Retribution (The Protectors 3)

“And if it really bothered you, you would have turned the phone off or gotten a new one,” Ronan said as he sat down next to me. I glanced at him and couldn’t help the smile that flitted across my lips at the sight of the stubble covering his head. It had been nearly three weeks since Tate and I had video chatted with Matty after he’d gotten his head shaved and I suspected that Ronan had continued to shave his own head for some time afterwards because it was just now starting to grow back.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. A tremor of fear went through me as I quickly said, “Are Tate and Matty okay?”

“They’re fine. Tate made it home with no problems and Matty’s ANC count finally normalized a couple days ago. ANC stands for-”

“Absolute neutrophil count,” I interrupted. “His white blood cell count had to get back to normal after the chemo killed all of them. That’s why he had to stay in the Immunocompromised Services Unit at the hospital for so long after the chemo was finished. He was too susceptible to infections.”

Ronan didn’t respond so I glanced over at him. He was watching me with a mix of curiosity and pity and I turned back to focus on the horizon. There was no reason to explain that from the moment Matty had been admitted, I’d researched everything I could about his condition. Because Ronan would want to know why.

And I didn’t have an answer for that.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. I hadn’t had an answer five weeks ago when I’d started researching the disease, but I had one now.

“He was released yesterday,” Ronan said.

I nodded in understanding. Matty would only be out of the hospital for a week or so and then the whole process would start all over again. More chemo, more tests, more pain. My heart ached as I thought of all he and Tate would have to endure over the next six months. And a healthy outcome wasn’t even a certainty.

“Why are you here, Ronan?” I asked tiredly.

“Why are you?”

When I glanced at him, he said, “I know you’ve been talking to Daisy. She found information that proves Ricardo Davos is in Laredo.”

It shouldn’t have surprised me that Ronan would know everything Daisy had told me. “Then you know that she didn’t find any proof of Buck or Denny being part of Davos’s crew,” I said.

“Which is why I’ve spent the past three weeks monitoring your GPS so I would know when to send someone down there to back you up.”

“What about whoever it is you have watching me?” I shot Ronan a glance and wasn’t surprised to see not even an ounce of guilt. “Who is it?” I asked.

“Mav.”

I nodded. Mav was a good guy to have your back. I hadn’t been one hundred percent sure that I was being watched…it had been more of a feeling than anything else. But it hadn’t surprised me that Ronan would take whatever steps necessary to make sure I was covered.

I’d planned to leave for Laredo the day after Tate had left, but I’d ended up putting off the trip until I’d gotten more information from Daisy. I’d gotten that information the very next day, but three weeks later and I still hadn’t been able to bring myself to get in the truck and go.

And I had no idea why.

“Talk to me, Hawke,” Ronan said quietly.

I sighed and shook my head. “I thought this place was so cool when my mom and I moved here,” I mused as I scanned the property. “And then she was gone and I was left with him. I tried running away once – a few weeks after she died. I didn’t even make it to the end of the driveway before he came after me. He locked me in a closet for three days.”

I ran my hand along the back of my neck in agitation as I remembered that day. And then I remembered that I wasn’t alone so I dropped it and forced my tense body to relax. “Then I met her and everything changed.”

A dull pain settled in my chest as I remembered Revay’s smile as she’d asked me if she could sit with me at the lunch table the same day we’d met for the first time. I turned to look at Ronan. “She was my best friend, Ronan. She was the only good thing in my life and I failed her.”

“You didn’t fail her, Hawke.”

I blew out my breath as I realized I would never be able to make the man next to me understand.

“You think I should be able to just let her go,” I finally said. “I should just move on.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“If it were Seth, if you lost him, could you do it? Could you just let him go?”