Page 65 of Ruthless Reign

A woman screamed as I pulled my switchblade only for Dad to disarm me. “They need to take him,” he was saying. “Let them take him, Son.”

I watched the emergency staff pull Kaleb onto a stretcher and cart him away. Watched him vanish between a set of double metal doors, not even recalling leaving the car and entering the building.

Dad pulled Ma into his chest and held her tight, whispering into her hair.

“They’re going to save him,” Dad told her. “They have to.”

If they didn’t, I might shoot the surgeon.

“We need a doctor over here,” Dad commanded, pulling Ma to a bank of low seats near a vacant nurse’s window, sitting her down as a short man in a white jacket rushed over with a nurse to examine Ma’s knee.

“Grab a wheelchair,” the doc told the nurse, but Dad just stood and scooped Ma up in his arms like she weighed nothing, his expression bleak. “Where do you want her?”

“Uh, just, uh, down the hall, follow the blue line to surgery,” the doc babbled, rushing to catch up with my Dad as he carried Ma to be tended to.

“No. I want to be with Kaleb. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, Sloane. And you know you can’t go into surgery. Even if you were the fucking Pope they would lock your ass out.”

“But—”

“I know, baby. I know.”

They left and I realized there were at least a half a dozen sets of terrified eyes watching us from the waiting area, all of them standing awkwardly together in a huddle as far away from me as they could get.

I left the waiting area, shoving the automatic door out of the way when it was too slow to open. I breathed deep as cool night air washed over my face.

They’ll save him.

Kaleb is a Saint and Saints don’t die easy.

He would be fine because I didn’t want to imagine the possibility that he might not be. I got a taste of it out in the canyons and I didn’t ever want to swallow that shit again.

Becca.

Fuck. I needed to make sure she was still with the Crows. What if…

I fumbled my phone from my pocket, remembering.

“Have you met my son, Aodhán?”

Aodhán.

The name had been so familiar.

Because I’d seen it before. On Becca’s phone.

That night after the Primal Ethos concert when I tucked her into bed and plugged in her phone, it’d been there. A message from Aodhán.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

My face heated as I thumbed into my contacts and found her name, tapping on it as a numbness filtered into my veins.

She answered on the first ring. “Hello? Hardin? Is it over? Are you okay?”

My stomach turned.

“Did you know?” I managed through the sharp ache in my throat.

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