Chapter 15
ALESSANDRA
The rhythmic clicking of the knife against the cutting board as I chop the vegetables for the salad fills the kitchen, mixing with the soft swooshing sound of the baby swing set up at the edge of the living room that’s keeping Benjamin fast asleep while Bishop and I work on preparing dinner.
It’s almost peaceful.
Something I haven’t felt in almost two months. And I probably shouldn’t, given the fact that Roselli laid down his threat only a few days ago. But if that hadn’t happened, I might not have spent the last two nights in Pope’s bed and in his arms. I likely never would have known what it feels like to be loved again, to feel one hundred percent whole.
With him and Benjamin, I do.
And, at least momentarily, I can forget the fact that all of us have to look over our shoulders and stay locked away while the family sets the plan to end all this into action.
If it works, it will be over soon.
For most of my pregnancy, and certainly since Benjamin was born, I couldn’t see a future that didn’t involve some horrible form of despair. I was either going to have to leave New Orleans and everyone I love behind to protect Benjamin, or I was going to fail and lose him to a madman.
Now, I can actually start looking to the future.
A beautiful one.
With Pope in it.
“Why do you have that look on your face?”
I still the knife and jerk my head up to meet Bishop’s inquisitive gaze.
Leaning against the counter, her knife in hand, Bishop narrows her eyes on me, momentarily distracted from slicing the plantains she intends to fry for dessert to question me.
“What look?”
She waves the knife around a little and points it at me. “You look glow-y and kind of smug.”
Shit.
“I do not.”
Those smoky-whiskey eyes of hers evaluate me, scanning from the top of my head all the way down to my bare feet. I squirm under her assessment, knowing she will use all the skills at her disposal that serve her so well in the ring—weighing up opponents—and working with Saint to analyze threats to seek out whatever it is she thinks she sees.
A slow grin spreads across her lips, and she nods. “Yeah, you do. Does this have anything to do with my brother?”
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
I refocus on the carrots, celery, peppers, and other veggies laid out in front of me and keep slicing them, perhaps a little too aggressively. “I’m not sure what you mean…”
Bishop doesn’t respond, and the seconds slowly tick by with me hacking at the vegetables like they’re the ones prying instead of her.
I finally cast a quick peek at her.
As soon as my eyes meet hers, she smirks and sets her knife on her cutting board, crossing her arms over her chest, which only emphasizes the muscles she uses to take down men twice her size. “Yes, you do. Do you think we’re all blind? Did you really believe no one would notice the looks you’re giving each other or the little touches you steal when you think no one’s looking?” She points a finger at me. “I know you about as well as I know my brother, so you can’t hide it from me. Why don’t you admit there’s something going on between you two?”
There go my relaxed vibes…
We knew we wouldn’t be able to keep it from anyone for long, but Pope and I are nowhere near ready to go public with this when we’ve only just gotten together. But Bishop isn’t the type I can brush off with some half-answer.
She will needle me until I spill.
Stilling my hand, I turn to face her. “Bishop, I appreciate you coming to babysit me today…”
She scowls at my choice of words, but really, it’s what it is.
We’re safer here than we could be anywhere else in this city, and I can’t leave again. I wouldn’t survive being away from the family, and Pope is back at work, so he couldn’t take off with me even if we wanted to. That means someone has to be here with us, someone who is far better with a weapon and quick thinking in life-or-death situations—like the woman trying to use her badass superpowers on me right now to get me to spill my guts.
“I love you more than you could know, especially for agreeing to make your dad’s jerk chicken for dinner because you know it’s my favorite, but it doesn’t give you the right to give me the third degree.”
Her eyes widen. “You’re right, it doesn’t. You boning my brother does.”
“Whoa.” I hold up my hands. “Who said anything about boning?”
Bishop laughs, shaking her head. “I knew it.” She walks over and pulls me into a hug, squeezing me tightly and lifting me easily off the floor before she sets me back on my feet. “About fucking time that you two sorted out your shit.”
She doesn’t seem at all surprised by any of this, which means she either knows about our past or we’ve been really bad at keeping the current situation private over the last few days.
“Did you know? I mean, about before?”
We never thought anyone did, and since no one has directly ever questioned me about it, I assumed we were right in that belief. But maybe we were wrong. Jude mentioned that he suspected something happened with Pope that I had kept from him, and if he noticed, others probably did, too.
Bishop waves a dismissive hand, pulls open the oven, takes out the cast iron pan, and lifts the lid to check on the chicken and rice. The spicy scent fills the kitchen and makes my mouth water and stomach grumble.
I peek at the baby swing and ensure Benjamin is still sound asleep, like he would somehow know what we’re talking about.
She pushes the pan back in and turns to face me. “I mean, no, I didn’t know. But you two were always together. And I remember one time I came home early from something, and you and Pope were ‘studying’ at the kitchen table, but you jerked away from each other like I had walked in and caught you doing something you shouldn’t have.” Grinning, she taps her temple. “I had my suspicions. But then you two started acting like you hated each other, and he went off to college and wasn’t around us or the house that much when he was living in the dorm.” She shrugs. “I figured you guys had an argument about something, maybe. But I was right, wasn’t I? Something happened between you guys.”
I turn my back on her and busy myself throwing the peppers, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, carrots, and everything else into the big bowl. “It was complicated back then, for obvious reasons.”
“What obvious reasons?”
I peek at her out of the corner of my eye. “Seriously?”
She snorts. “God, you and your sister, both. Jesus Christ. She and Jude waited so fucking long to act on their feelings for each other because they felt like we’d all be judgy about it. And you and Pope are the same fucking way.”
“It’s more than that.” I sigh and lean back against the counter, wondering how much to tell her. The basics. Nothing more. “Pope broke up with me. He kind of broke my heart.”
She raises her brows. “Do I need to kick his ass? Because you know I will, gladly.”
I shake my head. “No. He thought he was doing what was right. I’ve forgiven him for it, but it took a lot of really, really bad things to happen for us to get to where we are. And I don’t want to ruin it by having the whole family find out and have them breathing down our necks or pressuring us to—”
She holds up her hands. “Say no more. Consider me a vault. I will not reveal your secret, but I’m telling you, girl, I’m not the only one who noticed. And if you go around looking like my brother did something to you that I absolutely do not want to think about my brother doing, everyone else is going to know exactly what’s going on.”
I scowl at her. “I do not look like Pope has been doing anything to me…”
Her laughter fills the kitchen. “Believe me, I don’t want to say that about my baby bro, but you have the look.”
“Jesus…” I drop my face into my hands, once again annoyed with how damn close we all are in this family sometimes. Groaning, I pull my head back up. “Don’t ever say anything like that again.”
She grins and returns to cutting the plantains. “The chicken is almost done. Twenty minutes, tops.”
“Good, I’m starving, and Pope should be back in about an hour. I’m sure he’ll be hungry after such a long day.”
His first shift at the hospital since his leave.
Eight whole hours without him.
An entire day here with Benjamin and my mom this morning, with Gabe in the lobby, and now Bishop here and Saint downstairs.
No one is alone, ever.
No one goes anywhere without an armed driver. Savage, Saint, and Gabe’s trusted people who have been on their team for years.
We’re being as safe as we can be, watching for anything suspicious, always vigilant while we move the chess pieces necessary to trap Dan in a checkmate situation. But still, having Pope away all day has made me antsy.
The smell of smoke hits my nose, and I scrunch it up. “Hey, Bishop, I think you’re burning something. Maybe the bottom of your rice?”
She sniffs the air, and her eyes widen as she lunges for the oven, yanks it open, and pulls off the pot cover. Her brow furrows. “No, everything looks fine.” She takes a whiff of it. “It’s not this.”
What the hell?
We both turn toward the living room and step into it, sniffing, trying to determine the source of the smell. I pull Benjamin from the swing, tucking him into my arms while we search the apartment.
The scent grows strong—sharp and ominous.
“Where’s that coming from?”
Bishop shakes her head, eyes scanning the living room, and then moves down the hallway to check the bedrooms with me hot on her heels.
Each one seems fine.
But the acrid smell permeates the air, growing stronger and thicker.
I cough, my lungs starting to burn with each inhalation. “What the hell, Bishop?”
We rush back out to the living room, and Bishop freezes and points to the corner of the room, where dark smoke billows from the metal vent. “There, the air duct. It must be coming from somewhere else in the building.”
“Shit.”
The fire alarm starts whooping, immediately waking Benjamin, who screams and starts flailing in my arms.
I hold him steady, pressing my hand over one ear and his other to my chest to try to dampen the sound. “What do we do?”
We aren’t supposed to leave this condo—for any reason. We’ve had doctors making house calls for weeks, checking up on Benjamin and me here, where it’s safe.
But our safe haven has become a damn death trap.
Bishop’s hard gaze meets mine, and she pulls the gun from her hip holster. “We have to get the hell out of here.”
* * *
POPE
As much asI thought I’d be distracted my first day back at work by constantly thinking and worrying about Allie and Benjamin, a slew of multi-car accidents, a shooting in the Seventh Ward, and several idiots who decided to show off for their friends on their motorcycles near Bourbon Street have kept me busy for most of my shift.
I stop at the nurses’ station and glance up at the clock, doing a double take at where the hands are on the face. “Hey, Luna?”
She looks up from her computer screen. “Yes, Dr. Clarke?”
Pointing at the clock, I raise a brow. “Is that right?”
Her eyes follow, and she smiles. “I know, right? Crazy days make the time fly, don’t they?”
I lean against the counter, rubbing my lower back. After being away from the ER for six weeks, my body is reminding me why I usually work out so much—so being on my feet for these long shifts doesn’t destroy it. “Yeah. I can’t believe I’m almost out of here.”
She twirls her pen and offers me a sympathetic look. “How was your first day back? A little chaotic, huh?”
I run my hand over my head and shake it. “No. Good, actually. It feels great to be back.”
“I know Dr. Hawke is happy to have you here.”
And I’m sure if Nora were on shift right now, she’d be telling me the same thing. But even though it’s her day off, she’s clearly been talking with the nurses about my return.
I smirk at her. “Let me guess. She’s been telling all of you to kiss my ass so I won’t ever take leave again?”
Luna laughs and pushes out of her chair to grab something off the printer behind her. “Not in so many words, but I will tell you that I do think she hopes you never miss another day.”
“I don’t plan on it.”
Because Allie was right—I needed to come back.
That constant worry is still there in the back of my head, pushing its way forward any free moment I get, but once a new patient comes in and I’m in my element, doing what I’ve been trained to, it feels…right.
As right as it did having Allie in my bed and my arms all weekend.
Maybe I really can have both.
While I cannot wait to get back, with Dad and Bishop there, keeping them safe, I can focus on what I need to here and on them once I get home. Which won’t be too long now.
The radio squawks to life, indicating incoming patients, and Zoe grabs it and starts jotting down information as I examine new lab reports that just came through on my tablet.
My eyes scan the results, and the pleasant thoughts I had vanish, as they always do when I have to deliver bad news. “Shit. Hey, Luna?”
She looks up. “What do you need, Doc?”
“Mr. Mendelson in bed six. His blood work came back.” I hate this part of the job—when it stops being something simple that I can fix and I have to hand them off to someone else to do some very hard work that might not save their lives. “We’re going to have to refer him to oncology.”
Her face scrunches into a wince, and she nods. “I’ll call up to them.”
Zoe replaces the radio and turns to me, handing me the sheet. “We have twenty incoming.”
“Twenty?”
She nods. “I know. They’re sending a bunch to Tulane and Ochsner, as well. There was a fire in a condo building. A lot of smoke inhalation, a few burns.”
“What are they sending us?”
“The bad ones.”
Of course.
As the only level-one trauma center in New Orleans, we are always sent the people who need our help the most, which means I am not going home anytime soon—regardless of when my shift is supposed to end.
Which means I should text Bishop, Dad, and Allie to let them know I’ll be late.
I pull out my cell as I hustle toward the ambulance bay, but the sharp whine of the incoming siren sounds outside the sliding glass doors in front of me—the first patient already arriving.
The text will have to wait.
Luna joins me, and we step into the ambulance bay as the first bus pulls in. The other doctors on shift and their nurses assemble with us, prepared to immediately assess the incoming injured.
This is the part of the job I love, why I’m here instead of the only other place I’d want to be, and I ready myself for anything that might come tonight.
The back doors of the first ambulance to arrive open, and the paramedics wheel out a victim of the fire. One of them starts rattling off his stats from a tablet as we move into the ER.
“A 56-year-old male. Suffering smoke inhalation and burns on hands and one arm. Heart rate of 92 beats per min, blood pressure of 140/98, respiratory rate of 26 breaths/min, pulse ox was 93 before giving 100% oxygen…”
My brain automatically starts cataloging the information, and I begin rattling off orders to the nurses. “Get an IV going and order a chest X-ray. We’ll debride his burns once he’s stabilized.”
Wheeling his bed into place, the nurses set to work on my orders, and I do my visual inspection of the patient—Douglas Landry, according to the information gathered by EMS.
“Mr. Landry?” I lean over so he can see me above him. “Can you hear me?”
The man with the graying hair nods slightly.
“Good. I’m Dr. Clarke. We’re going to take good care of you. Can you tell me if you’re having any chest pain or trouble breathing?”
His hazy green eyes seem to focus on me better, and his brow furrows. “Pope?”
My back stiffens.
How the hell does he know my name?
I peel the oxygen mask from his face for a moment to get a better look at the patient, and my breath catches.
Holy shit.
“Doug?”
The older gentleman who always says “hello” to me in the mornings when I’m coming in from my runs and he’s on his way out to walk his dog nods and coughs.
I immediately replace the mask as a wave of panic engulfs me. “Luna! What was the address of the fire?”
She quickly grabs the tablet and glances at the screen, scrolling to find the information provided by EMS. “Somewhere near the river…I want to say, oh, here it is…600 Port of New Orleans Place.”
A hand circles my wrist, and I turn back to Doug, my heart in my throat.
He pulls his mask down with a shaking hand that bears evidence of the fire—second-degree burns across the back and moving up his arm. “I hope the girls got…out…okay.”
I lean over him again. “Doug, what happened? Did you see my sister and Allie?”
It’s been weeks since I’ve seen him—since I’ve mostly stayed cooped up in the condo with Allie and Benjamin and haven’t been taking my morning runs.
How would he even know who was there unless he saw them?
Another rough coughing fit shakes his body, and he winces. I help him replace the mask so he can get the oxygen he so desperately needs, but we need to get some pain meds into him quickly.
“Doug, are you allergic to any pain medications?”
He shakes his head and tries to remove the mask again, but I place my hand on his good wrist, stopping him. “Leave it.” As badly as I need information, I need to get him treated first. “Luna, get him ten milligrams of morphine to start. See if that helps.”
She nods and enters the order on the tablet, then hands it to me before she dashes off to take care of the rest of my requests.
His coughing seems to have subsided for the moment, and his oxygen levels are slowly rising, which is a good sign, but it doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods yet. “Doug, can you tell me what happened? Where was the fire?”
“Ground floor initially…moved up…a lot of smoke.”
The ground floor.
Well below the penthouse, but with a fire like that, smoke is often the biggest danger to those on higher floors.
“Did you see my sister or the brunette, Allie? She would have had a baby with her.”
He closes his eyes for a moment, wheezing and struggling to take a breath after the effort of speaking. I place a hand on his uninjured arm as Luna returns with the meds and gets them into his IV.
“This will help with the pain, Mr. Landry.”
And it will likely also make it impossible for him to talk or tell me anything coherent.
Dr. Fontenot passes by, her focus on her tablet, scrolling through a file on her way toward the nurses’ station.
I catch up with her, pulling out my phone as we walk. “Can you monitor my patient, Mr. Landry, in bed eight for a minute?”
She narrows her eyes on me, immediately sensing something is off. “What’s wrong?”
“This fire…it was my building. My sister and…some other people were at my place.”
“Oh, my God.” She scans the ER, the patients flooding in and already starting to fill the beds. “Are they here?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t seen them. I need to make a call.”
“Of course. Go ahead. I’ll check your patient.”
Before she even finishes speaking, I step away from the fray and call Bishop, pacing along the wall near the elevators as it rings.
“Come on. Come on. Pick up.”
Instead, her voicemail greeting hits my ears, and I end the call.
“Fuck.”
I dial Dad.
“Pick up!”
A passing nurse I don’t know gives me a strange look at my outburst, but I ignore her as I continue to pace.
His phone rings and rings but eventually goes to voicemail, and my gut twists.
I scan the ER and every single incoming patient, looking for the girls. Other familiar faces occupy beds—my neighbors, the people I’ve seen around the building over the years—but there isn’t any sign of Bishop, Allie, or Dad.
“Shit.”
Where the hell are you?
My body trembling, I dial Gabe, the only other person who might actually know what the fuck is going on.
He answers on the second ring. “They’re okay.”
A wave of relief floods my chest, and I lean back against the wall and drop my head to it. “Thank fuck. What the hell happened? Where are they?”
“They smelled smoke, and it started coming in through the vents. Bishop got them down through the emergency stairwell and met your dad, who was on his way up to them. They got out, but neither Bishop nor your father felt it was safe to wait for the firefighters or paramedics. They were too exposed standing outside like that, and your dad wanted them all to get medically assessed, so they brought them to the clinic.”
Oh, thank fuck.
The free clinic Hawke Enterprises runs doesn’t have anywhere near the capabilities we do here, but it has top-of-the-line equipment and the best doctor I know operating it.
Gabe says something to someone on his end, then returns to the call. “Nora is examining them right now. She said they have some minor smoke inhalation.”
“Benjamin?”
“He’s fine, Pope. They’re all fine.”
His assurances should release the vise from around my chest, but I can’t stop thinking about how many ways this could have gone so badly.
“Did they see anything? Does anyone know what started the fire?”
Gabe clears his throat. “No, but…” It sounds like he’s moving before he returns to the phone. “Sorry, I wanted to get away from Allie because we discussed this. Do you remember what Roselli said to you?”
Like I could ever forget.
“Yeah. That he could never get to them at my place because it was too defensible.”
“Exactly.” Gabe’s voice takes on an icy chill. “And someone just made sure they’re not going to be able to stay at your place.”