Rome (Marked Men, #3)(92)

“You might want to talk to her. Let your little girl handle Nash. She’s good at dealing with her boys.”

He gave a sharp nod and took off after the nurse. Cora pulled free of my hold and went and wrapped herself around Nash. His big body gave a shudder and he buried his face in the curve of her neck. I didn’t know what to do with myself, but when he looked up, those lapis eyes locked on to mine.

“Cancer. Fucking lung cancer. They’re calling in an oncologist right now, but it’s bad.”

I sucked in a breath and saw that Cora was shaking, too. That wasn’t good news.

“I’m so sorry, man.”

He blinked like he was in a daze and pulled away from my girl. He scrubbed his hands roughly over his bald scalp and started to pace back and forth like some kind of wild animal in a cage. I pulled Cora back into my arms and ran my hands up and down her back when I felt her tears slide against my neck where she shoved her face.

“I knew something was wrong. For months and months he’s been acting weird, not returning calls. He was all gung ho to get a new shop opened, and then that just fell off the map. I let it go and let it go. Hell, I thought he had a new girlfriend he didn’t want anyone to know about, but no, it’s motherf*cking cancer. Jesus Christ, smoking. All from goddamn smoking.”

“Nash, take a breath. You don’t know how bad it is or if it’s treatable yet. Don’t jump the gun.”

He swore some more and kept moving rapidly back and forth in front of us. His nervous energy was like an electrical charge making the hairs on my arms stand up. I wanted to tell him everything would be fine, that it would all work out, but before I got the chance to say anything, a petite woman with jet-black hair, dressed like she had just left high tea, followed by a man who clearly wore a suit every day and bossed peons around for a living, burst into the small waiting room. I didn’t know who they were, but Cora went stiff in my arms and Nash stopped pacing. The look on his face would have been enough to frighten a herd of stampeding elephants, but not this lady. She shrieked, “Nashville. Oh, honey, the hospital just called us. Are you okay?”

She hugged him hard, and I didn’t miss that he didn’t return the gesture. He looked at me and then back at the woman, then purposely took a step away from her. I peeked at Cora, who mouthed “his mom,” and turned my attention back to the family drama that made the Archers look like the Brady Bunch.

“What are you doing here, Mom? Why would the hospital call you?”

The woman fiddled with the strap on her purse. I was having a hard time seeing any of Nash in her. She was small and pale of complexion; he might have inherited his dark hair from her, but that was all I could tell.

“I’m Phil’s next of kin on all his paperwork. The hospital had to call me. I’m also his power of attorney.”

Nash glared. “Why you? Why would he have you on all that stuff, Mom?”

The woman took a nervous step away from her obviously emotional and enraged son. “He was going to turn it all over to you once the final tests came back.”

You could’ve heard a pin drop. I felt Cora gasp and let go of her because I was actually worried I was going to have to physically restrain my brother’s best friend.

“You knew? You knew how sick he was?” Nash’s voice blasted across the hospital walls like a gunshot. The man that had followed his mom in—her husband, I assumed—went to take a step toward Nash, but I reached out a hand and shook my head.

“Wouldn’t do that, friend.”

He sneered at me and looked at my hand like it was covered in shit.

“And who are you?”

I lifted my eyebrow.

“I’m nobody, but if you think you’re going to get in the middle of that, I’m the guy that’ll be happy to stop you.”

His eyes slid over the top of my head, across my shoulders, and looked at where my pixie was shooting him the death glare from my side, where she was safely tucked away. Apparently he saw that I meant business because he huffed and crossed his arms over his chest like a sulking child.

“Nash.” The woman was pleading but he wasn’t having any of it.

“How long, Mom? How long has he been sick? How bad is it?”

She looked away and bit her lower lip. Nash put his hands on her slight shoulders and gave her a little shake. I thought for a second the hospital security might show up or the rest of the crew, but so far it was just us and Nash’s life unfolding in front of him.

“He got sick at the end of last year. They had to remove part of his lung. He didn’t want anyone to know. The doctors thought it was contained but it metastasized and spread. He’s in stage three. It’s possibly moved to his lymph nodes. He was waiting on the test results. He didn’t want you to worry, Nash.”

Nash swore long and loud, and Cora pulled away from me to go and soothe him.

“Worry! You don’t think a heads-up would’ve been nice before I stumbled across what I thought was his corpse? Jesus Christ, Mom!”

“You need to calm down.”

“The last thing I need to do is calm down. Why would he tell you all this and not me? I’m his family. Hell, I’m more his son than his nephew.”

I saw the woman flinch and the suit made a strangled noise in his throat. Cora narrowed her eyes at the woman, and at the exact same time as Rule and Shaw came racing into our little party from hell, the pretty nurse came back around the corner followed by Cora’s dad.