Page 23 of Claimed By my Father's Enemies
"And hotels. The MH Group is in hospitality too."
"I realize that now," I mutter, between my teeth.
I start walking again.
The thought forms, steady and merciless. I'm working for William Martin's company.There is nothing I can do about that right now. But for sure, this is going to impact my business. There is no way he knew that Veridian was mine. Otherwise he wouldn’t have allowed me to be hired for the Vale Hotel project.
The cafeteria is too bright, mostly empty, and the coffee smells burnt from the doorway. We buy six cups and carry three each back down the corridor and the entire walk back, I have the same thought in loop. Does this mean I’m going to lose the Vale Hotel job?
The cups are warm against my fingers. I hold onto that.
Sergeant Walsh and Officer Alvarez are where we left them when we get back. William stands near the corridor door with Adrian beside him. I hand out cups without making eye contact with William and take a sip of my own.
I immediately grimace. It is bad in a specific, determined way. Stale and over-extracted with something metallic finishing at the back of the throat. I take another sip anyway because it's warm and I need the caffeine to do its thing.
I'm mid-sip when the door opens.
A doctor in surgical scrubs walks into the waiting room. I recognize him. He spoke to me before they took Charlie in, calm and direct, telling me exactly what they were going to do and what he expected to find.
"William." I step toward him before I've thought about whether I should. "This is Dr. Chen. He performed Charlotte's surgery."
William shakes the doctor's hand. The six of us arrange ourselves in a loose half-circle. Dr. Chen looks around the group. Takes a breath in.
My breath stalls somewhere in the middle of my chest, halfway in and not finishing.
"Officer Martin came through surgery well," he says. "Clean wound. No major vessel involvement. No permanent damage to the shoulder joint or surrounding tissue." He looks at William. "She's going to make a full recovery. Two to three days here for observation and pain management, and then she goes home."
The room exhales. All at once. One collective release.
Sergeant Walsh dips his chin once. The economic gesture of a man who has been in rooms like this before and not always with a good outcome. Officer Alvarez closes her eyes and presses her thumb hard against the cross at her neck, her lips moving slightly.
Adrian looks like he is about to be sick. He slams his hand on William's back, twice, hard. "Good," he says, rough and low. "Good, good." He says it mostly to the floor.
Carter pulls William into a brief, one-armed thing, the kind of contact men use when they don't have words. William allows itfor three seconds, and in those three seconds the full shape of his relief is visible before he pulls it back in.
Sergeant Walsh clears his throat. "We're going to head out. Give you some family time." He looks at William. "She's one of the best officers I have. You should know that." He holds out his hand.
William shakes it. "Thank you for being here."
Walsh nods. Alvarez crosses to me. Her arms come around me, firm and brief, the hug of someone who means it.
"She talks about you all the time," Alvarez says, close to my ear. "Really glad you were here tonight."
I can’t reply because I have a huge stone lodged in my throat. I squeeze her arm once and she lets go.
They leave.
The room settles into the four of us.
William looks at me.
Then at the door.
"Yeah," he says. Quiet. Cold. "Right now it should just be family."
He wants me to leave too.
I know who Charlie is to me. I know what years of being each other's person means, every difficult thing we've carried together that William has no knowledge of and no right to measure. I know what she would say right now if she could say anything.
