Page 167 of Fury In Death

“Let me get his parents out. I’m Liv’s husband. I’ll get them. He said he wanted to talk to you alone.”

When he left, Olivia gripped Eve’s hands. “Please. You have to understand.”

“I do, or I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have those police officers standing back.”

“Here’s his doctor. Dr. Colby, this is Lieutenant Dallas.”

“Yes.” He glanced over to the uniforms. “That’s really not necessary.”

“It’s procedure. They’ll stay out here.”

“Olivia, why don’t you sit down? Your parents are coming out. I need to explain Steve’s condition to Lieutenant Dallas.”

He drew Eve aside.

“He came in a few hours ago. I honestly don’t know how he walked in on his own. He’d self-diagnosed, which proved to be correct. His lungs, his heart, his kidneys, liver, all failing. In the last hour, his bones have started to deteriorate. I’ve never seen anything like it. He said his family was coming, and after he’d spent some time with them, he wanted, needed, to speak to you.”

“How long does he have?”

“Frankly, I don’t know how he’s still alive. Minutes, an hour? Even if he’d consented to treatment, there would’ve been nothing we could do for him. If you know what he’s taken to cause this—”

“I don’t. I need to go in.”

“Please, take it easy on him. Dying’s hard enough.”

He took her in, where the man who’d lifted her as if she’d weighed nothing lay corpse pale in the narrow bed, where monitors scanned his heartbeat—very slow—and all the rest.

“Steve. Lieutenant Dallas is here.”

He opened sunken eyes. “Good. Good. Could you leave us alone?”

Obviously reluctant, the doctor stepped out.

“I’m sorry I hurt you.” His voice was hoarse, frail, hardly more than a whisper.

“So you said.”

“I’d never hurt anyone innocent until you. I regret it more than I can say. I can’t regret the rest. Even knowing it was wrong. I regret there wasn’t someone like you, someone I knew I could trust. Before. Before. I know I’ve hurt my family, and I can never make up for that. But I listened to you in the elevator, after I hurt you. I listened when you were on-screen, and I knew you were right.”

“You stopped taking the serum.”

“Yes, and destroyed it, destroyed the formula, all my work.”

“You did that knowing this would happen?”

“Yes. I’ve been on borrowed time since the first injection. I listened to you yesterday, what you said about justice, about no one being above the law. About Calvin Banner and Jack O’Brian—I understood what you said, to me. To me.”

“Yes, to you, Steve.”

When he reached for her hand, she held his.

“I wanted to tell you I heard you. There was no going back for me, but I heard you. They’ll pay? You swear it? They’ll pay for my family?”

“Banner’s going to die in prison, and he’s taking others with him. So will O’Brian. If there are more, tell me. I’m promising you justice there, too.”

“I don’t know any others, not for certain. And I had to be certain to do what I did. I decided to put justice for Ari, for our daughter, for our son, in your hands. And you gave it. I’m grateful.

“I’m not afraid to die. I welcome it. If there’s punishment after death, I accept it. But I hope I can see Ari again, and our boy, and maybe, a miracle, the baby we nearly had. Chloe.”