said, his voice hoarse as he tried to force a smile.
“Good. Keep those eyes on me.”
He rested his head against the building, and she could tell he relied on the brick to hold him up more than he probably wanted.
His hand, the one not pressed over the wound with hers, lay open against the pavement in a way that struck her as deeply wrong.
His hands were never open, never unguarded, but rather always ready for whatever came next.
She pressed on the wound harder, blood seeping between her fingers.
He made a grunt that was controlled and quiet, letting her know he hurt like hell.
“I know,” she said. “I know. Keep looking at me, though.”
Behind her, organized chaos filled the street.
Someone had shot the man in the SUV who had shot Donovan.
Or several someones; she couldn’t remember what happened as her attention was purely on Donovan.
Now, Dane, his voice low and precise, called out instructions that were followed without discussion as his team moved Leon’s men over beside him by the wall.
She watched as Bobby’s teammates moved with the efficient, unhurried motions of people who had done this before, finding it uninteresting, just another day, another idiot causing trouble.
She noticed it out of the corner of her eye, the way she took notice of the traffic or weather, information that was there but not important right at that moment.
For her, the chief concern was the man on the sidewalk, spilling blood between her fingers.
Bobby stepped up beside her, his presence felt before she saw him, the air changing whenever he was close. He crouched at her side, his phone in one hand as he moved his gaze between her face and the wound with the swift, assessing look that never quite left him.
“Ambulance is coming,” she heard him say without looking at him. “Two minutes out.”
She nodded, her focus still on the marshal. “They hit him below the vest. They had to have known he was wearing one.”
Bobby pressed his lips together in a tight line, but said nothing, as he gave her a curt nod.
Donovan’s eyes had drifted, and she put her hand briefly against his face, turning him back to look at her.
“Still here,” she said, her tone firm. “Two minutes, Deke. The ambulance will be here in two minutes. You can be a tough bastard for two more minutes; I’ve seen you manage it for days at a time, so I know. ”
Something almost resembling a smile flittered across his face. “Delaney,” he whispered, his voice dry, distant.
“Don’t.” Her throat closed around the word as she felt the fist clutch her heart. “Don’t you dare say anything that even remotely sounds like goodbye.”
A weak laugh bubbled out of him. “I wasn’t.” He took a breath that was too shallow. “I was going to say you’re still putting too much pressure on my side.”
She laughed before she could help herself, rushing to adjust her hands.
Donovan exhaled, the pain on his face easing just slightly as he closed his eyes.
“I never thought it was fair,” he said after a moment, opening his eyes to look at her again.
“What?” She glanced into his eyes, her brow furrowed.
“What happened to you. Your mother walked into a federal building fifteen years ago knowing what it would cost her, what it would cost her family. Your father had agreed to follow her through it.” He sucked in a breath, his face pinching with pain once more.
“But you and your sister…” He blew out another breath.
“You didn’t get a choice. You didn’t know what was coming or even what it was really about. That wasn’t fair to either of you.”
Delaney’s eyes burned as tears pricked the edges. “Mom did what she thought was right.”
“She did, but it sucks that her doing what was right cost you everything you wanted.” He glanced over her shoulder at Bobby. “I’m glad you’re getting some of it back, though.”
She looked behind her at Bobby for the first time, smiling. “Me too.”
“I want you to know I’ve never regretted being the one assigned to keep you safe,” the marshal said. “You have an amazing family, and you’ve turned into an amazing woman.”
She pressed her lips together hard, still struggling to hold back the flow of tears that pushed to be free. “And you did it. You kept us safe. Helped me achieve everything I wanted.”
Donovan stared up into her eyes, and she saw an urgency there that the rest of his body could no longer produce. “You get the ending you wanted. Your mother bought this life for you. It just took time to find you again.”
There was no stopping the tears now, despite everything she did to prevent them. They didn’t care that she was trying her best to be brave. “You’re going to be there to see it all the way to the end.”
He said nothing as he closed his eyes, his body slipping a little down the brick wall.
The ambulance came around the corner before she could press him on it, the siren breaking the Savannah quiet as red lights bounced off the walls.
Two paramedics rushed out, racing to the back for their bags and the gurney, then moving toward her with the focused efficiency of people whose job it was to take over exactly this kind of moment.
They rushed to his other side, but she didn’t want to let go, didn’t want to step away from him, worried it would be the end.
“Ma’am.” The first paramedic, a woman with close-cropped hair and calm eyes, touched her shoulder, not pulling her away so much as suggesting it was time for her to move. “We’ve got him. You need to let us take it from here.”
“He was shot below his vest,” Delaney said, still not moving. “Entry point is here.” She indicated the area without lifting her palm. “He’s been conscious, but his breathing is rough, has been for the last few minutes because he refuses to stay quiet.”
The paramedic nodded, pulling at Delaney’s shoulder a little harder. “Got it. Thanks. Now you have to let us get to him. Please.”
Reluctantly, she moved her hand, standing and stepping back away from the man who had fought to keep her safe for the past fifteen years.
Bobby was right there, his hand at her back, and she was grateful for it in a way she could not express while she watched the paramedics work.
They moved with swift, practiced motions, talking to each other in the clipped shorthand of people who communicated in emergencies for a living.
Vitals were read off, requests for supplies made, and a vocal report of what they were doing given as they did it.
She fought the urge to wrap her arms around herself, her hands still covered with blood. “I’m going with him.”
“Delaney—” Bobby said, turning to look at her as the medics worked.
But she cut him off. “No argument. I’m going with him.” She turned to look at him, and whatever he saw in her face settled the matter, because he didn’t finish the objection. “You need to go with Leon and get the answers we need.”
“I don’t like us separating like this. It’s not smart.”
“But it’s right,” she said.
He growled as he reached down, snatching a rag from the medic and handing it to her. He then glanced over her shoulder. “Gage, Grim, I need you.”
Delaney looked over as a powerfully built, dark-haired man glanced at Bobby and then headed over, leaving the others to deal with Leon and his crew.
On the other side of the one she remembered as Dane, another man, just as brawny with shaggier hair, gave a curt nod as he followed Gage over to join them.
Grim seemed younger than she first thought, with dark, watchful eyes and a kind smile.
There was a stillness about him that differed from Hawk’s stoic immovability, more like someone who had learned the value of being underestimated.
Gage reached her first, shoving his hands into his pockets. “What’s up?”
“I need you two to follow her,” Bobby said. “She wants to go with the marshal to the hospital, and I need to find out what that idiot knows.”
The one called Grim gave a curt nod as he glanced over at her. “No problem. I’m Nash Anders. This is Samuel Garner. People call us Grim or Gage. You can call us either.”
She gave another nod. “Nash.” All the different call signs was getting a little much for her.
He accepted her choice with a smile. “We’ll be right behind you.”
She glanced back at Bobby, wanting to ask him to come with her instead, but she knew he needed to follow his own course. He would think getting Leon to talk was the chief priority, and he was probably right. They needed to get to Matteo to end this entire nightmare.
“Be careful,” she said as the medics wheeled Donovan to the back of the ambulance.
He touched her face briefly, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb gently, the contact warm, which told her he had the same wants as her. But necessity trumped wants right then. “Always,” he said, which was not remotely true, and they both knew it.
She took a deep breath and followed the paramedics.
The inside of the ambulance was all white light and organized urgency as the paramedic worked over Donovan with focused efficiency while her partner drove.
Delaney sat against the side wall, holding Donovan’s hand, which was cold, as she did her best to stay out of the way while remaining close.
She glided her thumb in small circles against his knuckles the way her mother had done to her when she wasn’t feeling well, an ache pressing down on her chest.
Donovan laid there, eyes closed, breath shallow, his face pale as the sheet he stretched out on.
She felt herself rocking back and forth slightly. “Still here,” she whispered, though she wasn’t sure he could hear her. “You’re still here. You’re going to be just fine.”
The paramedic glanced at her once, briefly, and something in the woman’s face told her things she didn’t want to know.
She glanced back at Donovan, rubbing her lips together.
He had been mid-thirties when he was assigned to her family.
She knew that because he had told her once, in the dry, matter-of-fact way he told her most things, that he hadn’t been as new to the job as he looked and her case had aged him considerably.
He had said it like a complaint. She had understood it as the closest he came to saying he cared.
He had driven her to her first job interview under her new name, which was something beyond his scope as her protector.
Still, he had done it without complaint, waiting in the car outside for forty minutes because she had asked him to, because the idea of walking into that building and being Delaney Rhodes for the first time in a professional context had required the specific comfort of knowing someone who knew the truth was in the parking lot.
He had told no one that she had asked him to help her with that.
She had told no one that he had done it.
The memory ended as the ambulance pulled to a stop, the doors opening and the stretcher moving before she had fully processed the transition.
The gurney’s wheels hit the pavement with a sound she felt in her gut, and then she was following through the automatic doors into the antiseptic blast of a hospital corridor.
Someone was immediately asking her questions that she answered without being sure afterward what she had said.
And then a set of double doors swung shut between her and the gurney, and she was standing in a corridor outside a surgical suite with Donovan on the other side. The quiet that rushed in behind those closing doors was the specific, absolute quiet of waiting, and she hated waiting.
Samuel appeared beside her, Nash slipping up on her other side. Both had their hands in their pockets, neither speaking, which was what she needed now. She wouldn’t know what to say anyway.
She kept her gaze fixed on the closed doors as she thought about the man who had spent fifteen years keeping her family alive and in hiding. As blood seeped through her fingers, his thoughts were about her and her happy ending, not on how he was going to make it through the next few hours.
The tears she had been holding back since Bay Street finally broke through, hot and unannounced, and she did nothing to stop them.
She felt Bobby’s friends surrounding her, but it wasn’t the same as having him there with her.
There was nothing else to do now but wait and hope and refuse with everything she had left to believe that another person she loved was going to be taken from her today.
She was tired of losing people and refused to let it happen again. It was time for the roller coaster of her life to stop.