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“I’m going to check in with the hospital and see if any of the other victims need help. She’ll most likely be out for another few hours. Let the supreme one know.” He patted both Greyson’s and Toby’s shoulders before heading to the elevator.
There was no need to let him know because the moment the doors closed Ethan walked out into the lobby. I was sure he’d heard the conversation. And though he didn’t seem fazed, there was something in his eyes as he stared at the closed elevator doors.
“Call the car,” he directed at one of them.
“Are you going somewhere?” I asked, rising from the seat and standing in front of him. His gaze lowered down to me. Without my heels I felt very small under his stare.
“Yes. To be the victimizer,” he replied, walking around me and toward the elevator. Obviously he listened in on our conversation. “Go rest.”
“The moment shit hits the fan, as tends to happen in the Callahan family, he’ll realize you aren’t strong enough to be his woman.”
Her words bothered me. I felt like if I went to bed as he went out I’d be proving her right. And so when the light came on indicating that the elevator came, I stood beside him.
“What are you doing?”
“Following you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to hear about you from other people,” I said, stepping onto the elevator. He and his guards just stared at me, not moving. “Are you coming?”
“Ivy, it isn’t a gam—”
“Oops!” I closed the doors, yelling, “Sorry, you’re going to have to catch the next one!”
I laughed, wishing so badly I could see the look on his face. He’d probably never had anyone do that to him before. When I reached the bottom floor, I realized I might have really been insane because that was when I saw it, the sheer chaos. People were still being rushed in, and doctors and nurses were everywhere. Wyatt, who’d only come down a few minutes ago, was somehow already on a stretcher working over a small girl, trying to put a tube down her throat. When he got it in he jumped down, yelling a few directions before rushing toward the next patient. Blood dripped all over the floors, which were quickly being cleaned by the janitors. In the waiting area people still dressed in their church clothes sat hugging onto each other tightly.
“Don’t go anywhere without letting me know and at least one guard.” Ethan appeared at my side, and I jumped, not even realizing how long I’d been standing there. He looked over at the lobby with not a single emotion. How, I wasn’t sure. “Let’s go.”
I followed behind him as he walked toward the glass doors and again I was so distracted by everything that I walked into his back, not realizing he’d stopped. He stood straighter, looking over his shoulder at me.
“Sorry,” I muttered, brushing my hair behind my ears.
Facing in front, I saw a small boy, maybe seven or eight, holding on to the arm of some stuffed animal…I couldn’t tell what because he only had what was left of it…the arm.
“Yes?” Ethan asked him.
“You Mr. Callahan?” The boy frowned.
Ethan nodded, and the boy lifted the stuffed animal arm and held it up to him. “It was my brother’s. He’s gone now. Mom said you’d remember him. You’d make them pay for my brother.”
“Tony!” A woman, who I could only guess was his mother rushed to him, grabbing onto him tightly. She looked up at us both, her eyes bloodshot. “Sorry—”
“Don’t apologize, Mrs. Bellucci,” he said, reaching down to pick up the stuffed arm and handing it back to the boy, telling him, “I don’t need this to remember your brother.” He took out a small pocket knife and cut his own palm, drawing his own blood before showing it to him. “This is how I remember.”
Turning toward the doors, we stepped out into the cold air. It was only late afternoon, so part of me was expecting it to be dark outside. There were press and ambulances everywhere. The Range Rover pulled to a stop right to the side of the hospital to avoid blocking anyone. Toby held the door open, allowing me inside first. He sat beside me.
“You can’t have them,” he spoke into the phone, leaning back into his seat. “Chief Moen, this is personal. I’ll give you one of them…you can make up whatever story you want…radicalism, satanism, pure insanity, I don’t care. But you’ll only get one of them alive.”
He rested his finger on his lip, staring out the window. Rage…bloodlust came off him in waves.
“In Boston,” I spoke up softly and I couldn’t bring myself to look at him as I did. “They said the Callahans are greedy and selfish, power hungry thugs who don’t care about their own people anymore.”
“They’re right,” he said, to my surprise. “We are greedy, we are selfish, and hunger for power is second nature to us. It doesn’t matter if I care or not. They are our people. It’s my duty to make sure the whole survives at any cost. And so I do. Wyatt wants to help the victims. But it is Callahan money that expanded that hospital and Callahan money that will take care of those people when the government stops. What good is saving their lives if they can’t afford to live it afterward?”
I was starting to understand why everyone was so devoted to them. “A gangster with sophistication and morals.”
