Page 14 of The Final Cut

“They were,” I say.

Her face drains of the small amount of color the last hour had left her.

Nash looks at Deacon. “Confirm?”

“Rose. Rosary. Trained enough to run before contact.” Deacon’s voice stays even. “Isabel knows where Cal is.”

Shiloh swears under his breath.

Reva shakes her head once. “I’m not leaving him.”

No one answers fast enough.

“I am not leaving him,” she says again, louder. “He just got out of surgery. He’s in ICU. I am not walking away because some woman with a bracelet took a field trip through the lobby.”

“She got inside the hospital,” I say.

“Doesn’t change anything I just said.”

“She got inside before ICU transfer finished.”

“I heard you.”

My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “Then hear this, too. They will use him to get to you. They will use you to get to him. They will use every hallway in this place because hospitals are built for trust, and Isabel does not need many people to turn trust into a weapon.”

Her eyes flash. Good. Anger is better than the frozen thing from before.

“You knew something would happen at the gala,” she says. “You knew, and I went in anyway.”

The hit is clean because she is right. My mouth goes dry. Shiloh says her name, quiet warning, but she keeps looking at me.

Nash steps in before either of us can bleed any more into the room. “We are not moving tonight until you see Cal. After that, we decide.”

The dialogue stops there because Nash is smart enough to let silence do some of the work.

A nurse appears at the far end of the hall, looking at her tablet. “Family for Mr. Boudreaux?”

Reva turns so fast the sweatshirt slips off one shoulder.

The nurse smiles, tired and kind. “He’s settled. One visitor for a few minutes.”

Reva takes one step. Then she looks back at us.

At Nash, who is already building a war around her. At Deacon, who is staring down the hall where La Rosa disappeared. At Shiloh, who is still on the floor in his ruined tux in every way that matters, holding coffee she has not touched. At me, with a tablet full of useless footage and a hand that will not stop shaking.

“I’m seeing him,” she says.

Nash nods. “We’ll be here.”

She looks at me last.

The fear in her face is quiet now. That almost destroys me. I close my hand around the tablet until the case creaks.

“Right behind you, firefly.”

She follows the nurse down the hall the few feet to ICU.

As we walk, my gaze flicks between the hall and the tablet in my hand. I watch every camera between here and there.