Page 107 of Proof

“My father,” Cass responded even as he began moving toward the helicopter. We kept our heads lowered as the bladesbegan to spin. The noise made it nearly impossible to hear each other.

“Go,” I said with a nod. Cass held my eyes for a few seconds before he climbed into the helicopter. I moved away from the bird but didn’t watch it take off because I was already doing what Cass needed me to do.

I reached for the button on my comms. “Sully, is he alive?”

CHAPTER 31

Cass

“Cass?”

The sound of JJ’s voice was like a balm for all the wounds that were being carved into my body from the inside out. I had no idea how much time had passed since I’d last seen JJ, but I didn’t care.

He was here.

I knew what I must’ve looked like to JJ. I’d seen it in the eyes of the terrified people in the surgery’s waiting room when I’d entered and sought out the corner closest to the door. Even if I could have explained why I was sitting on my ass covered in blood-stained clothes, I wouldn’t. I barely understood it myself.

JJ would get it, though.

“Cass,” he repeated as his warm body settled against mine. I could feel when his fingers wrapped around mine, but I couldn’t return the embrace.

“Charlie?” I asked.

“Awake and happy. His nanny is with him,” JJ said gently.

I wasn’t sure if I managed a nod. I’d been with Charlie up until the children’s hospital ER doctors had assured me my little brother was going to be okay and then someone, Boone maybe,had driven me to the hospital where my father had already been in surgery.

“My father,” I began but then shook my head.

“I know, baby,” JJ said as he pressed a soft kiss to my temple. “I talked to the doctor. He’s holding his own, though, Cass. And remember, the longer we go without hearing from the surgeons, the longer your father is fighting.”

“SaDa,” I whispered brokenly. “I’ve been replaying things in my head, and I don’t know why it took me so long to remember…”

“Remember what? Do you know what SaDa means?”

I nodded. “I used to call my father that when I was really little. He’d come to see me at night sometimes so he could tuck me in. I was a little younger than Charlie. SaDa. Sad Dad,” I said softly. JJ’s arm went around my shoulders. Warmth began to penetrate my icy skin as he pulled me against his side. “I couldn’t pronounce sad dad, so I shortened it. I… I think I used to call him DaDa when I first started talking.”

“And you changed it when your dad seemed sad?”

I nodded again. “It was all the time. He’d be smiling and sometimes he’d read me a story, I think. Or tell me one, I’m not sure. He always sounded sad, though.”

“Did he call you buddy?” JJ asked.

I smiled both at the name and because JJ had already been putting the pieces together on his own when we’d been in my father’s office. It wasn’t until he’d used the name O’Shauneys that I’d finally understood the message both my father and my lover had been trying to send me without alerting the person on the other side of the hidden camera. Sully, JJ and even myself had called Sully and JJ’s father Sean Ferguson as ‘Pops’ and the Scottish man had never once strayed from the little Scottish pub near their house. I’d been there a few times with all three men and it sure as shit hadn’t been called O’Shauneys.

“Yeah,” I said. “My grandad used to call me that too. But only when my grandmother wasn’t around.”

The mere mention of my grandmother brought back a flood of memories. “All those things she told me when I was little, I just believed her. Even when I knew some of it didn’t make sense, I believed everything she said. But when I look back on it now, I don’t know how I could have been so blind,” I admitted.

“Sully’s been doing some digging,” JJ said. “Do you want to hear what he’s found out so far?”

“Yes. But can I tell you something first so you won’t worry so much about me?”

JJ laughed. It was a harsh, sob-filled laugh. It was proof that he was as traumatized by the whole experience as I was. “Yeah, okay,” he said, his voice cracking a bit.

“I love you so much, JJ. I love that you protected me today even though I acted like I didn’t need it. I love that you fought your pain so you could be with me.”

“You caught that, huh?”

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