One of the best.
And these people needed her.
“You should go before someone sees you.”
As much as he hated to admit it, and as much as he’d like to help, she was right. An emergency response this big would draw a crowd. Media. Rubberneckers. Family members searching for loved ones. Too many people. Too much exposure.
Thanks to Jay’s mad computer skills, Jamie had used a private plane to slip into Boston under the radar and an alias to walk into Mass Gen undetected. But yeah, the time had come for him to disappear his ass back to the JTT’s home base located in the heart of Montana’s wilderness.
Not to mention, it would be all hands on deck, and his father would be on his way—if he wasn’t here already. The man practically lived in the OR. And Jamie had no desire to see the king of the underworld. Not today. Not ever.
“You gonna be alright?” he asked, taking the two halves of Ko’s coat and zippering them together. An old habit, so the die-hard shit must be true.
She put her palm in his and squeezed, her dark brown eyes searching his. “I’ll be fine. You?”
“Same.” He hid his regrets behind his smile. “I’m sorry, Ko.”
“Don’t be. The divorce, the baby, none of this is on you. You’re a good man. An honorable man. It’s why I agreed to marry you in the first place. And why I held on for as long as I did. Deep down, I kept thinking, maybe someday I’d want what you wanted.” She patted her belly with her free hand. “But now that someday is here, nothing has changed.”
“But maybe if I’d—”
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want you to blame yourself for my mistakes. I’m the one who’s choosing a career over being a wife and mother.” She lifted onto her toes and pecked his cheek. “You need a woman who can love you the way you deserve to be, Jamie. A woman who’ll put you and your family first. That’s not me.”
At the sound of her name being called along with a code red, she turned her focus to the patient being unloaded from the back of an ambulance. Gone before she’d even taken a step, the time had come for him to let her go.
“I guess this is it then.” His heart in heavy mourning for what could have been, he bent and pressed a farewell kiss on the top of her head. “You take care.”
“You too.” With a last squeeze of his fingers, she said her final goodbye, and without so much as a backward glance, she rushed out onto the street to meet the paramedics.
He didn’t follow. Instead, he skirted the perimeter, staying in the shadows. Best for everyone if he kept out of sight. The floodgates had opened, and filling fast, the garage had started to resemble a scene straight out ofGrey’s Anatomy.
Emergency lights strobed, shouted orders echoed amidst the cries of pain, and medical waste littered the triage area. Bloodied gloves, stripped and discarded, fluttered across the pavement, prodded along by a gust of wind.
And in the middle of it all—the distinct sound of a fully automatic rifle echoed through the U-shaped bay. For a moment, the brief second of suspension between disbelief and reality, time slowed to a crawl, and the world ceased spinning.
Then the gunman rounded the corner and open-fired directly into the garage.
Bullets shattered glass, punched through metal, and ripped apart lives as they exploded through skin and bone. Bodies dropped, the dead count soaring higher with each swing of the rifle’s barrel.
Screams erupted.
Already in motion, Jamie pulled his Glock from the holster concealed at the back of his pants. His focus on Ko; he had to get to her before—
The tack, tack, tack of bullets left a trail of holes in the ambulance she stood behind.
No!
The burly paramedic beside her took the first round in the chest. The impact swung his torso in her direction, and with the weight of his body dragging her down, the second round caught her in the head, and she was dead before she hit the ground.
No!Anguish tore through him, followed close behind by the bullet that took him out at the knee. Mid-step when he was hit, he went down like a sack of rocks, landing in a heap of useless muscles.
Around him, more people fell. Some alive. Some not so much.
He rolled onto his back, took aim, and pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times.
Adrenaline draining as fast as his blood supply, he dropped his weapon and slid his hand beneath his jacket. The warm slick he encountered explained the red-hot fire burning him from the inside out.
Fuuuck.Not how he pictured himself going out.
