Noah had just called with the latest update on Regan. This update was just like all the others he either sent or called with every hour. No change. My frustration boiled over, manifesting in a violent kick at the snow, a mound that one of the plows had carelessly left in front of Regan's property. The slushy, muddy mix splattered against the side of my Range Rover, the vehicle so filthy I barely even saw it as it slid down the door.

Our girl - my amazing, passionate, funny girl was lying in a hospital bed, unconscious and fighting for her life. This was her ninth day fighting.

We stayed by her side for three days straight after she was brought to Mass General. My most vivid nightmares were no comparison to the hell we all endured those first few days. She had been in surgery after surgery, barely surviving one, only to have to go into another one to fix the compounding problems hidden beneath her bruised and bloody skin. Broken bones, punctured lungs, internal bleeding...I lost count of all the things they had found. Plus, there was an extensive number of superficial wounds like burns and cuts.

Boston's best plastic surgeon had been working on her facial lacerations and the names that had been hacked into each of her thighs. He was optimistic about her healing well enough to only have minimal scarring. I felt even more reassured about his prognosis when he hadn't bothered to disguise his anger at the wounds on her thighs, telling us he'd make sure there was no sign of their names, sparing Regan from a lifelong visible reminder of what they had done.

Now she was battling with an infection. The doctors had warned us about this, based on the conditions she had been kept in and with hundreds of open wounds on her body. They had done everything to prevent infection from setting in, but as with everything else in life, there was no guarantee. It was the wound on her neck giving her issues. Her sutures had been ripped out - my fists clenched just thinking about the pain that had caused her - and sometime in her duress, the cut had been torn open.

If she survived all the depraved and sick things those two had done to her only to succumb to infection from an old wound ... I didn't know what I would do. No, that was a lie. I'd follow her. No second thoughts about it. She was my world, my entire reason for anything that I did, and maybe that was a little over-the-top obsessive, but I didn't give a shit. I loved her more than life itself. I'd follow her wherever she went, even if that meant chasing her into death.

I was pretty sure I wasn't the only one who would.

That's some real Romeo and Juliet shit right there.

The loud and irritating beep of the front-end loader interrupted my depressing train of thought, and I turned my attention back to the work that was being done.

I didn't have to be here. I wasn't contributing anything. And it wasn't like watching the crew move around a ton of dirt was something that needed supervising. It was a bunch of guys riding around in big equipment, playing in a huge muddy sandbox.

I'm sure they'd be pissed at my simplification of their work.

This had to be done right, though. This was the best construction crew in the area, and with the extra incentive of being paid twice their normal rate, I had confidence in their abilities. Being here just made me feel better.

When Regan woke up, she wasn't going to have to worry about anything other than recovery and rehabilitation. That road for her was going to be a long and bumpy journey so this was my way of doing what I could to take one less bump away for her.

The charred remains of her house had been left untouched, as promised by the local police. The crime scene tape was still surrounding it when I arrived yesterday. Regan wanted to come and try to save whatever she could out of the pile of ash. Sadly, Daphne had made sure Regan would have nothing left to ever come back for. That was clear to me after wading through the wreckage, digging and kicking my way around, trying to find even the smallest something I'd be able to bring back to her. So far, all I had to show was a blackened ceramic turtle and a shot glass from Wisconsin.

I was about to kick another slush pile when I heard the footsteps behind me.

"You look like hell."

Greg stood looming at my back. It must be a social call. He wasn't in uniform and looked like he hadn't shaved in a month. Maybe he had been fired? That would explain the way he glared at me.

"So do you."

"Administrative leave, no thanks to you assholes."

Sighing, I ripped my hair from its band and rewound it up in a bun, tight enough to hurt. "We didn't have anything to do with it. You looked guilty as hell, poking around and asking weird questions. Boston PD was only taking precautions."

"Fuck them."

I huffed. "Yeah."

Greg kicked at the snow that he had interrupted me from demolishing. "I know why I'm pissed at them. Why are you?"

Millions of reasons. There wasn't enough daylight to list them all. It boiled down to them just being in the way, and if we had just let Walker do what he was best at instead of following the rules and letting the cops do what they were supposed to do, I was convinced Regan would have been saved days earlier.

That's what we got for doing it the right way. The slow way. The only reason they were able to even raid the warehouse that day was because Mal had accidentally overheard one of the beat cops complaining about a homeless guy who kept showing up to whine about squatters in his neighborhood. A guy and a girl. He had sent Raphael out there within the hour to stake it out.

Now we were racing against them to find Stephen. They couldn't get to him first. It was time to take care of him our way. No court, no chance for him to plead insanity and spend the rest of his years in a cushy psychiatric hospital drugged up and drooling at a TV. He was going to suffer and die for what he had done.

Mal was positive he had been shot during the rescue. There had been drops of blood leading out of the warehouse, or so it seemed. They hadn't continued outside. Police had searched the building from top to bottom without finding him. The assumption was that he had run and was most likely hiding somewhere nearby. Based on the amount of blood found, he was injured pretty severely.

So far, he hadn't shown up in any hospital or clinic for treatment.

A small part of me wanted him to be dead and rotting in a dirty snowbank somewhere. Except that would be too easy of an escape for him.

Greg cleared his throat, still waiting for an answer.

I glanced over at him. "The police have been pretty useless during this whole thing."

He frowned.

Whoops. "No offense."

"Just because we don't want you running around and killing everyone in your way doesn't make us useless."

"Come on, Greg, give us some credit. We'd be driving around killing people. We can cover much more ground that way."

He was unappreciative of my humor.

I missed Regan. She would have laughed.

"What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Just because I'm not working officially doesn't mean I don't know what's going on in my town. Some fancy construction team shows up and starts bringing in lots of equipment, people are going to notice. And since I'm the nearest neighbor, I thought I'd check it out."

"Well, now you've checked it out, so -"

"Why are you here? Shouldn't you be with Regan?"

Don't punch him. He's still a cop.

"Not that I have to explain myself to you," I ground out through my clenched teeth. "But I don't want her worrying about this when she wakes up."

Greg nodded, watching the crew level out the ground. "Going to rebuild?"

"Yes."

No one knew that yet. I was rebuilding her house exactly how it had been, with no variations from the original blueprints. For all of Regan's talk about selling the place, deep down, she hadn't really wanted to. It was only because she didn't think she had anyone to help her, overwhelmed at having to take care of the house while Riley was in Boston and she was in Texas. That was when she actually thought she was going to return to Houston. Maybe she would still sell. I was fine with it. But she'd still get her house back.

The guys currently playing in the dirt will begin construction tomorrow.

"You know," Greg hedged. "If you need someone to help so you can go back, I can do it."

I studied him, weighing how serious he was with the offer.

Being away from Regan was extremely difficult for me. That's why Noah had been updating me every hour, per my request. If she woke up, I'd be gone from here in a flash, racing my way back to her. Except it was much preferable to be home when she opened those beautiful green eyes again.

Not that she'd be alone if she woke right this second.

Mal was with her. And by that, I meant he hadn't left her in the nine days she'd been there.

He hadn't said a word to anyone since Regan was brought to the hospital. He sat, and he watched. Watched her. Watched anyone that came into the room. It was his home now. He never left the room. I was worried he hadn't slept or eaten - or showered - until Walker told me he'd been stopping by to make sure Mal took breaks. They were short, and Mal fought him every time, but Walker was the only one who was getting through to him. The most I was able to get from him was a finger twitch. Noah said he looked at him once. That had been four days ago.

I could tell Mal was barely keeping it together. He had cannonballed right into the deep, dark depths of his mental rage cage. God help us all if Stephen ever popped up on our radar. Nothing was going to keep Mal from destroying him, even if it meant obliterating the entire world.

As creepy and completely bonkers as Mal was acting, I knew it came from a place of utter devotion. That was how he could help her right now. Watch over her, protect her, and be there to take care of anything she needed, whether she was awake or not.

Noah was helping by distracting the police. He was surprisingly good at getting them to look in the opposite direction as Mal's team tried to ferret out Stephen. With my guidance, he was just shy of actually impeding a police investigation.

I was helping by rebuilding her house.

I also had a secret mission here that even Noah and Mal were unaware of. Which I needed to be leaving to take care of soon.

"Okay, Greg. I'll take you up on that offer. But this has to be done perfectly. No fuck-ups."

"I owe it to Regan. It'll get done."

We shook on it.

"Listen, man, I'm sorry how things played out. We never wanted you to be a bad guy."

Greg shrugged it off. "I get it. You were looking out for her. I'd do the same."

"I was talking about Beth."

He suddenly seemed very interested in the ground. "How is she?"

Nope. Not going to get into that with him right now. I was only trying to be nice. "She's, uh, she's fine. She's staying with a friend of ours."

His head jerked up. "Friend?"

I held up my hands, backing up toward my SUV. "Call her. Talk to her. She knows you had no part in any of this."

"What friend?" he called after me.

"Meet me here tomorrow at 8 am. Don't be late."

Avoiding any further jealousy-tinged questions from him, I hopped into my car and left, eager to get to the next item on my to-do list. If I was late, things weren't going to go well. I pulled into the driveway of Mal's parent's house with six minutes to spare, and Mr. Keahi was already outside waiting, frowning, and arms crossed over his massive chest.

Mal came by his disposition honestly.

They had returned a few days ago, even with Stephen still missing and against our advice. Mr. Keahi wasn't going to let some washed-out, sister-loving, twisted, limp-dicked twerp keep him from his home. His words, not ours. Mal's mother felt the same way. It was quite possible Mal got his violent tendencies from her rather than his imposing and very intimidating father. At almost thirty years old, my hand still shook when I mustered up the nerve to call them three days ago with my request.

We shook hands, and he jumped right into it before I could even say hello.

"This is severely unconventional."

"Yes, sir."

He squeezed my hand harder. "This was your idea?"

"Yes, sir."

His eyes narrowed at me. "All three of you?"

"Yes, sir."

He finally let go of my hand, shaking his head. "I still don't understand how this is going to work."

The front door slammed open and Mal's beautiful and sturdy mother came barreling toward me, arms wide open to hug me tightly to her. "Joshua, oh dear! How are you? How are the others? Please tell me that beautiful girl has woken up. Mal won't return my calls, and I'm this close to driving up there to beat some sense into him."

I disengaged from her hold, but her hands clamped onto either side of my face, trapping me for her to fuss some more. "You aren't sleeping? You've lost weight, too. She's still unconscious, isn't she?"

"Taku tarini, give him space." Mr. Keahi pulled his wife away from me, tucking her into his side.

She huffed yet allowed him to hold her close. They were the cutest.

"Regan is fighting off an infection. The doctors are monitoring her closely, and Mal refuses to leave her side. He isn't talking to any of us right now."

"Po'o pa'a," she spat. "So stubborn."

"He'll be fine once she wakes up."

His father cocked an eyebrow at me, knowing full well his son was not going to be 'okay.' Killing Stephen was the only way Mal was going to move past this. I wondered how much Mr. Keahi knew about Mal's employees and the types of killers he surrounded himself with. The longer this man glowered at me, the harder it was to keep from fidgeting and spilling every dark secret I had within me.

Clearing my throat, I tried a smile. "Thank you both for helping me with this."

Mal's dad reached into his pocket and placed the box in my hand. His wife was beaming at me. "You boys are sure about this?"

"We've never been more sure about anything in our lives."

He nodded, letting the box go. "She'll be fine, Joshua. Any woman who is strong enough to tame Mal will not let something like this take her."

"Thank you, sir."

"Go home to her. She needs you boys. She can feel you there with her." Mrs. Keahi gave me the most 'mom' expression ever. "And tell my boy he better call me back."

"I will. I just have one more stop to make."

She planted a kiss on either of my cheeks, and Mal's dad gave me a hard slap on the back, which was the most encouraging gesture I could expect from him.

My phone vibrated when I pivoted back to my car. Had it been an hour already? Noah's message flashed on the screen.

Mrs. Keahi gasped when I stumbled, catching my weight against the front bumper as my legs turned weak.

Noah: Get back here. NOW.