Broken Honor (26 page)

Chapter Thirty-Two

London, England

Another hospital.

Christ. Quinn was so fucking sick of hospitals. Hated the sounds, the smells, the creeping sense that death waited behind every door in the corridor. Unlike the other wards, where there was conversation and the constant murmur of televisions, the ICU was quiet. Unbearably so, and the silence ramped up his apprehension. He approached Gabe’s room like he would a bomb, his palms sweating on the vase of flowers he’d bought at the gift shop downstairs because he hadn’t been able to face Audrey empty-handed.

Gabe’s wife was seated next to his bed, his limp hand pressed between both of hers.

He hesitated for a heartbeat. Every fiber in his body screamed to run in the opposite direction, and that was exactly why he finally tapped on the open door, ignoring the discomfort in his bruised knuckles. “Audrey?”

At the sound of her name, she gazed up with wet, bloodshot eyes. “We’re not going to lose him, are we? He’s stronger than this, right? Please, Quinn, tell me he is. We can’t lose him.
I
can’t lose him.”

The cheery bouquet seemed like such a stupid idea now. Flowers like this were for happy occasions. He set them down on a side table and wished he could tell her all the pretty, comforting lies boomeranging around in his skull, but none ever reached his lips. When he looked at the bed, with all the tubes and wires…

All he saw was a dying man.

His best friend.

Dying.

His vision blurred, and hot tears spilled down his cheeks. He dropped his gaze to the floor.

“Oh, God.” She doubled over Gabe’s hand, sobbing in sheer agony, and he couldn’t stay still any longer. Gabe wouldn’t want him to. Not when she was suffering and so obviously in need of human contact.

He strode around the bed and pulled Audrey up into his arms. She clung to his shirt as trembles racked her slender body. Maybe he didn’t have the right words to say, but at least he could give her this little bit of comfort.

He rested his chin on top of her head and stared at Gabe. More tears rolled from his eyes. He kept hoping his best friend would sit up and start pulling out tubes while threatening bodily harm if he didn’t take his hands off Audrey.

Gabe didn’t move.

A sound worked up out of his tight throat, and it took Audrey’s arms tightening around him before he realized he was sobbing right along with her.

Goddammit. He couldn’t lose Gabe, either. Not now. Not like this.

Finally, Audrey released a shaky breath and backed away. Her cheeks were splotched red, her nose was running, her features still ravaged with grief.

He imagined he didn’t look much better and rubbed his sleeve over his face. “Gabe would laugh his ass off if he could see me right now.”

Audrey gave a watery smile and patted his chest. “If he did, I’d kick his ass. You’re allowed to be upset. He’s as much your family as he is mine. You’re his brother in every way but blood.”

Brother. He thought of Michael Bristow dead in that SUV and wondered if anyone in the Bristow family knew about it yet. His throat closed up again, and he struggled to clear it. “Yeah.”

Audrey drew in another shaky breath and released it in a long exhale. “Can you stay with him for a few minutes? His family should be here any moment, and I’ve been commanded to meet them at the front door.”

Quinn winced. “The Admiral?” That was a face-to-face he didn’t want, not while knowing what he did about Michael and not having any answers as to why or how.

Her lips thinned at the mention of Gabe’s father. “He doesn’t approve of me.”

“Don’t feel bad. The Admiral doesn’t discriminate in his disapproval. Probably wouldn’t even approve of God if the big guy didn’t fall into line like a good little sailor.” He reached out to wipe a wayward tear off her cheek. “You don’t have to listen to his commands.”

“I know.” She glanced over at her husband again, and her lips trembled. “And I don’t want to leave Gabe for even a second, but it will make things…easier, I think, if I just do what The Admiral says. For now, at least.”

“I’ll go down and meet them.”

“No. You stay here with Gabe. Please? I’ll feel better knowing you’re here.”

If it meant that much to her… He nodded. “All right.”

“Thank you.” She leaned over the bed and pressed a kiss to Gabe’s forehead, murmuring things to him that were too soft for Quinn to hear.

He felt like an intruder and turned away, only to spot a card on the wall signed by Mara. He opened it, read the heartfelt thank-you she’d written to Gabe, and his heart cracked in two.

I don’t want to be the person they hand the flag to when they bury you.

Like Audrey would have nothing but a flag and her memories if Gabe died.

Oh, Christ. It was as if the world snapped into place in that instant. He got it, understood exactly why Mara had walked away. Every time he stepped into the line of fire, he was in danger of breaking her heart, forcing her to live through the pain and sorrow Audrey was experiencing right now. And it wouldn’t be just Mara he’d hurt, but the baby as well.

When Audrey straightened away from her husband, tears glimmered in her eyes again, but she smiled. “The doctors say he can’t hear us, but they’re wrong. I know they’re wrong, so talk to him, okay? I think he does better when someone talks to him. It gives him a reason to fight.”

Quinn waited until she left, then lowered himself into the chair she had vacated. He stared at the bed for a long time.

Talk to him? What was he supposed to say?

“Hey.” The word hung in the air, and he blinked hard to hold back another rush of emotion. He felt stupid—not because he thought Gabe couldn’t hear him, but because he was still hoping beyond hope for some kind of reply when he knew one wouldn’t come. He reached into his inner coat pocket and brought out the two envelopes Gabe had given him at the airfield.

“I have your letters for Audrey and Raffi right here.” He smacked them against his palm a couple times. “But man, I—I really fucking don’t want to deliver them. Don’t make me. I know you have the fight left in you because you’ve hung on this long against all the odds. So just—keep fighting, all right?”

Aw, fuck. He was leaking again. He lifted his arm to wipe his face on his sleeve and the envelopes slipped out of his hand. One landed face-up on the edge of the bed. The other slipped to the floor, but he barely registered it.

His name.

The one on the bed had his name on it in Gabe’s handwriting, and the shock left him breathless. His gaze snapped to Gabe’s face. “Why would you—?”

Voices in the hallway caught his attention, and he scrambled to pick up both envelopes and hide them away in his pocket again.

The Admiral stalked into the room, followed by his wife, Catherine. Raffi, the youngest Bristow brother, was still out in the hallway, comforting Audrey, who looked utterly defeated.

Quinn stood. “What did you say to her?”

“What are you doing here?” The Admiral demanded.

“Could ask the same of you. Since when have you given a flying fuck about Gabe?”

“He’s my son.”

“And my brother,” Quinn snapped.

“Leave,” The Admiral said, his features set in stone. So that’s where Gabe got that implacable expression. And here Quinn had always thought Gabe hadn’t inherited anything from his coldhearted parents.

Quinn squared off in front of the older man. “I’m not in the navy anymore,
Jasper
.” He purposely leaned on the first name, knowing its use would rankle The Admiral. “Your commands hold no weight with me.”

“Then we’ll call the police,” Catherine said. The woman was dressed more like she was on her way to a fancy business luncheon rather than to sit vigil by her son’s deathbed. And she hadn’t even looked at Gabe once since entering the room.

Yeah, people handled grief in all kinds of ways, but the sheer indifference Quinn saw in her blue eyes made him sick. She reminded him of a more polished version of Cherice, his birth mother, and disgust roiled in his gut. Trash could come in all kinds of fancy bags, but inside, it was still trash.

He shoved between the pair, strode out into the hall, and ushered Audrey in to reclaim her seat at Gabe’s side. She was white-faced, horrified, and visibly trembling.

Quinn knelt beside her. “What did they say?”

Her gaze moved from Jasper to Catherine before returning to Quinn. “They said they could make it so I can’t see him.”

“That’s bullshit.” He stood again and faced the Bristows. “Why would you do that to her?”

“This is family business,” The Admiral said icily. “And despite your claims of brotherhood, you are not blood.”

“He’s more family to Gabe than you are,” Raffi said, all calm and reason. “And, as I told Audrey, you have no rights in this situation. At all. She has power of attorney. And, so you know, I called security on you about three minutes ago, told them you were causing a scene in a coma patient’s room. Might want to leave before they get here. Don’t want to publicly tarnish those shiny halos of yours.”

The glare he received from his father was so full of disgust and hatred, anyone else would have crumpled under the weight of it. But not Rafael Bristow. He gave as good as he got, but then again, he’d lived with that hatred every day of his adult life since coming out as gay. Quinn suddenly understood why Gabe had such a high opinion of his youngest brother, and his own respect for the man shot through the roof.

Raffi wiggled his fingers. “Buh-bye.”

The door slammed behind the two of them, thanks to Catherine, in full snit mode, yanking it shut as she left.

“Well,” Audrey breathed and slumped back in her seat. “That sucked. Now I hope Gabe
can’t
hear us.”

“Of course he can hear us,” Raffi said and walked toward the bed. “But don’t worry about it. He expected it, which is exactly why he drew up that will after you two married. Huh, bro? You knew they’d try to pull some kind of shit.”

Quinn stood at the foot of the bed, watching as they talked softly to Gabe and each other. The envelopes in his pocket suddenly weighed a ton, and he cleared his throat.

“I need to go, but I’ll come back later. Let me know if…” He couldn’t say it. Wouldn’t say it. “If anything changes.”

Raffi nodded. “We will. Thanks for being here.”

As if he would be anywhere else?

Outside in the hallway, Quinn leaned against the wall to catch his breath. His chest was too tight, and he wondered if he would ever breathe normally again.

He’d lost his adoptive parents. He’d lost Mara. And now he was losing Gabe.

The envelopes crinkled in his coat pocket, and he took them out. Why had Gabe written a letter to him? They had agreed long ago that the letters were only meant for family or significant others, not each other. He’d always thought they wouldn’t need a useless piece of paper to know what the other felt. Like Audrey said, they were brothers. That forged-in-battle bond had always been an unspoken yet tangible part of their friendship.

But Gabe had left him a letter.

Part of him feared opening it would be like sealing Gabe’s fate, but a bigger part had to know what he’d written and why he’d broken their rule.

Quinn pushed away from the wall and took the hallway to a nearby waiting area he’d spotted on the way in. He was just about to round the corner into the room—

“Why the fuck is Quinn still alive?”

He froze. Was that Jasper Bristow’s voice? He slid a soundless step backward and flattened himself against the wall to listen to the hushed one-sided phone conversation in the waiting room.

“He’s like a cockroach,” Jasper sneered. “Every time you stomp on him, he springs right back to life. Have you heard from Michael?”

A pause.

“Is he dead?” Jasper asked with a complete lack of feeling. “No, that doesn’t sound like HORNET’s doing. It was Liam, wasn’t it? He’s gone off the rails. I told you from the start, Bennett, he’s unstable and his drug use—well, we should have rid ourselves of him the moment he was ejected from SAS.”

Another, longer pause, and Quinn’s blood started a slow boil. Jasper Bristow was involved in this ring of corruption up to his bushy eyebrows, and so was Augustine Bennett, Team Ten’s former commander.

How high up did this thing go?

“No, if we make a move on Quinn now, we’ll tip our hand. We need to lie low, let this all settle. We’ll release a statement saying Michael and the other men died in a training accident, but spin it in a way that won’t make Russia nervous about having our operatives on their doorstep. Last thing we need right now is to have Washington breathing down our necks for starting a war.”

Long silence.

“You mean Gabe? Yes, I have no doubt he’s put the pieces together, but he’s not going to wake up,” Jasper said in a tone that sent chills racing over Quinn’s skin. “If by some miracle he does, I’ll deal with it. He’s my son, as wayward as he is. If anyone pulls the plug on him, it’ll be me. And as for Quinn, he doesn’t have the files anymore. If he did, he would have done something about them by now.”

Files? What files?

Memories skittered along the outside edge of Quinn’s damaged brain, hazy and just out of reach, but he got a vague impression of the feelings associated with those memories. Horror and rage and betrayal and—