24 - Margaret
The heavy hospital door clicked shut behind her, a small, clinical sound that felt like the slamming of a tomb.
Margaret stood in the hallway for exactly three seconds with her eyes closed.
In that brief window of time, she performed a feat of internal engineering she had perfected over fifteen years of marriage to Charles Winslow.
She took the raw, bleeding ache in her chest, the part of her that wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all, and shoved it into a dark, reinforced corner of her mind.
She turned the key, threw it away, and smoothed her expression into a mask of cool, aristocratic indifference.
When she opened her eyes, the Emery who had held her as she wept in a Maine gazebo was gone. The woman who had discovered how to pump gas and organize a dream was buried. In her place stood Margaret Fletcher, the Richmond socialite who could stare down a hostile board of directors without blinking.
She pulled the collar of her tailored wool blazer into place, straightening the crisp lines.
A few feet away, the men waited not casually but spread like a tactical perimeter, their eyes sharp and alert as they scanned the hallway. The intensity was almost out of place in a setting meant for healing.
Warden was the first to take a step forward, his face etched with worry and guilt. “Margaret?” He cut himself off, reading her expression and the tension hanging in the air.
Dog’s harsh words had not been hushed. They had cut through the room, ringing clear enough to reach them all.
Enzo’s jaw clenched, his hand moving instinctively toward the concealed sidearm at his hip. “I’m going in. He can’t speak to you like that. Not after everything.”
“No,” Margaret replied with measured calm. “To Doctor Berkshire, my presence constitutes a distraction. At this critical time, he requires professional distance and unwavering concentration. It is my intention to honor those needs, both out of respect for him and the situation.”
“He’s being an ass, Margaret,” Thorn muttered, his brow furrowed in disbelief. “He’s lost his mind.”
“He’s lost more than that,” a quiet voice interrupted.
Jake stepped forward, his weight shifting slightly on his prosthetic leg.
He was the only one who wasn’t looking at the door with anger.
He was looking at it with a profound, weary understanding.
He looked at Margaret, and for a second, his eyes softened with pity, a look she usually loathed, but from him, it felt like a shared scar.
“He’s in the dark right now,” Jake said softly. “When I lost mine to that IED, I tried to burn every bridge I had. I wanted to be alone in the wreckage because I didn’t think I was worth saving anymore. Dog isn’t yelling at you, Margaret. He’s yelling at the man he thinks he used to be.”
“Regardless of his motivations,” Margaret replied, her tone unyielding, “my role in this ‘trial run’ has concluded. My presence is a distraction he cannot afford, and quite frankly, a liability I no longer wish to carry.”
She turned her gaze to Warden. The big man looked shattered. The guilt he’d been stockpiling since the meadow was visible in the slump of his shoulders.
“Warden,” she said, using his callsign with a distance that made him flinch. “I am ready to leave. Please, take me to my children.”
Warden rubbed a hand over his face. “Margaret, I should have been the one. It was my land. My grandfather’s trap. I’m going back to the cabin. I need to clear the rest of that property. I need to make sure there isn’t another ghost waiting to bite someone.”
He wasn’t just talking about traps; he was talking about himself. He was retreating again, seeking the silence of the Maine woods to bury his own failures.
“I will stay here,” Jake said, his tone firm, settling the matter.
“The bounty didn’t die with Charles. It’s still live on the dark web, and Dog is a sitting duck in this bed.
I’ll watch his six, even if he tries to throw me out of the room, too.
He needs someone who knows how to handle a man who’s fighting his own ghost.”
Margaret gave Jake a single, stiff nod of appreciation. She didn’t offer a message for Dog. She didn’t ask Jake to check on him. She simply turned to Enzo and Thorn.
“Gentlemen? If you are to be my escort, I would like to depart immediately. It has been a very long day.”
Enzo and Thorn exchanged a glance, then moved into position on either side of her: two lethal shadows for a woman made of porcelain.
As they walked toward the elevators, the clinical smell of the hospital began to fade, replaced by the scent of the cold night air rushing in from the lobby. Margaret kept her gaze fixed straight ahead. She didn’t look back at the door to Room 412.
She thought of Emily’s laugh. She thought of Charles Jr.’s quiet intensity. They were at Mountain View Farms. They were safe. They were the only mission that mattered now.
The Emery part of her soul tried to rattle the bars of its new cage, crying out for the man who had kissed her knuckles and promised her she wasn’t decorative.
Margaret took a breath, felt the cold steel of her resolve, and silenced the cry. She was going home to her children. And as for Barkley Berkshire, he had gotten exactly what he asked for.
He was alone. And so was she.