"Madison."
"Madison here have some catching up to do," he said, giving her a smile that likely melted her panties right then and there.
"Madison," Daniel called from the doorway and the woman turned to him with a small smile, "if the sedatives don't work, I wouldn't object to elephant tranquilizers either," he told her with a grin as he moved down the hall toward the elevators.
And all but plowed into Vin.
"What are you doing on this floor?" Daniel asked, immediately suspicious, looking back toward Max's door where a cop in blue was standing guard. Why there wasn't an agent there was beyond him.
"Don't worry," Vin said with a tired smile. "I'm not here to off your friend in there. The surgery floor machine was out of coffee," he explained, holding out the tray of three he had in his hands. "I'm a man of action, you see," he explained oddly. "Sitting around in a waiting room for hours to see if my son will live through the night is not something I do well."
"Any updates?" he asked, then was quick to add, "Faith is worried sick."
"Yeah, those two seemed to get over their issues with each other the past week or so. Nice to see after what they've been through. Especially if he doesn't make it. She would never forgive herself if she let it end like it had been going the last decade. She's a good girl, Special Agent Harrison. I don't want to see her hurting like I've seen her hurting this past week."
That was a threat if Daniel had ever heard one.
And, as cool as only a seasoned crime boss could be, he delivered it, clamped a hand on his shoulder, then walked away.
Two threats in one night over the same girl, a girl who could if she really put her mind to it, give him a world of pain herself.
He couldn't fight the smile he had as the elevator doors closed and slowly went back down toward the main floor.
He found he liked that she had people around for her. Whether or not she wanted or needed the protection, they were there to give it to her. He also knew it wouldn't be the last of the threats if he knew anything about Xander, Gabe, Trey and her other guys at the gym, and even Corey. She was surrounded by people who saw how great she was and wanted to protect that kind of unique vulnerable strength she had.
Luckily for them, they wouldn't need to band together as a force against him and his possibly bad intentions. Because he had no plans on hurting her again, of betraying her trust.
He knew it wasn't going to be easy.
He knew that when you shattered a glass and glued the pieces back together, there were always cracks.
But he didn't intend to use glue.
He meant to burn things hot enough for long enough that the fucking glass melted down and could be remolded again- flawless, stronger.
If he knew anything about Faith, he knew she was probably going to fight him the whole way too.
He was kind of looking forward to it.
SEVENTEEN
Faith
Sometime around one in the morning, Salvatore finally came down to the waiting room where she and Daniel had been sitting in relatively comfortable silence for the better part of two hours, both staring at the television, seeing the news report of the shooting pop up, but neither actually watching, both lost in their own thoughts.
Corey had gone back to work a couple minutes after Daniel came down from visiting with Max, saying she needed to make sure the 'dungeon monitors' were doing their jobs, which Faith knew was bullshit because Corey would never allow a security guard in her club to be under qualified or unobservant of unsafe behavior happening in any of the scenes. That was not how her club operated. It was the safest of the fetish clubs in the City and also the least cheesy. She ran a tight ship.
She just wanted to leave her alone with Daniel.
There was nothing subtle about how she and even K to an extent were trying to help them along.
She had buttoned up Salvatore's jacket somewhere along the lines and had cocked her legs up awkwardly on the chair, trying not to look like she was seriously considering using Daniel as a pillow. She was, but she knew she wouldn't allow herself to do so.
"He's out," he said, dark eyes tired, skin more pale than she had ever seen it before. "They said the bullet in the leg was trickier than they anticipated. Nerve damage. The stomach wasn't as bad as they thought. Closed him up and have him on antibiotics."
There was no one word to describe what relief felt like- but the best way Faith could explain it was that it felt like a set of hands that had been holding your heart and your stomach hostage suddenly released and there was a sense of equilibrium in your body again, an ability to breathe and think clearly when your breath had been shallow and your brain had been a swirling cyclone of unfinished thoughts.