Page 94 of The Hitman’s Final Job

“I’ll be there.”

TWENTY-NINE

VAUGHN

I don’t remember falling asleep.

One moment I was sitting in the chair beside Rowan’s bed, watching the monitor, listening to the rhythm of the machine that was telling me he was alive, and then something touches my head and I come up out of sleep fast.

I sit up to see Rowan.

His eyes are open.

They’re heavy with the weight of anesthesia from his life-saving surgery, but they’re open, and they’re finding me.

“Hey,” I say. My voice comes out wrong.

“Hey,” he says. His voice is rough and quiet, but right now it’s the best thing I’ve heard in my life.

I press the call button for the nurse and then I just take him in. At my son, awake, in a hospital bed, with a shoulder wound and an IV drip. He’s alive.

The nurse comes in quickly. “Good morning, Rowan. How are you feeling this morning?”

“This isn’t the best hotel I’ve stayed at, but if you bring me coffee in bed, I’ll give you a good rating.”

The nurse laughs. “I’m afraid I can’t do that or this machine is going to make a lot of noise, and I’m not gonna lie, it makes it really hard to take naps in the nurse’s station with all the noise.” She checks the monitors and asks Rowan questions to assess his cognition and response. Rowan answers all of them slowly but correctly. She adjusts something on the IV, makes a note, tells us the surgeon will be in for morning rounds, and leaves.

I sit back on the chair, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry.

“This is the most scared I’ve ever been in my life,” I say. “In my entire life. Including the time you were three and you went missing in the supermarket for eleven minutes.”

The corners of Rowan’s mouth valiantly twitch in a struggle of a smile. “You found me in the cereal aisle.”

“You were eating directly from a box of Fruity Pebbles,” I say. “You weren’t even sorry.”

“They were good,” he says.

I look at him.

He looks at me.

“Dad,” he says.

I run my hand through his hair. “Just let me fuss over you for a minute.”

He doesn’t complain, which is telling from Mr. Brave.

“I’m of two minds,” I say, after a minute, “about demanding that you leave the FBI and move back in with me.”

Rowan makes a sound that is trying to be a laugh, but he’s reminded of his shoulder injury. He stops and breathes through the discomfort.

“That’s not happening,” he says when he can speak.

“I know.”

“It would be terrible for my sex life,” he says. “I’m not moving back in with my dad. I’m not leaving the FBI. I’m also not excited about hospital food, so if you could⁠—”

“I’ll get you whatever you want,” I say. “When the surgeon says you can eat.”