Chapter 12
Damian
The choir room became a battlefield in seconds.
I took Tammy to the floor. Tone dropped behind the piano with the ledger tucked under his jacket. Rico fired through the doorway. Julian collapsed half inside the room, blood spreading across his shoulder.
Bishop called from the hall. "Give me the book, Damian."
"You keep asking like you're in charge."
Tammy crawled toward Julian.
"He can bleed," I said.
She looked at me. "He may be a coward, but he is alive and bleeding on a church floor."
There was no time to lose that argument.
We moved through a hidden basement passage Tammy remembered in fragments.
Bishop's men searched above us while police sirens approached from the street.
Tone went first with the ledger. Rico dragged Julian.
I stayed behind Tammy, hating every second of the tunnel and loving the woman moving through it with Savannah's letter in her purse.
In the alley, Bishop caught her.
One arm around her throat.
Gun at her ribs.
The world narrowed to the space between my trigger and Tammy's life.
"Let her go," I said.
Bishop smiled. "She is the key."
Tammy drove her elbow into his wounded arm.
His grip loosened.
I fired.
He fell back, but his men covered him. We got Tammy into the SUV with the ledger, the tape, Julian, and every ugly truth that had been buried under a piano.
Bishop disappeared again.
But the ledger was ours.
Back at the clinic, Doc took Julian. Rico wanted Elaine. I wanted Bishop. Tammy wanted five minutes where nobody called her by a dead woman's name or revealed another father.
I gave her the room.
She sat on the couch with the cassette in her hand.
"I want to hear it," she said.
"You sure?"
"No."
I found an old cassette player in the cabinet and set it on the table.
Savannah's voice came through static.
My sweet girl.
Tammy broke in my arms.
Savannah told her she had not left because she wanted life without her. She left because every road with her led men to the crib. She said Julian had not been evil at first. Evil showed up gentle sometimes, educated and sorry after every betrayal.
She told Rico he was not her soldier.
She told Tammy not to let any man make love mean ownership.
Then she said something that settled in the room like a command.
I hope you fall in love with someone who knows the difference.
Tammy cried for real then.
I held her and said nothing because nothing was the only thing that fit.
When the tape clicked off, Tammy stayed still.
Her hand rested on the cassette like she was afraid Savannah's voice might disappear if she moved too fast.
"Damian."
"Yes, love?"
"Don't you ever die out there. I mean it. I can't bear to lose you."
I looked at her, and for once, I did not try to make the fear smaller.
"I hear you," I said. "I'm coming home to you. Every time God lets me, I'm coming home."
Her eyes closed like that was the only answer she had strength to hold.
Then she kissed me.
Her hands came to my face first, trembling, then stronger. I pulled her closer, and she climbed into my lap like she needed to feel every part of me still there. Still breathing. Still hers.
"Tammy," I said, checking her.
She shook her head against mine. "I need you."
That was all it took.
Her forehead pressed to mine while her fingers worked my pants open. I held her waist, careful with her, but she was not fragile in that moment. She was aching. Alive. Reaching for something that belonged to her and had not been taken.
She pressed down on me until I was deep inside her.
The look on her face was not just desire.
It was reprieve.
Like her body had been carrying grief all night and finally found somewhere soft to lay it down.
I held her tighter.
We both needed this moment. The quiet. The heat. The proof. Pleasure filled the room as we moved together, slow and deep, with Savannah's voice still resting somewhere between sorrow and blessing.
Tammy buried her face against my neck.
"I love you," she whispered.
"I love you too."
And for a little while, there was no Bishop. No ledger. No blood on church floors. No dead woman having to explain why she ran.
There was only Tammy breathing against me.
Only my hands on her back.
Only us making love on that old couch like survival had finally given us one room where it did not have to be loud.
A knock hit the door.
Tone's voice came through. "I hate to interrupt, but Julian is awake."
Tammy froze.
Then she let out a broken little laugh against my shoulder.
I kissed her once more before I let her go.
When she stood, her eyes were still swollen, but something in her had come back to the surface.
"Then take me to him," she said.