Anyone who knowingly fucked with me needed to be taken down.
“Hi,” she said.
I kissed her.
“Any word on Dex?” she asked, her face showing her worry.
“If nothing went wrong overnight, we’ll pick him up on the way to the airport. If they need to keep him, we’ll have Will stay with him.”
“Wh… what happened while I was in the car? What about the third bomb?” She scrubbed the stubble at my jaw with her fingertips.
“They found it and disabled it. Denarda had the three detonators on him so Nino had kept them aside. We still have them. Nino’s dropping them off to a friend in the police department.”
She traced my arm some more.
“People died, Tia.”
Her eyes moved to me; her lips parted, her finger stopped moving.
“I was afraid of that. How many?”
“Seven people. Including Kate Lewis.”
Her eyes bugged out and her mouth dropped open.
“How?”
“She was crushed. A few died from internal injuries, being too close to the bombs, faces blown off, or their skulls getting crushed. Johnny ain’t in great shape but he’ll live. The news’ll say eight people but one of them was Leo’s goon, that fuck posing as a waiter who tried to take you.”
Her eyes filled up with tears and her hand covered her mouth.
“Poor John. My God, they have six children. Oh Tommy,” she was crying into my chest. I put my arms around her and squeezed her tight.
***
Nino, Will, and the other guards watched the girls and the kids. I went to the hospital with another guard, just as a precaution, and stopped in and saw Dex, then John. Dex was banged up good but he’d live. He’d be off work a while but he could come home with us that day.
John was staring off at nothing when I walked into his hospital room. He glanced at me. No, not staring at nothing. He was staring at the stark reality in front of him. The man was utterly wrecked with the loss of his wife.
I leaned in, “The fucker whose fault this was felt a whole lot of hurt before he left the world and descended to hell.”
John barely blinked through that news. I squeezed his uninjured shoulder.
“What can I do? What do you need, Johnny?”
“It wasn’t fast?”
“Nope. Real slow.”
John swallowed.
“What can I do?” I asked again.
“You already did it. Thank you.”
“Can I get you anything, call someone?”
He shook his head. “My father’s on the way. He’ll help make… arrangements.”