he says, though his voice is shaky. “El, look at me. I’m still here. I’m not your mom or your dad. We beat her,” he says. “We beat the bitch.”
A choking laugh escapes me, the sound startling me. “That bitch Fate,” I say, then wipe my damp cheeks. “We did, didn’t we?”
“We did.”
“You can’t control the world,” I say, my eyes drawn back to what was once his home.
“No.” He takes my chin and makes me look at him. “But I’ll damn well try.”
I nod, then cling to him again. We’re bathed in flashing lights, and soon a fireman puts a blanket around both of us and gently leads us aside. We sit at the end of the fire truck, and an EMT looks over both of us, saying that we’re both in fine shape, though Devlin has a few bumps and bruises on his arms and knees.
It’s such a dry assessment for something so surreal. He doesn’t even say a word about the damage to my soul.
“Dear God, you two are lucky.” I look up, relief flooding my body when I see that it’s Lamar. Immediately, I burst into tears. I cling to Devlin even as I stand up, then throw one arm around Lamar, who hugs me so tight I’m afraid he’s going to break a rib, but I don’t care. I don’t even try to wriggle loose.
“What happened?” he asks, murmuring in my ear. “What happened?”
I shake my head and pull away blinking through tears until I can see both him and Devlin more clearly. I’m still holding onto Devlin, and I sink down beside him on the little ledge at the back of the truck. I glance over and see that Shelby is safe, a few bits of burning wood have landed close to her, but nothing scraped her. I’m weirdly grateful. In the grand scheme of things if she were all I had lost, I could live with it, but I’m so grateful that I didn’t lose anything. Or anybody.
I realize that Devlin and Lamar are both looking at me. I nod, forcing myself to get my shit together. “I’m okay,” I reassure them. “Really. I’m okay.” I take Devlin’s hands. “Are you?”
His jaw tightens, and he nods. One short quick beat. “If you’d gone into that house with me, we’d both be dead,” he says. “I came back to the car to ask you something. If you’d been with me, you would have been standing beside me and I would have asked you at the door. We would have been right there when the bomb went off.”
I ride out another wave of nausea and look up to meet Devlin’s eyes. “What were you going to ask me?” I say stupidly.
He actually laughs, and I join in. “I don’t even remember. Oh, wait. I was going to ask you if you wanted me to bring one of my bottles of Scotch back to your place.” He glances at the house. “I guess that’s a moot point now.”
I giggle, high pitched and strange. It’s the shock, I know, but I still want to cringe.
“Are your father’s enemies behind this?” Lamar asks, and I’m so grateful to him for trying to keep this business-like. I need to get removed from the emotions, from the horror. I need to think like the cop I used to be and the reporter I still am.
“I don’t think so,” Devlin says. “I spoke with someone from the old days not too long ago, and the intel from him is that there aren’t that many people left who are active in the business who would have a grudge against me. On top of that, if they were paying attention to my speech, they would know that I’m not benefiting personally from my father’s assets. Maybe they would be upset about them being used for charitable purposes, but I don’t think so. Believe it or not most of them are perfectly fine with helping out women and children. They just want to make sure that they were getting their share of the profit.”
He shrugs. “Bottom line, I honestly don’t think they care enough about me. If the money were in my bank account, maybe it would be different. If some of my father’s colleagues were still actively in the business, I’m sure it would be different. As it is now, they’re low on my list.”
I already know this of course, but for the first time it strikes me what a change this is.