Page 117 of Claim

“I can tell you your medical status, sure.”

I gave him a look. One he’d know. Years of friendship didn’t need words to communicate. “I need to know where he is, Hen. Let’s say it’s for my recovery. I’m not going to get better if I’m panicking about him.”

Henry dropped his gaze to the bed but before he could say anything, or decide not to, my father appeared at the foot of the bed.

“Mr Hale-Fitzroy.” Henry straightened instantly.

“Henry.” My father inclined his head. “May I have a word with my son before his mother returns to reclaim sole possession of him?”

“Of course.” Henry huffed a quiet laugh. “I’ve got a corridor full of A&E disasters waiting for me.” He squeezed my hand. “I’ll be back before you’re airlifted out of here.”

I smiled. Nodded.

Then Henry was gone, and my father took his place.

He looked immaculate in the way only he ever could after such an endeavour. Tailored suit, woollen coat still buttoned despite the heat of the ward. But he was unshaven. That alone made me stare. His face looked thinner, paler, the sharp planes of it more pronounced, as if the last few weeks had carved something out of him and not bothered to put it back.

His own recovery was ongoing. Chemotherapy. Surgery. Fragile remission. And now this. His son dragged from a courtroom, shot, beaten, left bleeding on concrete by organised criminals he prosecuted on a daily basis.

Saved by the man I’d spent months pretending didn’t exist.

Yes. That would change a man.

“Quite the role reversal for us, eh?” Father stepped closer to my bedside.

We looked at each other for a long moment. Two people professionally trained to speak for a living. To argue. Persuade. Dismantle opposing positions with precision. Yet neither of us knew where to begin.

But I had to. “Please tell me he’s not back in prison.”

My father huffed. “That’s what you open with?”

“It’s the most important thing on my mind. Everything else has been described to me as stable. That hasn’t.”

He studied my face for a long moment. Then he straightened, as though bracing himself for impact. “No.”

I was fairly certain my heart monitor spiked. “Where is he?”

“Granted bail again. With tighter monitoring. Additional conditions. One of those conditions is that he is to have no contact with you.”

“He’s the reason I’m alive.” The words escaped before I could stop them.

Objection, Your Honour. He should be here. He should be sitting where my mother sat. I should be able to say thank you. I should be able to tell him I love him.

“He is also,” my father replied evenly, “the reason you are here.”

I shut my eyes. Tried to shake my head against the pillow and failed, pain flaring through my ribs. “No, he isn’t.”

“Tristan, you have been involved with a man known to organised criminal networks. An associate of one of the most dangerous figures in East London. I cannot adequately describe the dread that fills me with when I consider how close you have come to things that are not only professionally catastrophic for you, but lethally dangerous. You were shot. Beaten. Left for dead.” He exhaled shakily, the first sign any of this had got to him. “What I cannot fathom is why.”

“Because I love him.”

My father turned his head away as if I’d struck him. Then he crossed the small distance to the chair my mother had vacated and sat heavily, elbows on his knees. He dragged his hands through his hair, fingers catching, breath uneven for the first time since he’d entered the room.

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then, he glanced up at me. “I raised you to understand consequence.”

“You raised me to understand justice. They’re not the same thing.”