He Came Back Running (Maya and Mason) novel Chapter 136

Chapter 136

Maya’s POV

The surgeon’s office was small…

“The surgery addressed the primary injury,” the surgeon said. “The bullet’s trajectory was…. it could have been considerably worse. The damage was contained.” He paused. “Mr. Voss is stable.”

Catherine’s hand found the door frame.

“However,” he said, and the room adjusted again. “There was a period during the procedure where we lost him briefly. The blood loss was significant. He responded to intervention and we were able to restore and stabilise, but the episode has left him

unconscious”

He looked at me directly. “We expect him to wake up. The indicators are positive. But I cannot give you a timeline.”

I looked at my hands.

The dress…

The ring.

“Can I see him?” I said.

“Shortly,” he said. “We’re moving him to a private room. Someone will come for you”

I nodded…

He said more things…. medical details, monitoring schedule, what to watch for, when he would be back. I heard them and filed them and they went into the specific place where important information went when the primary thing was still processing.

Alex’s room was quiet

The equipment spoke in its measured, numerical language. The drip. The monitor. The institutional arrangement of a space designed to hold someone through the transition between not-stable and stable.

He looked smaller than himself.

That was the specific, wrong quality of it…. Alex, who occupied rooms with the full and deliberate presence of someone who understood the dimensions of wherever he was, was lying in a hospital bed looking smaller than himself in the way that people did when all the energy that made them themselves was elsewhere, doing something necessary…

I sat in the chair beside him.

Did not hold his hand

Held the arm of the chair instead.

Looked at his face….

The guilt arrived at three in the afternoon.

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Not suddenly…. it had been present since the ambulance, running at low frequency beneath the management of everything else. By three o’clock, in the quiet of the room with the monitor and the drip and Alex’s unchanged face, the management had run out of immediate tasks and the guilt had the space it needed to become fully itself.

The bullet was meant for me

I had known this since the paramedics, since the footage description Marcus had sent, since the police statement that had arrived via Rivaldi’s message at two-fifteen. The attacker’s position, the angle of the shot, the position I had been standing in when Alex moved.

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He bad been standing in front of me because I was the target.

If I had never come back

If I had looked at the apartment and the trust documents and the letter and said this is not my fight, and walked away…. if I had built Hargrove Meridian from a different city and never answered the knock on the apartment door….

Alex would be somewhere else today. Running Voss Maritime. Going to meetings. Not lying in a hospital bed connected to

monitors.

I pressed the arm of the chair

The logic was the self-directed cruelty of guilt that presented as reason. I knew this. The knowing did not make it stop.

The interviews began at five

Not with me first… with the guests, the security team, Olive, Catherine. The investigators worked systematically through the witness list with the specific, professional thoroughness of people building a picture that required every perspective.

Marcus came to the room at six with an update….

“The attacker has been provisionally identified,” he said, keeping his voice below the monitor’s range. “The footage produced a match against existing records. Male, known to certain enforcement circles for hire work.” He paused. “The investigation is moving quickly.”

“Hired by whom?” I said.

“Still being established,” he said. “The chain of hire isn’t confirmed yet….”

I looked at Alex’s face.

Thought about the list of people who had wanted me gone

The list was, as I had acknowledged to myself earlier, longer than I would like.

The detective arrived at eight-forty

He was younger than I expected….

He sat across from me in the small family room adjacent to Alex’s corridor.

Set a file on the table.

Looked at me with the assessing quality of someone who had studied a situation before entering it

“Ms. Hargrove,” he said. “I’m Detective Reeves. I’ve been assigned the shooting investigation.” He paused. “I want to be direct with you about something before we begin the formal interview…”

I held his gaze.

“The weapon was aimed at you,” he said. “Not at Mr. Voss. The footage is unambiguous about that.” He held my gaze…

“This means we’re looking at a targeted attack on a specific individual, which changes the nature and scope of the investigation considerably.”

“I know,” I said.

“We’ll need to go through everyone who might have wanted to harm you,” he said. “Your professional history, your personal history, anyone connected to the company transition, to your former marriage….”

“I understand,” I said.

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He nodded.

Looked at the file.

Opened it.

Looked up at me…

“Before we get to the shooting,” he said, “there’s something I need to discuss with you that may be connected.” His voice was

careful.

The specific care of someone who had decided to handle something gently because the other ways of handling it were less productive. “Something that’s come to my attention through an older case file.”

I looked at the file

At the tab visible on the top folder.

“Ms. Maya,” he said, “we need to talk about your father’s death.”

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