Rabi didn’t know how long he’d been in the holding cell. The sheriff had questioned him in a gray, windowless room just like something out of a TV show, grilling him about Derek’s death and everything that had happened this morning. The Hashmi family’s lawyer had deflected as much as she could, and afterward she’d assured Rabi he would be out soon. Then the sheriff had him dumped in here without telling him what would happen next. No one would even tell him if Matthew had lived or died.
There were a couple of other guys in the cell. One with a beard and a flannel shirt had been asleep in the corner the entire time. A Mexican guy had alternated between pacing, praying, and shouting at the guards that they were a bunch of rednecks and racists. No Swains, though. No one Rabi had seen when things had gone down at the mosque. Bullets had flown from both sides, so there should have been Swains and Hashmis in here, but no—just Rabi. It was possible they were being questioned. Or in another cell—the jail wasn’t huge, but he thought there were three or four more holding cells.
And had anyone else been hurt or killed? He’d been so consumed by worry over Matthew, he’d lost track of everything else in the chaos. Fuck, how much blood had been spilled over this?
Rabi sat on the cold, hard bench, letting his head rest against the bars. He tried to move as little as possible, not wanting to draw the attention of his cellmates, and also to keep from aggravating his various sore spots. He hurt all over, and the mixture of pain was going to drive him insane. It was a special form of torture, being able to simultaneously feel everything from the brawl with Derek, the bruises from Matthew tackling him on the stairs to save his life, and the lingering twinges from the needy sex they’d had last night when they hadn’t known what else to do. Every inch of his body felt battered and drained, and that all had nothing on how wrung out his soul was.
Eshaan had died trying to save him. Rabi had killed Derek in self-defense. And Matthew had very possibly died shielding him from a bullet.
There wasn’t room in a man’s head for that kind of thing. If not for the hope that Matthew might have made it, Rabi was sure the guilt would have literally eaten him alive. He kind of wished it would.
“Hey. Hashmi.” Keys jingled and the guard opened the cell door. “Get out.”
Rabi blinked, but he didn’t question the sight of the open door. He got up, hurried out of the cell, and followed the guard out to a brightly lit room beside the in-processing area where he’d been fingerprinted and had his mugshot taken ages ago.
And there was his father, pale and worried looking. “You ready to go?”
Rabi nodded. “How did—”
“I made some calls,” his dad said flatly. “They were stalling because charging you meant they’d have to charge the Swain boy, and Sheriff McCaskill didn’t want to do that.”
“Of course he didn’t.”
“This isn’t over, but . . .” Dad put his arm around Rabi’s shoulders. “Let’s get you home so you can have some rest.”
Rabi planted his feet. “What about Matthew?”
Dad blinked.
“Is he alive or not?”
“I don’t know. No one’s given me any kind of update on him.”
“Then let’s go to the hospital.” Rabi swallowed the bile rising in his throat. “I need to know if he’s okay.”
His dad studied him uncertainly. “Rabi, you need to—”
“He took a bullet to save me. I have to know if he’s okay.”
Chewing his lip for a moment, Dad didn’t speak. Finally, though, he sighed. “All right. Let’s go.”
The emergency room receptionist directed them to the ICU. Matthew had been moved up there, and that little glimmer of hope had Rabi damn near sprinting out of the elevator when they reached the fourth floor. If Matthew had been transferred to the ICU, then he was alive. Right now, that was enough.
They hurried down the hall, intending to ask the nurse at the desk where Matthew’s room was, but a group of people huddled in the waiting room stopped him in his tracks.
Rabi instantly recognized Nate, and realized with a pang of horror that he was trying to comfort his and Matthew’s mother. Her shaking hands and flowing tears did nothing to quell the sudden dread burning deep in his gut.
Oh God . . .
Nate’s eyes darted right to Rabi. Instantly, the soft, sympathetic expression shifted to one of fury, his eyes narrowing as his lips pulled back across his teeth. “Get the fuck out of here, Hashmi.” The finger he stabbed at Rabi was somehow reminiscent of the gun he’d pointed at him just hours ago. “You have no right to be here. Leave this family alone.”
Before Rabi could respond, Matthew and Nate’s mother turned to him. She looked puzzled at first, dazed by grief as she blinked past tears, but then recognition seemed to take hold.
“Get out,” she snarled at him. “You did this to our family! You did this!” Then she lunged at him, a scream of both pain and fury escaping her lips. Nate tried to restrain her, but she kept trying to get to Rabi. Her words were impossible to understand as she collapsed into screams that reminded him of his own mother’s as she’d been taken back into the mosque earlier.
As Rabi watched, paralyzed, Mrs. Swain stopped fighting. She crumpled in her son’s arms, sobbing as she sank to her knees.
Nate shot him a murderous glare. “Get. Out.”
Rabi’s father tugged his elbow, but a wave of pure blinding rage tore through Rabi, pushing through the grief and the fear and everything else, and he jerked his arm away. “You all want to blame me for this, but you’re the ones who’ve hated my family for no reason.”
Everyone froze, staring at him.
Voice shaking, Rabi glared at everyone in turn, including his own father. “People are dead because you people can’t handle someone from my family being in love with someone from yours. Do any of you even remember why you hate us? Or is it just because we’re not white and not Christian? Is that really why you’re willing to kill each other? Why you’re willing to kill each other’s children? Or are you just going to keep this going because you’re too stubborn and fucking stupid to see what you’re doing?” He swallowed the lump rising in his throat. “You want to blame me? Fine. But all I did was fall in love with Matthew.” His own words slammed into him, and he whispered shakily, more to himself, “All we did was love each other.” In an instant, he was out of steam. The rage dissipated, and grief wrapped around his chest and throat. No one moved. No one spoke. The hallway was eerily silent and . . .
Oh God. Matthew was gone, wasn’t he? Rabi had walked into the middle of a grieving family, and they’d been grieving because . . .
No. Please. No.
Rabi’s father put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go, Rabi.”
Numbly, Rabi let himself be led back down the hall to the elevators. As the doors closed, he said, “Matthew’s dead, isn’t he?”
His dad said nothing.
The scene before his outburst played and replayed in Rabi’s head, and the grief radiating off Matthew’s mother had been as undeniable as Rabi’s father’s silence. The truth might as well have been written in blood right there on the walls.
Matthew was dead.
He was . . . he was dead. Gone. Brought down by a bullet that had probably been intended for Rabi.
The numbness sank deeper. The shock left him mute and unable to move. He was distantly aware of his father gently herding him out of the elevator and back to the car, but everything was warped and far away. It was like he was encased in a thick bubble made out of rubber cement, distorting and muffling everything. When his dad spoke to him, Rabi heard the thrum of his voice, but didn’t make out any of the words. As scenery went by while his dad drove away from the hospital, it was all lights, shadows, and colors. Nothing identifiable. Nothing solid.
Matthew was dead.
Matthew.
Was dead.
Rabi was still reeling from watching his brother die, and from the crushing guilt of having killed Matthew’s brother, and now . . . now this.
It didn’t make sense. It didn’t seem real. It couldn’t be real.
But it was.
“Rabi?” His father’s voice finally broke through the thick barrier of shock. “We’re home.”
Rabi blinked a few times. Home. Right. He looked up at the familiar house. At the cars in the driveway. So many people were here, and . . . Fuck. That made it all real, didn’t it? Eshaan was really dead, and everything had really happened. They were probably all in there planning Eshaan’s funeral.
Swallowing hard, he unbuckled his seat belt and slid out of the car.
His own truck caught his eye. Someone must’ve brought it home. He’d given his dad the keys right before he’d been handcuffed, hadn’t he? Or had he imagined that part?
“Come on.” His dad gently herded him toward the house like he’d herded him toward the elevator, but he didn’t try to rush him this time. They weren’t getting away from something now. There was no confrontation to escape. Just get inside, and then . . . something.
Rabi glanced at his truck, and he slowed to a stop. “Do you have my keys?”
His dad reached into his pocket and held them up. “You’re not going anywhere, are you? You shouldn’t be driving.”
“No.” Rabi shook his head. “Just . . . need something out of my truck.”
“Okay. Everyone’s in the living room and the kitchen.” Dad smiled sadly, the faintest hint of tears shining in his usually stoic eyes. “Your mother is cooking for everyone. I think it helps her.”
Rabi just nodded. That had always been his mom’s way. When her brother had been killed two years ago, she’d stuffed everyone with food for days. “I’ll, um, be there in a bit. I just need to be alone for a little while.”
His dad squeezed Rabi’s shoulder. “Just let any of us know if we can do anything. This has been hell for everyone.”
Rabi winced. “I know.”
They exchanged a long look, and Dad continued into the house while Rabi went to his truck.
He unlocked the door and leaned in to the driver’s seat. From underneath it, he withdrew the pistol his father had insisted he carry. It seemed heavier than usual. More solid than it had the day he’d carried it out of the gun shop, uncomfortable with its presence and its heft.
Glancing around to make sure he was alone, Rabi tucked the weapon under his shirt. Then he went inside and took the stairs up to his bedroom. In the silence of the locked room, he sat down on the bed and took the pistol out from under his shirt. He held it in both hands in his lap, staring down at the black nine millimeter as he traced the trigger guard with his thumb. It was the only thing keeping him from being completely helpless. The only thing he could use to do something to stop his world’s horrible downward spiral. Maybe he couldn’t reverse the spiral, but he could bring it to a very abrupt and hopefully painless halt.
There were three deaths on his conscience, and all because he’d gotten involved with Matthew. All because he’d fallen for Matthew. If he had just let Matthew go after he’d taken off from the Halloween party, or if he hadn’t approached him at all, then there’d still be relative peace in his world. Eshaan would be alive. The Swains wouldn’t have lost two of their sons in twenty-four hours. There wouldn’t have been a shootout right there on the steps of the mosque he’d prayed in since he was a child.
Death. Pain. Violence. A chain of events that wouldn’t have happened at all if he’d ignored that pretty-eyed man dressed as the Phantom of the Opera. Or at the very least, if he’d left well enough alone once he’d realized the Phantom was a Swain.
All of this happened because of me.
That wasn’t a weight Rabi could carry, especially not when it also meant carrying it in a world where Matthew no longer existed. What was left? Going on with his life and somehow carving out a slice of happiness while Derek, Eshaan, and Matthew—God, Matthew—never had the chance to see thirty?
He clicked the safety off. Then on again. Then back off. The metal was warm in his hands now, making the gun feel less like a piece of deadly steel and more like something living. Maybe even sentient. The proverbial viper carried down from the mountain so it wouldn’t freeze, and now coming back to life. Maybe it would bite him and this would all be over.
Except no, it wouldn’t. The only way this snake would bite was if Rabi made it.
Holding his breath, he watched his finger curl around the trigger.
One shot. Just put it in his mouth or to his temple, pull the trigger, and he wouldn’t have to feel this pain anymore. If all his sins meant he spent his afterlife in Jahannam, fine. If he went there for killing himself, which he would, fine. None of that seemed as horrible as continuing in this life after three people had died because of him.
He could almost cope with Derek. The man had attacked him and, given the chance, probably would have killed him.
Eshaan was harder to take. He’d been an idiot, brandishing a gun like that, but he’d been there to protect Rabi. He’d tried to save him.
Matthew was too much. He’d come to save Rabi from his brothers even when that meant going to Eshaan for help. He’d come to the mosque to warn everyone even when that meant standing in his own family’s crosshairs. He’d taken a bullet meant for Rabi even when that meant his own death.
Tears bit at Rabi’s eyes. He sniffed sharply and wiped at them, and the burn of gun oil in his eye was a momentary—and welcome—distraction.
It didn’t last, though. The irritation faded, and everything else was right there waiting for him to refocus on them.
He sighed heavily and stared down at the gun again.
Matthew had known getting involved with Rabi was dangerous, but he’d done it anyway, and now Matthew was dead and Rabi couldn’t breathe and all it would take was one bullet. Even if he missed and didn’t hit right to kill himself, maybe he could at least destroy the brain cells that knew everything that was killing him right now.
Rabi set his shoulders back. Eyes closed, he put the pistol to his temple and held his breath. One round. One squeeze of the trigger. This could be over in a split second. All he had to do was—
Who will find me?
Rabi opened his eyes, though he didn’t lower the gun. Someone would hear the gunshot. Even if by chance no one did, sooner or later, someone would wonder where he was, and they’d come to check on him. His parents were already facing a funeral for Eshaan. Finding Rabi like this . . .
No. He couldn’t do that to them. A cop showing up at their door with his hat in his hands would be enough to break them, but it would be better than them walking into this room and seeing Rabi for themselves.
He finally brought the gun down and exhaled. Not here, then. Not now.
He could drive somewhere. Maybe to that abandoned cornfield where he and Matthew had made out so many times. Or find that street corner that was probably still stained with his, Derek’s, and Eshaan’s blood. It would be fitting, ending it there. That was where his whole world had gone to shit in a matter of minutes, so why not end it—
A knock at his door startled him so badly he almost dropped the gun.
Cursing under his breath, Rabi quickly shoved the pistol under his pillow and got up to unlock the door. When he opened it, his mother stood there, eyes red and wet.
Do you have any idea how close you came to finding me dead in here?
Guilt stabbed Rabi so hard it was almost a real, physical pain, and he had to fight to keep from doubling over. Schooling his expression, he held his mother’s gaze.
She quietly said, “There’s someone here to see you.”
“Who?”
She glanced at the stairs, then looked at him again, her forehead creased. “Nathan Swain.” Rabi’s hackles instantly went up, and he was half a breath away from telling her exactly what she could say to him, but she touched his forearm. “Come talk to him.”
“Why? He’s the one who—”
“Rabi.” It was that smooth, placating tone she’d always used to calm the kids when they were little. “Come talk to him.”
Nate was the last person in the world Rabi wanted to see, but Rabi didn’t want to fight with his mom. Not now. She didn’t need that. So he nodded, pulled the door shut behind him, and followed her downstairs.
Every time Rabi had met Nate, anger had radiated off the man in waves that were nearly visible to the naked eye.
But not this time.
He stood in the entryway, hands in his pockets and shoulders down, his features slack with fatigue and resignation. When he saw Rabi, he stiffened a little, but all the fight had gone out of him.
Rabi clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“No, I don’t.” Nate’s tone was flat. No hostility, but not a lot of warmth either. Looking Rabi in the eye, he whispered, “My brother does.”
Those three words almost toppled Rabi to his knees. “What?”
Nate swallowed. “Matthew. He’s . . . he’s awake, and he just keeps asking for you. Won’t talk to anyone—not even our mother—until he sees you.”
Rabi stared at him, struggling to comprehend what he was saying. “Matthew’s alive?”
“Yes. And he’s . . .” Nate sighed heavily, and when he spoke again, he sounded exhausted. “I don’t get what’s going on between you two. I don’t know what a couple of men see in each other, and I’m not even sure I want to know how a Swain and a Hashmi . . .” He shook his head slowly, looking even more drained than he sounded. “What I do know is that whatever’s going on? It’s strong enough to have him asking for you before he’s even awake enough to know where he is. Between that and everything you said at the hospital, I . . . I don’t know. I just keep thinking that’s got to mean something.”
Rabi swallowed. “And he’s . . . he’s okay?” He heard Nate’s words, and was aware that this man who hated him was reaching out with an olive branch of sorts, but Rabi still needed to grasp the reality that Matthew wasn’t dead.
Nate hesitated, but then gave a subtle nod. “It was touch and go for a while, but they’re pretty sure he’ll make it.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Rabi sagged against the wall and pushed out a breath. Matthew was alive. And he was going to stay that way. After the last few hours of feeling like his entire world was circling the drain, the profound relief crashing over him now was so intense it was almost painful.
Nate cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. About everything.”
Rabi opened his eyes, staring at Matthew’s brother with renewed disbelief.
Gaze down, Nate said, “It took losing Derek and almost losing Matthew, and then hearing what you said and seeing how much of an impact you really have on my brother—that he’s calling for you when he’s still drugged out of his head—to make me realize I’ve been wrong. We’ve all been wrong. We were all so busy hating each other, and you two . . .” He clenched his jaw and swallowed hard. When he met Rabi’s gaze this time, there were tears brimming his eyes, and his voice shook. “I know I added to the violence. Hell, I led some of it. But my baby brother almost died, and he woke up asking for you, and I swear to you I could feel Jesus standing next to me telling me it’s not too late to make at least some of this right. So that’s why I’m here.” He gestured over his shoulder. “I came to get you and take you to Matthew.”
Rabi studied him uneasily. He believed the man, but there’d been too much bloodshed in the last twenty-four hours for him to trust Nate. “My truck’s outside.” He moistened his lips. “Why don’t I follow you to the hospital?”
To his surprise, Nate wasn’t offended by the suggestion. He nodded. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s do that.” He paused. “If you get there ahead of me, Matthew’s in the ICU. Room seventy-one.”
“I’ll get my keys.”