56. Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Six
Calder
The Pashuk men had been shot. All three of them.
It took a minute for Asher to calm down enough to give Calder and Zinn specifics, but the bottom line was that Assa, Wes, and Valentin were in the hospital right now.
Wes had only needed stitches, but because he’d passed out at the scene, they were keeping him overnight as a precaution.
Valentin and Assa were still in surgery.
Assa’s injuries were the worst. The gunshot had punctured his upper torso. It missed his vital organs, but he’d lost a lot of blood. Valentin’s rib cage had been grazed, breaking two bones and causing internal damage that needed to be dealt with surgically.
That was as much as Asher could tell them over the phone, and when Calder and Zinn arrived to find him sitting next to Xan in the hospital waiting room, there was no new information.
The last time Calder had been at the hospital was when Lachie was born.
But this didn’t remind him of that. Because they were in the other wing now.
The one with the antiseptic smell and the hushed family members in the waiting room.
The wing with the dark shroud of sickness hanging over it.
If he took the elevator to the floor directly above them, he’d be in the unit where Denni had taken his final breath.
Realizing this, Calder experienced a moment of absolute clarity. As long as Valentin, Wes, and Assa were still breathing, he wanted to make the most of it. Because nothing was guaranteed.
“At least Bergam will be locked up for good,” Xan said. “He won’t be a threat to your family anymore. He must have had a complete mental break to do what he did, like he’d just given up and didn’t care what happened to him.”
“I know what it feels like to think you’ve lost everything,” Zinn said. “Even when my parents destroyed my life, I still had a son out there somewhere. It kept me going.”
Asher flattened his lips. “I will never forgive myself for not telling you where he was.”
Zinn patted Asher’s cheek. “There will always be a part of me that resents you for that, but I think we can agree that Ryde ended up exactly where he belongs. It means something that you figured it out, that you’ve chosen me and my family over our parents.”
Asher kissed him on the head. “That was an easy choice.” He sat back down and nudged Xan on the shoulder. “Also, have you met Xan…my boyfriend.”
“We’ve met,” Zinn said dryly. “And the boyfriend thing is a surprise to no one. You two have been dancing around the obvious for a while.” He winked at Xan. “Welcome to the family…officially.”
“Thank you. I’m just sorry it took literal gunfire to get us to say it out loud.”
“Wes didn’t need surgery,” Calder interrupted, still distracted by the heaviness of his surroundings. “Does that mean we can see him?”
“They’re moving him to a different bed, then you can,” Xan replied. “The nurse said he’d tell us when.”
Xan and Asher spent the next ten minutes giving them the rundown of what had happened at the club.
Then Zinn called Jordie and Ked to check in on Lachie and Ryde, updating the teens on the Pashuks’ conditions.
Calder was mildly concerned that the boys were in different houses, but he figured Xan was right.
The threat from Bergam had been neutralized.
And in the end, Bergam hadn’t been much of a threat. A cartoonish buffoon set on making Valentin’s life miserable without truly having the smarts to do it.
Still, he was a cartoonish buffoon who’d shot three men.
Ten minutes later, the nurse led Calder and Zinn to Wes’s room. When he’d asked if they were family, Calder had replied “yes” using his alpha voice, and the nurse hadn’t questioned it.
Calder was relieved to see that Wes looked okay, his cheeks rosy and his eyes alive with indignation.
“Thank stars!” Wes exclaimed when they entered. “Have you heard anything about Assa and Valentin? The nurses won’t tell me anything.”
Zinn sat down next to the bed and captured Wes’s hand, kissing his bandaged palm. “Who would have thought when I left your house earlier that a little boiling water would be the least of your worries tonight?”
Wes choked out a laugh. “Leave it to you to find humor at a time like this, my omega.”
Calder’s head snapped up. Wes met his stare directly.
“Valentin is out of surgery and doing well. The bullet shattered some ribs, and they needed to remove the bone fragments. But we should be able to see him soon,” Calder said. “Assa is still in surgery. Another few hours at least.”
“I passed out before I could see. What happened?”
“He was shot in his upper chest, close to the shoulder,” Zinn said, a tear slipping down his cheek. “He made it to the hospital still breathing. He’s a fighter, but there is—” he swiped his eyes with the back of his hand “—significant damage.”
Wes squeezed his eyes shut, fisting the blanket.
Calder went into the waiting room to tell Xan and Asher to go home. They’d already given the police their statements, and there was nothing more to do at the hospital but wait.
“I’ll call Sandi and give him the update,” Xan said. “He and I can handle the club for a few days while we clean up. Please let us know if anything changes.”
When Calder returned to Wes’s room, he was glad to see that Valentin had been transferred there as well. He was groggy, having just come off the anesthesia, but aware enough to be worried about Assa.
The hospital staff didn’t question the men’s connection, never forcing them to state It’s complicated but we’re meandering our way toward being a polycule. They were family. That was all anyone needed to know.
In the early morning, a nurse came in to tell them Assa had made it through surgery and was recovering in the ICU. He would be in a medically induced coma for another day to keep his body immobilized.
“Will we be able to sit with him?” Zinn asked.
“Yes. But only one at a time.”
“Go,” Wes said to Calder from his bed. “He shouldn’t be alone.”
“Would you rather be with Assa, sunshine?” Calder asked Zinn. “I know how close you are.”
Zinn looked up from where his fingers twined with Valentin’s. “We might be close, but I’m sure he’d be just as happy to see you.”
“If you really think so.”
“Based on the number of times Assa has reminded us about the magical time you and he met over the phone, I’m pretty sure you’re good,” Valentin said.
Calder chuckled. “Watch it.” He winked at him.
Wes rolled his eyes. “It’s bizarre to see our alphas being playful with each other.”
“Seriously,” Zinn said, shooing Calder into the hallway with a wave.
The nurses made Calder put on a mask and gloves before he entered Assa’s room. The lights were bright in the windowless, white-walled space, the rhythmic beeping of the machines the only noise. There was a tube in Assa’s throat, attached to a machine that sounded like the ocean.
Denni had been hooked up to machines in the end. The beeping next to his hospital bed never stopped.
Until it did.
But Assa wasn’t Denni. He would come home. And if Calder had anything to say about it, it would be to a home they shared. Assa’s chest moved up and down. Calder would never take those breaths for granted again.
He sat next to the bed and talked about nothing.
Recipes he was experimenting with at Felton’s.
How the new cake decorator was doing. Jordie’s plans to visit colleges over the summer.
Lachie’s latest attempts to crawl. It wasn’t all new information for Assa, but it filled the air and helped Calder think about something other than the shooting.
They’d been lucky.
They were lucky.
In so many ways.
Back in Wes and Valentin’s room, he found Zinn curled up next to the other alpha, huddled against him on his uninjured side. Both men were fast asleep.
Wes, however, was awake. He glanced over at Valentin’s bed, then at Calder. “Zinn was about to pass out, but of course he won’t go home. I told him to get into bed with Valentin since I need to keep my arm elevated.”
“That’s good,” Calder said. He tapped Zinn on the shoulder. “Do you want to sit with Assa for a while, sunshine?”
Zinn rubbed his eyes. “Absolutely.” He placed a kiss on Valentin’s cheek and hoisted himself to his feet. As he walked by Wes’s bed, he kissed the beta’s forehead as well.
“He’s down the hall, last door on the right,” Calder said.
After Zinn left, Wes looked at Calder. “We’re doing this, then?
The kissing and the touching and the…everything.
” A line formed above his nose as his face pinched.
“That’s what Valentin and Assa and I were talking about right before everything went down at the club.
But we never got the chance to have the discussion. ”
Calder padded over to Wes’s bed. He leaned down, giving the beta plenty of time to say no before planting a soft kiss on his lips. Their mouths stayed closed, but there was no mistaking that this wasn’t a simple gesture of affection between friends and co-parents.
“The time for talking has passed,” Calder said. “I thought I was willing to wait however long it took. But fuck that. Our life together starts now.”