Chapter 43
Forty-Three
WALKER
It had taken a moment to process the beeping of the heart monitor, the dull pain throbbing in the lower left side of my gut, and that my throat was drier than the Registan Desert.
A hospital room.
The why of it came back to me at the joy on Sloane’s face as she laughed in relief. It was nothing compared to mine at waking up to find her alive. Safe.
However, two seconds later, her laughter turned to hysterical sobbing, and when I moved to reach for her, pain in my stomach stifled the action. “Shit,” I huffed. “Sloane, baby, don’t cry.” I squeezed her hand as hard as I could.
But then she was over me, arms around me, her cheek to my chest, sobbing so hard it jarred like a physical pain.
“Baby.” I clasped the back of her head in my hand, threading my fingers through her hair. “You’re killing me here.”
She tried to calm. I could feel the tension in her body as she trembled and quivered and forced herself to settle. Lifting her face, I noted the red, tired eyes, the lank hair, and her snotty nose. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
That made her laugh as she wiped at her nose and straightened. “Did the bullet do something to your vision?”
“Aye. Made it crystal fucking clear.”
“And even in the hospital with a bullet wound, he’s dropping f-bombs like he’s being paid to say them,” she teased and leaned over to press a kiss to my dry lips. It was gentle, only a brush, and nowhere near what I needed. I grumbled as she straightened. “I’ll go tell the doctor you’re awake.”
“What happened?” I demanded. “I remember … Is it … No?” What I remembered couldn’t be right. If there was some god out there, some fate, for the first time in a long time, I begged them to make my memory a nightmare instead.
Because if it was true, Sloane was …
I saw that agony buried in her eyes and cursed inwardly. “I’ll tell you everything, I promise. But first I’m going to get the doctor.”
The doctor examined me, and I bristled impatiently as it seemed to go on forever. I had feeling in all my extremities, my heart rate and blood pressure were good, and my memory seemed to be completely in order.
With that confirmed, I demanded Sloane tell me everything. When she looked at the doctor for permission, I wanted to roar.
“If you don’t tell me now, I’m going to work myself into an agitated fucking mess,” I warned.
The doctor pressed his lips firmly together and then nodded. “Fine. But afterward, I want you to rest. You’re not out of the woods yet, Mr. Ironside, and if you want to fully recover and as quickly as possible, you need to let your body and mind rest.”
I gave him a gruff nod of agreement.
He left, and Sloane insisted I sip at some water before she spoke.
She ignored the irritation in my eyes and calmly waited.
The hospital bed raised upward so at least I wasn’t flat on my back.
I could feel the throb in my stomach near the scar from the knife wound I’d taken as a teenager.
Ironic, that. There was muscle and tissue damage from the gunshot wound.
I’d have to take it easy for a while. Which meant, the threat to Sloane better be over.
“Tell me.”
Drawing her chair closer to my bed, Sloane reached for my left hand, and I curled my fingers around hers. She seemed mesmerized by our entwined fingers for a second, and when she lifted her gaze, there were fresh tears in them. I gave her a squeeze in reassurance.
She sucked in her breath and exhaled slowly. “My dad is dead, Walker.”
Fuck. I had heard Kyle Brixton correctly, then. I gripped her hand tighter. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
Utter sadness suffused her beautiful face.
“Cancer. He wanted reconciliation before he died. And he was leaving the bulk of his money to me and Callie in recompense for abandoning us.” A tear escaped that she impatiently brushed aside with her free hand.
“He asked my stepmom, Perry, to hire a PI to find me to bring me to him … instead, she told Nathan where I was and asked him to deal with me.”
Shock ricocheted through me, as well as understanding.
Sloane’s face was suddenly hard with hatred. “When Nathan failed, Brix stepped up.”
I cursed, regret and self-directed anger in the word. “Because I antagonized him.”
“It’s not your fault,” she insisted.
“I sent men to get information from him.”
“I know.”
“I told them to do whatever it took.”
“I know.” She leaned into me. “I don’t care. I don’t blame you. You did what you needed to do to protect me and Callie, and I will not be angry about that. Brix came here to kill me. For money. For revenge. He’s responsible for his own actions.”
“Your stepmum?” The need to get out of that hospital bed and end the threat she posed was almost a physical pull.
As if reading my thoughts, Sloane gripped my hand. “She’ll be dealt with. Legally. I won’t let her hurt us anymore, Walker, so I’m asking you to let the police handle her.”
Amazed at her strength, I tried to calm. “Your dad …”
Her lips trembled as grief tightened her features.
“I know,” she choked out. “And I’ll have to deal with that and process it …
but right now, I have to concentrate on you getting better.
This is over. Finally. The authorities here contacted US authorities with the evidence Brix handed over—he has recordings of meetings between Perry and Nathan and himself—and Perry has been taken into custody.
She thought she could manipulate them. That they were dumb thugs.
She misjudged them. And now she’ll pay for it. She can rot in hell for all I care.”
Remembering how she’d shot Brix in the same place as Andros, I said, “I take it Kyle survived the gunshot wound.”
“Yup. Now he and Nathan will have matching scars.”
Awe filled me. It soothed me to know how capable she was of defending herself. “You were something to witness out there.”
“I could only do it because you chased after me with a bullet in your stomach.” She pressed a kiss to my knuckles.
The memory of the fear that I wouldn’t reach her in time before I passed out lingered. “I only got to you because you got him to stop the car.”
“Okay. So we both saved me. And it’s … it’s over.
I feel like we had all these puzzle pieces in our hands that finally make sense.
Perry lied to my father’s lawyers and told them she was tracking me down.
But they were getting suspicious, and she knew she only had a short time left before they found me themselves.
When Brix offered to kill me for the money instead, she jumped on it. ”
The thought of her succeeding with Sloane … “I want to kill the bitch.”
“I know. Me too.”
Realizing that she’d been alone while I lay unconscious in this hospital bed, and she found out that not only was her father dead but that her stepmother was trying to off her for the inheritance, ripped at my guts. “I am so sorry.”
Her gaze was fierce. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“Your dad, though …”
“I told you.” She leaned forward, bringing my knuckles to her lips.
“I will deal with it. I promise. I’ll let myself cry a decade’s worth of tears about it.
” The first of those tears slid down her face.
“But I need to focus on you right now. When … when I saw you running for me, the fear in your eyes, that bullet hitting you … I knew like I’ve never known but with Callie that someone loved me more than they loved themselves. ”
Damn fucking straight. “Good.”
She smiled at my gruff response and then promised, “And you have to know that I love you like that too. That I need you to start protecting yourself, too, because I need you to exist in this world with me. Because I don’t seem to work right without you now.
” Sloane pressed a fist to her chest. “You’re an integral beat in my heart, Walker Ironside, and so I’m going to need you to live as long as I do and stay at my side the whole time. ”
“I’ll try my very best to do that,” I vowed.
Something shifted in her expression, turning it cautious. Wary.
Alert, I waited patiently for her next words.
“Your parents are here. In the waiting room. Should I … should I tell them to come in?”
Fear squeezed my throat at the thought of my mum and dad in the same building as me. The last time I’d seen my father was when I woke up in a hospital bed. Life was fucking ironic that way, eh?
“I can tell them to leave,” Sloane assured me.
Slowly, I shook my head. “Let them in. But … will you stay?”
Sloane nodded, everything she felt for me right there for the entire world to see. “Always.”
They had aged. Of course they had.
My mother looked as she had in Edinburgh that day. Older, but still the kind of mum you never saw without her hair or makeup perfectly in place. Even now with worry and tension darkening circles under her eyes, she was immaculate. Her smart suit bore nary a wrinkle.
Reluctantly, I looked from my mum to my father.
Surprised, I realized he seemed shorter.
Like he’d shrunk with age. But his face, the one so much like my own, was smoother than I’d imagined.
His lips were pressed into a thin line, and even as I feared what he’d say, I couldn’t drag my eyes from his.
Neil Ironside, a man I hadn’t seen in two decades, slowly crossed the distance between us.
The steel in his gaze collapsed beneath the weight of grief as he stared at me. Tears glistened in his aged gray eyes as he greeted hoarsely, “I’m sorry, son. I’m so, so sorry.”
Emotion blurred my vision as I nodded in acceptance and gestured to the chair by my bed.