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“It’s toet hiet all the test results in time”

I nodded “Tate called them from the car He had then it today”

We both fell silent, but I kneasn’t over My hunch was confirmed when Ronan said, “So that’s it? I don’t hear from you for teeks and when you do finally call, it’s to ask me to find a place that will treat a kid with leuke on, Hawke?”

I tookthe first wrap off, but h I’ather e to admit to thisI felt often, but froun on Tate and his son even after I knew that Tate wasn’t one of thefor, it was all I felt But even now as it coursed through er

“His father and brother killed Revay,” I finally spit out

“Tate’s?”

I nodded, unwilling to share the fact that they were also Matty’s father and brother In my mind, Matty was Tate’s son and alould be despite what the DNA said

“Fuck,” I heard Ronanaway fro he’d done in front of me before, but I knew he’d let very few other people see him like this

The Ronan I kneas very different from the persona Ronan shared with others and that had always been strangely co to me I’d met Ronan ten years earlier when Revay and I had been wheeled into the ER at Brooke Arh I’d been badly burned, I’d still been conscious and the ER had been in such a state of chaos that no one had noticed when I’d cliurney I’d been rolled in on and searched out the roo doctor had been frantically working on her with only a single nurse to help hilance as he’d worked on my wife and he hadn’t tried to make me leave which I wouldn’t have done anyway I was never sure if he’d let me stay because he’d known it hat I’d needed or because he’d knoouldn’t have left

Either way, his eyes had connected with mine for the briefest of moments and then his only focus had been Revay I hadn’t been able to make sense of any of the words he and another doctor on the other side of the large roo to each other, but I had understood exactly what itand the line on it had gone flat Everything afterwards had been a blur as the doctor had begun slicing into her body with a scalpel For all the grueso my career in the army, I hadn’t been able to bear to watch my wife’s blood pour froone, so I’d dropped to the floor and covered my head with my hands and sobbed like a child as I’d tried to come to terms with the fact thatI’d sat there for, but I’d steeled myself for the words that would confirently on my shoulder

I hadn’t heard the words…I hadn’t heard anything the doctor had said toof my wife’s heart monitor and I’d scrambled to my feet to take her burned, bloody hand inmoved to another floor I’d had three days with her after that Three days to tell her everything I thought I’d have a lifeti me, I’d only felt true pain when she’d told me she loved me for the last time, just before a tube was inserted into her throat to help her breathe Three days and then she was gone

I hadn’t seen Ronan after that night in the ER, but our paths had crossed again four years later when I’d learned of an attack on Ronan and his lover, Trace, who’d happened to be Seth’s older brother Ronan and Trace had been ambushed by several soldiers frorahanistan Both men had been brutally beaten and then each had been sodomized with a metal pipe Ronan had survived the attack Trace hadn’t My heart had gone out to the surgeon and his dead partner, but it wasn’t until I’d overheard so about the attack a month later that I’d seen an opportunity to pay Ronan back for what he’d done for uilt when I’d abducted the leader of the attack, and I’d had no issue with helping Ronan seek out his own fore the brutal crime or punish any of the men involved After that, I’d watched as Ronan took out every last man who’d tortured him and stolen his future away, and a few anization that could do the saer scale, I hadn’t hesitated to sign on