Page 12 of Lock

Walking through the automatic doors of the trauma center made the anger come back up like bad whiskey. Rowan Roe and his crew. Every sterile white wall just reminded me why I was doing this.

The lobby was busy—phones ringing, nurses calling names, someone crying near the elevators—but it all blurred around the edges. I headed straight for ICU, passing signs for surgery, x-ray, recovery.

I hated hospitals. Too clean. Too bright. Too many problems you couldn’t fix with your hands.

Two of our guys were posted outside Saint’s room. They straightened when they saw me.

“How is he?” I asked.

“Same,” one said quietly. “No change.”

I nodded and pushed the door open.

The room was cold. Machines did most of the talking—steady beeps, the soft hiss of the ventilator. Seeing Saint in that bed was wrong on a level I didn’t have words for. He’d always been loud without trying—big laugh, big presence, big opinions. Seeing him still and quiet twisted something sharp in my chest.

His kid brother, Mason, was slumped in the corner chair, headphones around his neck, legs pulled up like he was trying to fold into himself. When he realized I was there, he jumped up, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, like I hadn’t already seen it.

He was seventeen. With their omega papa gone two years now, Saint was all he had left.

“I—I wasn’t asleep,” Mason said quickly. “Just… resting my eyes.”

“You don’t have to explain,” I told him. “Sit if you want.”

He didn’t. He hovered near the foot of the bed, hands twisting in his hoodie.

“They said he can hear us,” he said, voice cracking. “Maybe. I’ve been talking to him. Doesn’t… doesn’t do anything, but…”

He trailed off.

I swallowed down the rough sound trying to climb my throat. “Keep talking,” I said. “It matters.”

He nodded fast, like he needed that to be true.

“He looks worse today,” Mason whispered.

“He’s fighting,” I said quietly. “This is what that looks like.”

Mason dragged his sleeve across his nose. “Are they sure he’s… stable?”

“For now.” I kept my voice steady. The machines made that harder. “They’re doing everything they can.”

His gaze went to the ventilator tube. “He hates hospitals.”

“Yeah,” I said. “He does.”

A shaky breath slipped out of him. “You’re gonna find who did it?”

“Yes.”

Mason stared at me, searching my face like he wanted to see the answer written there. “You promise?”

“I promise,” I said. “We’re not letting this go.”

His chin wobbled, but he held himself together. Barely.

“If you want to go home and sleep for a few hours,” I told him, “I can have someone take you to the clubhouse. Saint would lose his mind if I left you alone at the house.”

Saint had moved out of the clubhouse after his papa died, bought a place in town instead of dragging Mason into club life full-time.