Chapter 5 Holt
HOLT
The warehouse operation had been textbook perfect until the shooting started. Holt had always known that bringing down the Volkov organization would be dangerous, but he’d spent forty-six years preparing for this moment, and he wasn’t about to let fear stop him now.
The first bullet had been a burning line across his temple, close enough to draw blood and send stars dancing across his vision.
The second had punched through his vest like it was made of paper, the Kevlar slowing it down just enough to keep it from piercing his heart.
Instead, it had lodged itself in his chest cavity, missing vital organs by mere millimeters.
The third shot had caught him in the thigh, spinning him around and sending him crashing into the edge of a metal desk.
When his head connected with the corner of that desk, the world had exploded into white light and ringing silence.
The traumatic brain injury would plague him for months afterward, but in that moment, all Holt felt was satisfaction.
Marcus Volkov was dead, and with him, the last link to his father’s murder.
As the paramedics loaded him onto a stretcher, Holt’s vision faded in and out like a broken television signal.
He caught glimpses of Agent Martinez barking orders into his radio, of crime scene techs already photographing the warehouse, of the covered body that had once been the most wanted man on three FBI most-wanted lists.
“Stay with me, Boss,” Martinez kept saying, his voice cutting through the fog that threatened to pull Holt under. “You did it. Volkov’s finished. Now you just need to hang on.”
The ambulance ride to the hospital was a blur of sirens and medical equipment.
Holt drifted in and out of consciousness, aware of the paramedics working over him but unable to focus on their words.
His thoughts kept circling back to that moment in the warehouse when Volkov had smiled and talked about his father like Richard Dillinger’s death meant nothing.
“Nothing personal,” the old man had said, as if forty-six years of grief and determination could be dismissed with a shrug.
But it had been personal. Every case Holt had worked, every criminal he’d profiled, every sleepless night spent hunting monsters had been personal. His father’s murder had shaped every choice he’d made since he was fifteen years old, and now, finally, the scales were balanced.
The operating room was a hive of controlled chaos.
Surgeons examined his chest, leg, and head.
Their voices sounded like they were coming from far away.
A mask was put over his mouth and nose as Holt fought against the anesthesia for as long as he could, some primitive part of his brain insisting that he needed to stay awake, needed to make sure this wasn’t all some elaborate dream.
But eventually, the darkness claimed him, and his last conscious thought was of his son, who would soon receive a phone call. Guilt hit him in the heart as he thought of getting the very phone call Holt had always dreaded getting about his son.
The dreams came in waves, fragments of memory and imagination mixing together in his unconscious mind.
He saw his father’s face the morning he’d left for work for the last time, heard his own fifteen-year-old voice swearing vengeance over a fresh grave.
He relived cases from his years with the BAU, faces of victims and criminals blending together in an endless parade of violence and justice.
And through it all, threading between the other images like a golden thread, was June.
June, as she’d been at eighteen, fierce and determined.
June, fighting him about Virginia because she had her own dreams to pursue.
June, as she’d looked the night he’d walked out of their apartment, her face pale but resolute as she told him there was no path forward for them.
June, as she might be now, a successful attorney in her own right, probably long since moved on from their brief, intense marriage.
The dream that felt most real came hours into his recovery. He was back in that Cambridge apartment, but older now, and June was there beside him. She wasn’t eighteen anymore but mature, beautiful in the way that came with experience and hard-won wisdom.
“Was it worth it?” June asked, and her voice carried the weight of all the years between them. “All this pain, all this risk. Was it worth nearly leaving your family for a ghost?”
In the dream, he tried to explain. Tried to make her understand that he’d done this not just for his father, but for every family that had lost someone to violence. Every child who’d grown up without a parent because monsters like Volkov thought human life was disposable.
But even in his unconscious state, he could hear the hollowness in his own arguments. The truth was simpler and more complicated than noble motives. He’d spent his entire adult life chasing his father’s killer because he didn’t know how to be anyone else.
“You gave up on us to avenge your father,” June said, and the accusation hit him like a physical blow.
“No,” Holt tried to argue. “You were the one who gave up. You chose your career over our marriage.”
“I left so you could pursue your dreams,” June replied, and even through the haze of morphine and head trauma, Holt could hear the truth in those words. “You were the one who gave up on our dreams. Not me.”
The conversation felt so real that when he reached for her, when he tried to hold onto this last chance to explain, to apologize, to somehow bridge the gap of nearly four decades, the disappointment of finding empty air was devastating.
“No, June, wait,” he called out, fighting against the medical equipment and the fog in his brain. “Please, please wait.”
“Dad!” A familiar voice cut through the dream, anchoring him to the present. “Dad, stop. Calm down. You’re going to pull out your drips and rip some stitches.”
Holt’s eyes flew open, and the sterile white of the hospital room swam into focus.
The dream faded, leaving behind only the lingering ache of old wounds that had never properly healed.
Strong hands were holding him down, preventing him from sitting up, and gradually the face above him resolved into someone he recognized.
His son. Thirty-four years old, who had inherited his height and build, dark hair, and blue eyes that looked exactly like Holt’s own. He was wearing civilian clothes, which meant he’d probably driven straight from home without stopping to change.
“You’re here,” Holt managed to say, his voice coming out as a croak.
“Yeah,” his son laughed, relief evident in his voice. “What the heck were you thinking, Dad?”
The question was fair. Holt had gone into that warehouse knowing the odds, knowing that Marcus Volkov hadn’t survived his years as a criminal by being careless or sentimental.
The smart play would have been to wait for backup, to set up surveillance, to build an airtight case that could be prosecuted in a courtroom.
But Holt had been fifteen when his father died, and some part of him would always be that angry, grieving teenager who wanted to look his father’s killer in the eye and deliver justice personally.
“I finally got the people who killed your grandfather,” Holt said, the words coming out with difficulty. His throat felt like sandpaper, and talking required more effort than he’d expected.
His son’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Dad, that’s...” His eyes widened as the implications sank in. “That’s huge.”
“Yeah,” Holt agreed, feeling a wave of exhaustion wash over him. The simple act of conversation was draining what little energy he had left. “I need water.”
A nurse entered the room as if summoned, a middle-aged woman with kind eyes and the efficient movements of someone who’d spent decades caring for patients in various states of medical crisis.
“You can have some ice chips for now,” she said, checking the various monitors and IVs that surrounded his bed. “Hello, Mr. Dillinger, welcome back. How are you feeling?”
“Like I got shot three times and hit my head on a desk,” Holt said, managing a weak smile.
“That’s about right,” the nurse replied with professional humor.
“The good news is that all three bullets missed anything truly vital. The chest wound was the most serious, but the surgeon was able to remove the bullet without complications. The head injury is what we’re watching most closely, but your cognitive responses seem normal. ”
His son helped him with the ice chips, the cold providing blessed relief for his parched throat. “You gave me such a fright,” his son said quietly. “When I got the call from the hospital, I thought...”
“Sorry.” Holt sighed, understanding exactly what his son had thought. In their line of work, phone calls from hospitals rarely brought good news. “How did you get here so fast?”
“A friend of mine who owns a plane flew me down,” his son replied.
“That’s good,” Holt said, trying to nod but wincing as pain sliced through his head. “Where is my grandson?”
“He’s at a friend’s,” his son told him. “I didn’t think…” He swallowed, his eyes darkening with emotion. “I didn’t know how bad it was, so…” He cleared his throat. “So I thought it best not to bring him.”
“Wise,” Holt agreed, and then another thought struck him. “You didn’t call your gran, did you?”
“I did,” his son told him unapologetically. “Seriously, Dad, if I hadn’t and you’d…” He cleared his throat again. “Gran would’ve killed me.”
“True,” Holt said. “Where is she?”
“She went to the cafeteria for a coffee and…” His son turned as the room door opened.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Holt’s mother walked into the room. While she held herself poised, her eyes gave away the sheer panic and terror she felt inside. She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Don’t ever scare me like this again.”
“I’ll try not to,” Holt said with a soft laugh that caused him to wince in pain.