29. Declan
29
DECLAN
“I can’t believe you did that. What if you scare her off?” I asked, fuming.
“She wants us. She knows we want her.”
“Yes, but scaring her off…”
“Carino, I can’t be someone I’m not. I’m an aggressive, pushy bastard, Declan. You know this better than anyone. I won’t catfish the girl. If she joins us, it will be with a complete understanding of who and what we are and want.”
I sighed. “Yes, sir.”
My eyes grew round while his face grew smug and smiley.
“Fuck.”
Hayden cracked up as he pulled into a parking spot at the hospital. “I’m not saying a thing.”
“Why not? The look on your face and the laughter certainly wasn’t you keeping quiet.”
“Alright. I fucking loved hearing you call me sir. When Marcie does it, I love it, and expect it. When you do it, I feel like I’ve done everything in my life right, and we both know that’s not the fucking case.”
“We both made mistakes, Hayden. We can’t keep rehashing all the shit we did wrong. That’s no way to live.”
“You’re right.”
“Jesus Christ. Are you feeling okay?”
“Fuck no. I’m all itchy and twitchy and a little lightheaded.”
I burst out laughing. “God, I love you.”
“Same, vato. More than you can imagine.”
My phone dinged just as we leaned toward each other. Sighing, I sat back in my seat.
“We need to get inside. We shoulda been in there already.”
Hayden opened his door as he said, “It’s not like we wasted time, Declan. We got in the SUV and came straight here.”
I sat there for a moment as the guilt about what happened washed over me. My door opened, and I looked into Hayden’s concerned face.
“I know we came quickly, but the conversation with Marcie…”
“We are allowed to have lives. Even in the Corps, we were allowed to have lives.”
The way my face screwed up had to be comical, but the man was insane. He literally got called away at a moment’s notice and was gone for two months without access to a freaking phone.
“Not a word.” He pointed at me, then said, “We were allowed a life, we just didn’t always get to enjoy it.”
“Better, but still.”
Flashing our Holt Securities badges a couple of times got us into the ER. I thanked our lucky stars that Hayden, Lucia, and Scott’s ID cards came in before we headed off to New York. We rounded the desk, heading toward Heidi and Lucia. Foster, Scott, and Celeste were nowhere in sight.
“Katie!”
Hayden and I picked up the pace as a gurney surrounded by doctors and nurses came out of the room next to where Heidi stood. Foster followed behind it.
Hayden gave me a shove. “Go! I’ll stay with Katie and send you Scott when I find him.”
I nodded, giving him a quick kiss before taking off after Foster and Jackson. Scott stood outside the elevator, his eyes widened when he saw us coming. He pounded the call button. The doors slid open as we made it to the elevator bank. There was no way we’d all fit on the elevator with the gurney, but luckily, the other door opened. Scott held it as I demanded to know the floor, then I jumped in with him.
I leaned against the back wall, letting my head fall back. Exhaustion had set in, but it could fuck right off. No one had time for that right now.
“Hayden’s right. This isn’t your fault. It’s not any of our faults. We did the best we could.”
My gaze hardened as I looked at him. He was a fucking kid. What the hell did he know about shit?
“Yeah, I might believe that if I hadn’t been in this line of work for the last decade. I’ve had protectees get hurt before, but nothing like this. Plus, Jackson is family.”
“Yes, and he and Katie demanded as much privacy and as small a detail as we’d allow them. We should have double the number of people we do, which you might disagree with, but we did our best with the info and show of force we had at hand.”
I had to give the kid props for standing up to me, but while he and Hayden might technically be right, it didn’t make me feel any less guilty.
Hayden asking me if I needed a meeting reminded me to call my sponsor, but it would have to wait for a bit. Instead, I sent Cato a text.
Declan
I’m doing okay, but the guilt is eating at me.
Cato
LINK
That’s a list of meetings. Get your ass to one when the rest of the family gets there.
I sighed. He was right. An ounce of prevention, as Nana would say.
Cato
No comment?
Declan
No. I agree. I feel okay. Strong.
Cato
And if shit goes south and something happens to the kid?
Declan
That makes me less okay.
Cato
You’ve had a lot of changes in the last week or so. Significant changes and now this. That’s why you need a meeting.
Declan
I know.
Cato
Then do what you need to do and get to a meeting. Don’t make me fly up there. You know how twitchy Ghost and Mack get when I leave the lair.
I chuckled. I did. The last time wasn’t long after the three of them became a thing. One of the members of the human trafficking ring Cato had escaped from caught sight of him when he was out on his own. Cato narrowly missed getting captured. Ghost and Mack about shit themselves until they had Cato safe and the threat eliminated.
Declan
The world doesn’t need your men going apeshit again. Trying to cover up the rain of hellfire they unleashed was a nightmare of colossal proportions.
Cato
As if your Marine wouldn’t do the same for you and that girl y’all are drooling over.
Declan
Are you tapping into people’s messages again?
The doors slid open.
Declan
Gotta go.
Scott and I followed the gurney as it came off the other elevator, Foster in step beside us.
“Declan, I want you posted outside the operating room doors. Scott, you’ll take the doors to the surgical suite. I’m gonna try to get into the viewing area.”
I opened my mouth to make a suggestion, and Foster stopped me with a stare, then turned to Scott. “Give me and Declan a moment.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Scott said, giving a half-hearted salute.
Fucking military types.
I worked around them for years. Fell in love with one and married him, but sometimes that shit grated on my nerves. I felt like I had to work three times as hard for the respect someone off the street got the minute they walked into Holt because they’d worn a uniform, and I hadn’t.
Foster watched Scott until he was out of earshot, then turned to me.
“Go ahead.”
“You should take the operating room doors. That way, when the family arrives, you can ferry messages to them.”
“Are you sober?”
My chin quivered slightly, and I gnashed my teeth together to put a stop to it.
“Yes. Feel free to ask the ER doc to do a toxicology test if you don’t believe me.”
“I trust you to tell me the truth, but I had to ask.”
“Have I given you any reason to question my abilities or focus?”
“No, but…”
“Good. There’s no need to say anything, but I get why you had to ask. If I were in your shoes, I would have too, but I’ve never been drunk or even drank while on a detail. Never.”
I sighed, scrubbing my hands over my face and into my hair. “I won’t say I’ve not wanted a drink while working, because that would be a lie. And I won’t lie to you. It’s why I stayed out of the field for so long. I wouldn’t put someone’s life in danger. After all, the only way I could cope with my shitty situation was by drowning my stupid ass in liquor.”
“You’ve worried us all sick.”
I wanted to be flippant and brush off the concern, but he didn’t deserve that. None of them did. Walker calling me out, let me know my struggles hadn’t gone as undetected as I’d hoped. Blowing them off now would only raise more questions and concerns and would be completely out of line with the steps I worked so hard on.
“I know. Hell, I scared myself bad enough to seek help. I’ve been seeing a therapist and doing virtual meetings. I’ve even gotten a sponsor. Things that led me to drink are righting themselves, but I know better than to think Hayden and I getting back together is going to right the ship I nearly capsized, but I have a therapist and a sponsor to help. And I’ve not had a drink.”
Foster jerked me into his arms, embracing me. “We love you, kid. Don’t blame yourself for this. It’s not our fault. It was the first thing Walker and Daddy said when I talked to them.”
“Yeah, they said the same to me.”
But that was when I called them from the studio. Before some madman shot Jackson.
“What about the chief?”
I scoffed. “Oh, Conrad Carter is of the mindset that a Holt is to blame for everything that’s happened to his daughter.”
“Yeah, if he says that to me, and I can get my hands on the man…”
“He’s the Chief of Police. Don’t make Jules bail your ass out. Besides, you’re too pretty to go to prison for assaulting a police officer.”
“I’d take that as a compliment if we didn’t look more like twins than cousins.”
I chuckled. “Go see if they’ll keep you updated. I’ll sneak into the observation room.”
He slapped my back and moved away as I searched for a set of surgical scrubs or a lab coat.