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I’d never been so fucking scared in my life.
Nothing had ever made me as vulnerable as the love I felt for Willa.
I closed my eyes. An image of my wife giving me one of her sweet, playful grins materialized.
The dread didn’t abate. It magnified.
My lids flipped open.
If I lost her . . .
I clutched my chest.
No. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
But death and tragedy—two things I knew intimately—didn’t discriminate.
It didn’t matter that Willa was undeserving of their judgment.
The blink of an eye. One quick breath. A split second. She could be here one moment and gone the next.
Keegan leaned forward, offering me a paper cup. Steaming black liquid kissed the rim. “Here—you look like you could use this.” He had arrived at the hospital forty-five minutes after Agent Stoll had left Agent Rossi and me at the main entrance nearly two hours ago.
My gaze met his. He swallowed hard and tipped his head. “She’s gonna be all right, brother. It’s Willa—she’s a little honey badger, right?”
I would have given anything for a fragment of Keegan’s confidence.
Dr. Antonia Garcia-Lopez, the doctor in charge of Willa’s care, had informed me almost immediately that my wife had been brought into the emergency room unconscious and with signs of assault and smoke inhalation. The doctor would not allow anyone near her patient—husband or authorities—until she’d run a litany of diagnostics and cleared Willa for visitors.
Dr. Garcia-Lopez was not on the Flynn payroll, but the way she eyed me made it clear that she knew who I was. More likely than not, she’d also seen the history of violence on my wife’s body. She had yet to determine if I was the villain or hero in Willa’s story.
I was neither.
“Your wife is fortunate that she made it out of the house when she did ... it could have been much worse. Her guardian angel was working overtime today.”
My wife needed a guardian angel because her fucking husband had failed her.
A God-fearing man might have believed he was being punished for the depraved life he lived.
My scalp prickled with awareness.
Was I that man? Would the woman I loved pay for my sins? Is that what had happened to my mother?
As fast as that thought moved through my mind, I shook it off.
No. This wasn’t an act of God. The attack against Willa had been carried out by a man—or men—who believed themselves Godlike.
Something switched inside me. With my next breath, I made a choice.
Willa had returned to Boston a woman, and she made me want to be a good man. But right now, my wife needed a monster.
I was the God-appointed keeper of the underworld. And I would remind the fuckers who’d harmed Willa that they were made of flesh and bone.
I took the cup from Keegan’s outstretched grip. Coffee sloshed over the side and onto my hand. It should have burned. But I didn’t feel a goddamn thing. I tossed it in the rubbish bin to my left, got to my feet, and headed straight for Agent Rossi. She’d been hovering in the corner of the waiting room near the windows farthest away from me, where she took hushed calls and tapped away on her tablet.
She ended her latest conversation as I approached, slipping her cell phone into her back pocket.
I speared a hand through my hair. It was steadier than moments ago.
