Page 44 of Vital Signs (Wayward Sons #7)

The clinic looked dead from the outside, but my nerves were eating me alive.

Fluorescent glow bled through windows like autopsy suite lights. The lights were harsh and artificial, designed to show every flaw and failure. The same janitor pushed his cart between rooms. The same woman paced near reception.

Three hours of this surveillance bullshit and my skin crawled like insects burrowing under the surface. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to move.

I shifted in the passenger seat of Shepherd's SUV, leather creaking under my weight.

The sound was too loud in the enclosed space, echoing off windows fogged with our breath despite the heater running full blast. My fingers twitched against my thighs, drumming patterns I couldn't control while my leg bounced restlessly.

"Stop fidgeting," Shepherd said from the driver's seat, not even glancing at me.

"I'm not fucking fidgeting," I lied, knowing damn well my body had a mind of its own. Lying came too easily. Too natural. Like slipping into old skin I swore I'd shed.

"Movement," River announced from behind me. "Three vehicles. Black SUVs, tinted windows."

I grabbed the binoculars so fast the strap caught on my jacket, nearly yanking them from my hands. Three identical SUVs approached the clinic, their dark paint gleaming under streetlights. Too clean, too expensive, too coordinated for some shitty medical practice in Athens, Ohio.

The kind of cars that meant someone was about to disappear.

"Same vehicles from our surveillance photos. Wright's security detail." Shepherd’s fingers drummed against the steering wheel.

Eli leaned forward. "This late? Security doesn't run midnight shifts for routine protection."

The first SUV vomited four men in tactical gear hidden under civilian jackets, moving like soldiers who'd done this before.

"That's not security," I said. "That's cleanup. These fuckers are here to erase evidence."

The other vehicles brought dollies, equipment cases, and personnel wearing latex gloves.

"Jesus Christ," River muttered. "They're sanitizing the place."

My phone buzzed against my thigh, and I grabbed it like a lifeline, desperate for contact with Misha, for proof that somewhere across town he was still breathing, still safe, still real, still mine.

But it was just a notification. Some app update. Nothing from Misha.

My chest felt hollow without his heartbeat against it. This morning I'd woken up wrapped around him, his back pressed to my chest, his hair tickling my nose. Nine hours ago, I'd known exactly how his skin felt under my hands, soft in some places, scarred in others, always warm, always real.

Now my body ached with more than just stress. Physical withdrawal from the person who'd become my favorite addiction. I missed the weight of his arm across my ribs. The way he mumbled French in his sleep.

The silence stretched until it became a living thing, wrapping around my throat. It was choking instead of claiming like Misha's hands. Pressure built in my chest, that familiar spike of panic that used to send me straight to Jimmy's trailer for bagged relief.

I tried calling him. Straight to voicemail.

I slammed my phone against my thigh, hard enough to bruise. "Goddammit, Misha," I muttered under my breath.

I tried War next. Same shit.

Xander's phone rang once before dying with a click that sounded final as a coffin lid closing.

"Anyone getting responses from Team One?" Shepherd asked, his own phone glowing in the dashboard light as he scrolled through unanswered messages.

River shook his head. "Radio silence since their last check-in."

"Forty-three minutes ago," Eli said.

"They're dark," I said, and my voice sounded like I'd been swallowing gravel. "All of them. Something's wrong. Something's really fucking wrong."

Through the clinic windows, the cleanup crew worked methodically. File cabinets emptied into burn bags. Computer hard drives ripped from towers. Everything that could hold data disappeared into metal containers.

Every record of Wright's victims vanished into smoke and ash.

Pressure built in my chest until each breath became a conscious effort.

The panic crawled up my throat like acid.

The urge slammed into me, sudden and devastating and completely fucking undeniable.

My nervous system screamed for relief. I needed to forget that somewhere across town Misha might be bleeding out in some basement while I sat here having a breakdown like a worthless piece of shit.

I reached for my phone. My thumb hovered over Jimmy’s contact like it knew the way already.

One call. One twenty-minute visit. The crushing panic in my chest would dissolve, replaced by a floating calm that would let me think clearly, let me function, let me be useful instead of this shaking mess.

But I could see Misha's face when he found out. Not anger, but worse. I could see the quiet devastation of someone who'd trusted me with everything. His modeling photographs. His French confessions during sex. His body when it was vulnerable and open and perfectly trusting.

Christ. When had that happened? When had he become the thing I craved more than chemical peace? When had his touch started working better than any drug I'd ever found?

My nervous system had rewired itself around him without me noticing. Every comfort I used to find in substances, I now found in him. The escape, the peace, the feeling that everything would be okay.

Using wouldn't just betray our relationship. It would destroy the only high I actually wanted anymore.

"Hunter?”

I stared at Eli through the rearview mirror. "I can't handle this," I said, hating how my voice cracked on the words. "The not knowing, the waiting while he might be dying somewhere and I'm just sitting here useless."

“Yes, you can,” Eli said firmly. "You can do it for Misha. That man has brought you back from the dead, Hunter. And you've done the same for him. I've never seen Misha trust anyone like he trusts you. You want to honor that? Stay present. Be the man he chose, not the man you used to be."

Something settled in my chest. Eli was right. Misha hadn't chosen the broken-down junkie version of me. He'd chosen the man I was becoming. The man who fought through withdrawal instead of giving up. The man who chose love over escape.

I stared down at the phone in my trembling hands, Jimmy's number still glowing on the screen. One touch. That's all it would take to make this crushing anxiety disappear.

But Eli was right. I had done this. I'd chosen Misha over the needle when my body was eating itself alive. I'd stayed present through withdrawal that should have killed me.

I was stronger than the needle. But not because I'd suddenly developed superhuman willpower.

Because Misha had shown me a different kind of strength.

The kind that let him share those modeling photographs despite the pain they represented.

The kind that let him choose justice over vengeance, healing over destruction.

He'd taught me that recovery wasn't about being strong enough to resist temptation. It was about being worthy of the life we were building together.

I was stronger than this. Had to be.

I set the phone down on my lap. My hands still shook but were no longer reaching for destruction. "What if we're too late? What if something's already happened to him?"

Eli's smile was sharp enough to draw blood. "Then we make whoever hurt him wish they'd never been born. But we do it together. We do it awake."

His words steadied something inside me. This was what I'd been fighting for without realizing it: people who believed I was capable of more than just surviving.

Misha's laugh. That's what I needed to hear. Not just his voice confirming he was alive, but that specific sound he made when I said something that surprised him. The way it crinkled his eyes and made his accent thicker.

Or his touch. Christ, I'd never thought skin contact could be addictive until his. The way he knew exactly how much pressure to use when he traced my scars, turning ugly history into something that felt like art.

The way he whispered my name in French during sex, like it was a prayer.

All of that was in danger. Not just Misha's life, but everything we'd become together. Every time I'd wake up to find him already watching me like I was something worth studying. Every night he'd pull me against him like he was afraid I'd disappear.

When I found him, when not if, I was going to kiss him until neither of us could breathe. Strip him down and check every inch, then show him exactly how missing him had destroyed me.

Shepherd checked his watch, the digital display casting a green light across his sharp features. "Still no contact from Team One. That's not a communication failure. That's active suppression."

"Then why are we still sitting here?" I snapped. "If they're in trouble—"

"We go now," Shepherd cut me off, already starting the engine. "River, you stay here. Passive surveillance only. Do not engage under any circumstances."

"Copy that."

Shepherd turned to face Eli and me, and his eyes held the cold focus of someone who'd made a decision that couldn't be unmade. "We're going to Wright's house. Team One is either compromised or dead. Either way, we don't leave family behind."

Family. The word hit different now. Misha wasn't just family. He was home, future, the reason recovery meant something beyond just survival. If something had happened to him, if I was too late...

No. I shut down that thought before it could take root. He was alive. He had to be, because a world without Misha in it wasn't worth staying sober for.

"The evidence—" I started.

"Can burn. Wright can destroy any file he wants. He doesn't get to destroy our people."

River climbed out, the blast of winter air rushing in as he opened his door. The cold bit through my jacket, sharp enough to make my lungs ache, but it also cleared my head in a way the recycled SUV air hadn't.

"Bring them home," River said, stepping back from the vehicle.

Shepherd's SUV felt different with just the three of us. Smaller. More focused. The kind of deadly quiet that preceded violence.

"Twelve minutes," Shepherd said as we pulled onto the main road, checking his mirrors. "Assuming Wright hasn't set up roadblocks."

The roads stretched empty before us, small-town Ohio sleeping while we raced toward whatever had made three experienced operatives go silent. Each streetlight we passed brought us closer to answers, closer to Misha.

Closer to whatever was waiting in that house.

"He's alive," Eli said quietly, reaching forward to squeeze my shoulder. "Misha's too stubborn to die."

"How can you be so fucking sure?"

“Because I know Misha. And so do you.”

The city limits sign vanished behind us as Wright's neighborhood appeared ahead, all identical houses with their secrets locked behind expensive doors.

The SUV headlights cut through the darkness as I counted the seconds in my head. Not my heartbeats this time, but the moments since I last heard Misha's voice. Since I last felt his skin against mine.

People talk about love like it's gentle. Like it's soft. But this felt like violence in my chest, a fury of need and protection that would tear through anything standing between us.

I understood now why people fought wars for love. Why they crossed oceans and deserts. Why they survived impossible odds.

And I was ready to go to fucking war for Misha.