“I should have gone after him.”
“No, Gavin. No, you shouldn’t have. He’d have hurt you.”
“So instead, he hurt Darius? I could have disarmed him or unmasked him or stopped this from happening.”
He needed to say it. For his own healing and peace of mind, he needed to get it all out. But the thought of Gavin walking across that street and confronting a masked stranger with a gun had her entire body going cold.
Especially because she was convinced they were the targets.
“That’s not what I meant. He shouldn’t have hurt anyone. But we were out there first. We were in his crosshairs. It’s an awful, terrible mistake that he shot Darius, but we were the targets. I’m convinced of it.”
“Why? What possible reason would anyone want to shoot at us?”
“That’s what we need to find out. But I had to have seen the flash of his gun in the lights. And I knew whomever it was had been focused on us. That’s why I kept looking over.”
“So someone was just there, waiting for us to come out of the bar?”
The question stopped her, and she realized it was a valid question. Some gunman was waiting around on the off chance they might walk out?
What she’d seemed so certain of only moments before grew fuzzy at the edges.
Was tonight just some random attack? One that could have tilted in a bad direction toward anyone? And Darius had just happened to come out of the bar at the wrong time?
Or was it something more?
“Miss Forte?” The doctor tapped lightly on the door frame before walking in. “I’m Dr. Monroe. I’m the attending on call, and I’ve looked at all the tests my resident ran earlier.”
Gavin stood, giving room for the woman to look her over. Sera answered the same questions she’d given the resident and the nurse before him, before being given the all clear.
“Um, Doctor,” Sera started in, gesturing Gavin back to her side. “Our friend is here, in surgery for a gunshot wound.”
The doctor nodded, her expression grave. “He’s still in surgery now, but I can get you an update.”
“Thank you. But, well, I want to be there. To be part of the group waiting on news.” Sera glanced down and laid a hand over her belly, a gesture she’d done on repeat for the past hour. “But is it safe for the baby?”
“The baby’s fine. Your fall was cushioned, and your tests all indicate there’s nothing to be concerned about. I’m sorry for the stress and the trauma, but please take that particular worry out of the mix. Your baby is progressing right on schedule.”
Sera nodded before glancing at Gavin. “Our baby. It’s ours.”
The doctor turned toward Gavin, gesturing him forward before laying a hand on his shoulder. “Your quick thinking kept them both safe. I know there’s not much to take solace in this evening, but take comfort from that.”
Gavin nodded, and once again, that quivering sense of relief was nearly palpable.
Their small family was safe.
She might not know what their future held as a couple, but tonight had proven that she, Gavin and their baby were a family and would be for the rest of her life.
Tears and prayers.
They would be the two things he remembered about this night, Gavin thought as he sat vigil in the emergency room waiting area. Except of everyone here, he was the only one who’d been through this before.
The only one who knew the horror.
And the only one who remembered. The fear and hope, fused so tightly together they were one emotion. One deep, throbbing need.
Jayden’s family was assembled around the room, his mother, brothers and sisters and their spouses. Their faces all wore perpetually shell-shocked expressions, and their voices had descended into monotone whispers as they spoke quietly to each other.
He’d learned that Darius was an only child from Connecticut, with deceased parents. He also learned that he was a graduate of Yale, summa cum laude. And he also learned that he might have come into the Houston family by marriage, but he was as much one of them as every one of the children Mama Houston raised in that house with the cookery in the back.
Although Gavin had wanted to take Sera home and come back, she wouldn’t hear of it. So after she was formally discharged, she took the seat next to him as they waited.
Kerrigan had kept up a steady string of texts with Arlo as he worked the crime scene, sharing the minimal news as she had it. No one they’d questioned so far had seen anything suspicious around the neighborhood. Nor had they come up with any security camera footage, since all the establishments on the block were closed. They did manage to get the feed from the bar, but other than more flashes glinting off the man in the shadows, similar to what had aroused Sera’s suspicions in the first place, there was nothing usable.
Like a ghost.
“Do you have a minute?” Kerrigan came over to sit beside him, her movements casual even as her eyes said anything but.
“Of course. I actually need some coffee.”
Sera was lightly dozing against his shoulder, but woke instantly with Kerrigan’s arrival. She seemed to innately understand the need to stay put and quietly sent them on.
Although Gavin expected they’d be waylaid by Mama Houston’s all-knowing stare, she was entirely focused on Jayden, holding him close and murmuring words of encouragement to him as Gavin and Kerrigan passed out of the waiting room.
“Bastards.” Kerrigan might have whispered the word, but it held a world of fierce disdain and deep, frustrated anger as they hit the privacy of the hallway.
“What’s going on? Did Arlo find something?”
“Not yet, but one of his informants reached out. Said he might know something.”