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“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” Max’s voice lashed out like a whip in the dead silence.
“Max!” Dallas hissed, stumbling out of her chair.
Max stepped in Roark’s path before he could reach Loren’s open door, his gun burning a hole in the waistband of his cargo pants.
The Red Baron slowed his pace to a smooth stop. “I need to have a word with Darien.” His stare settled on Max, the reluctance in the action tangible.
Max’s hand twitched toward his pistol again. “I’m not letting you in there.”
Roark’s upper lip curled like he’d stepped in dog shit. “Those are bold words to use on a general.”
“That’s a shit tone to use on a Darkslayer,” Max countered. “If you set foot in that room, Darien will eat you alive, so you can either tell me what you want, or you can get the hell out.” It may seem like an overreaction, but this man hadn’t bothered to check in on Loren all goddamn week, and neither had Taega. He couldn’t imagine what it had been like for the poor girl while growing up.
Same with the one standing at his side.
Erasmus, on the other hand, had tried to visit Loren several times, but Darien refused to let Erasmus—or anyone, really—get anywhere close to his girl, least of all the father who’d failed her, time and again. Max couldn’t blame Darien for acting this way, but once in a while he’d feel a twinge of pity for the old guy. Sometimes, the man slept in the waiting area until Cyra came and urged him to go home. Two days had passed since Erasmus had last been here, two days since anyone had so much as heard from him or Cyra—two days since Darien had lost his temper and literally pulled a gun on Erasmus.
He’d left, of course. Literally ran out of the hospital as fast as his age would let him. Darien hadn’t fired any shots, but with the way things were going, with no sign of Loren waking up, it was best if Erasmus stayed away.
Roark glanced at his biological daughter—just for a second. Not long enough to really see her—to see how gaunt and pale her face had become, how tired her eyes looked.
“Give us a minute, Dallas.” Roark’s dismissal was brusque.
Max grabbed Dallas by the wrist before she could step away, his thumb pressing on her racing pulse. “You’ve been telling her to give you a minute for the past twenty years,” he growled at the Red Baron. “That’s her family in that room, and if what you have to say has anything to do with Loren, then it’s just as much Dallas’s business as it is ours. She stays.”
Landlines droned with incoming calls. The receptionists let them ring, which meant they now had an audience.
Roark’s eyes flicked toward the desk. Aside from a lone muscle ticking in his clean-shaven jaw, he showed zero emotion. No surprise there.
Max was debating blasting him in the head when Roark spoke.
“I know of a way we might be able to wake Loren up.”
Max blinked. Well, that was unexpected.
Dallas stepped forward. “How?” Max knew the fresh skip in her pulse didn’t have anything to do with her asshole of a dad.
A shadow moved in Max’s periphery.
Darien filled the doorframe. He didn’t say anything, his face sharper than shattered glass. He hardly spoke at all anymore. Never smiled, and sure as Ignis’s tits never laughed.
When Max addressed Darien, he kept his voice down. “Roark thinks he knows how we can wake Loren up.”
For several minutes, the Red Baron and the Devil sized each other up. With the two of them standing across from each other like that, Roark looked…small. Insignificant. Then again, Darien tended to have that effect on a lot of people.
Roark’s attention strayed to the room that was partially blocked by Darien’s menacing form.
And the girl lying unconscious on the bed inside.
Darien didn’t move a muscle, but that perpetual threat in his eyes deepened. If Max hadn’t known him so well, that deadly look would’ve made him hightail it out of the hospital—maybe even hightail it out of the goddamn city and never come back.
Darien had been dangerous his whole life—there was no doubt about that. But as a man in love, he was lethal.
The last of Roark’s hesitation vanished as his attention returned to Darien. This time, there was no disdain in the Red Baron’s stare, not even when the look Darien gave him in return was so sharp it would have sent a lesser man running.
Roark drew a deep breath. “You would have to go to Yveswich.”
3
