Page 163 of Lady and the Hitman

Seeing Dad like that. Still and small and so terribly human beneath all the wires and monitors. He had always been strong—the kind of man who lifted bags of soil like they were nothing, who worked twelve-hour days in the sun and still came home smiling. He’d carried me on his shoulders through half my childhood, and somehow, in my mind, he’d always seemed invincible.

I knew he wasn’t, of course. Rationally, I understood that everyone breaks eventually. But the reality of it? Of seeing the man who raised me laid out and pale in a hospital bed—it shook something loose inside me. Something that didn’t have a name yet, but felt a lot like the beginning of grief.

And my mom—God, the way she looked at him. Like she was already losing him by the second. They’d been married for over thirty years. High school sweethearts who turned a patch of dirt into a life. I wasn’t sure one could survive without the other. And I wasn’t ready to find out.

There were too many emotions, too much noise in my head.

“I need a minute,” I whispered, stepping out into the hallway.

Ronan followed.

“You okay?”

“No,” I said, shaking. “But I’m glad you’re here.”

He stepped in closer. “I know you’re upset with me. But I’m not letting go. Not now. Not ever.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Ronan,” I whispered. “Everything’s broken.”

“Then we fix it.”

“How?” I asked. “When everything’s built on lies?”

He didn’t flinch. “We start again. We burn down whatever needs burning and we rebuild.”

I wanted to believe him.

But inside the room, my father was fighting for his life.

And two men stood waiting—one who wanted my past, and one who held my future like it was a weapon only he could wield.

I honestly didn’t know who I was anymore.

Not really.

32

The room was too quiet for a place where hearts were supposed to keep beating.

My father lay propped against stiff hospital pillows, skin pale, lips dry. The oxygen tube curved beneath his nose, hissing in the silence. He was awake, but only barely—his eyes fluttered open and shut in slow, syrupy blinks, like every movement took more energy than he could afford to give.

I stood at the foot of the bed, my arms crossed tight against my chest, trying to pretend like I wasn’t falling completely apart.

A doctor stood beside him—a woman in blue scrubs and a white coat, hair tied back, voice calm in that way you know they practice in front of mirrors. Professional empathy. Measured sorrow. She was saying words that didn’t compute. Not yet.

“… The procedure is performed at Cleveland Clinic or Vanderbilt, sometimes Duke. Not MUSC,” she said gently. “And with Greg’s cardiac profile, the window for intervention is extremely narrow.”

My father blinked slowly. “Cleveland?”

She nodded. “There’s a team there that pioneered this approach. Minimally invasive, but highly specialized. It’s not something we’re equipped for here.”

I could feel my mom beside me, rigid and still. She hadn’t asked a single question yet.

The doctor continued, her voice impossibly gentle. “Without the procedure, it’s likely we’ll see continued decline. We can manage symptoms. We can do everything possible to keep him comfortable. But long-term survival?—”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to.

I swallowed hard. “What’s the timeline?”