Pamela was having tunnel vision. It was as if everyone was viewed over water. She could hear her rapid breath, which was getting so damn hard to take. She tried to concentrate on what else she could hear and she realized they were voices, whispering and calling to her from afar.

A hand jerked her. "Pamela!"

She snapped out of her reverie and looked up at the man she loves. His eyes were emotional and his brows were creased with worry. He hugged her.

"Are you okay?"

She shook her head in negation from side to side as she remembered. "Mother... Mother? Mom!" She yanked free of him and started running towards the body. Devlin's men were trying to revive her.

Devlin held her back and hugged her to him from behind. "Pamela, please."

"Let go. Let go!" She started sobbing. "Mother! Is she alive?" She hollered. Her voice sounded hoarse as she wept bitterly. All her resolve was gone. The woman lying there was no longer Dorothea, but her mother.

"What was she doing here?" Devlin asked against her ear.

"I - I don't know... She never said anything."

"She has a pulse!" Someone called and Pamela broke free, running towards her mom. She gasped in horror and shock. Her mom had been severely burnt.

She wept and knelt before her mother. "Mom?"

Her mother's eyelids flickered.

"She's alive," Ivan whispered.

Devlin knelt beside Pamela. "We'll need more bandages." He said quietly to whoever was listening.

"Yes sir." Ivan rushed off.

"Dore?" He carefully pressed a bandage against a cut on her temple.

She moaned and opened her eyes.

"Mom?" Pamela sobbed.

Dorothea smiled at them both. "Hurts," She whispered.

"I know, you'll be fine." He replied. "We're taking you to a hospital."

Pamela jerked to look at him. Minutes ago he'd been against that idea. What made him change his mind?

"Devlin. Y-you can't. Th-the –" Dorothea struggled to say.

"Shhh... Rest now." He then turned to his boys. "Gather all evidence you can in the warehouse and destroy it. We're taking the injured to the hospital so that will buy us time. Understood?"

Minutes later they pulled up in a hospital. Pamela was a bundle of nerves. She didn't want her mom to die. The injured, including her mom, were placed on a gurney and wheeled into the emergency room. No one was allowed in.

Pamela stood, lost in thought, staring at the red light on the door of the ER. Thousands of thoughts were running through her, bouncing off the walls of her mind, thousands of scary thoughts which she shouldn't be thinking filled her.

Strong arms hugged her from behind and she collapsed against him, sobbing bitterly. She had a lot to tell her mom.. she needed to tell her she was sorry for pushing her away, that she was sorry for blaming her for the divorce with her father when it had a reason; and whatever it was, it was a good reason, she was sure. She had a lot to say... she had stories to tell, she also wanted to tell her mom she was in love with Devlin.

"Hey, it's okay. She'll be fine. I know she will." He said stroking her hair. He led her to a seat and helped her into it.

"I pushed her away. I blamed her for my dad's death, I –"

"Shh..."

He stroked her hair, soothing her and whispering encouraging words to her. They sat that way for nearly two hours, hand in hand, leaning on each other, drawing strength. At intervals, Pamela paced the floor but Devlin drew her back to him.

After three hours that they arrived at the hospital, Ivan walked up to them. "Sir!"

Devlin looked up at him, his brows raised in question. "Tell me some good news."

"I've got the others burning up evidence, so we're safe – for now."

"What the hell does that mean?"

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, uncomfortably, giving Pamela uneasy glances. She picked up the signal.

"If you have anything about the bastard that did this to my mother and several others, I want to know what it is."

He glanced nervously at Devlin, who shrugged in reply. "Spit it out."

The door of the ER burst open all of a sudden and a doctor in blue overalls and a nose mask walked up to them. Pamela's heart went to her throat when the doctor called out her name in question. The doctor's face bore no emotion, but then, they had probably seen a lot of gruesome scenes and injuries and deaths that it didn't faze them anymore.

"That's me," Pamela said bravely. She had to be strong for her mother. "How's my mother?"

"Her injuries are superficial, and she should heal if care is taken –"

"Don't mollycoddle us, Doc." Devlin interrupted. "Tell us everything."

Despite the tension in the air, Pamela heard herself chuckle.

The short doctor gave him a baleful look. "I wasn't." He took a deep breath. "Well, I wasn't lying when I said her burns are superficial, but she inhaled a lot of smoke and that has done a lot of damage to her lungs."

Pamela took in a sharp breath. Devlin squeezed her shoulders. She shrugged his hand off and raised her chin. "What else?"

"We are going to do a series of tests on her lungs to know the next step to take, possibly surgery but right now, she is out of danger and the bleeding has stopped."

'"Bleeding?" Pamela was confused.

"Shards of glass pierced her," Devlin answered.

"I wouldn't say shards, more like chunks –"

"Yeah, we get the picture." Devlin interrupted with gritted teeth, giving the doctor a very dark scowl.

Pamela hadn't seen the piercings or the bleeding. Devlin had hidden it well away from her. She massaged her temple as if trying to erase the headache that was slowly rising there.

"Thank you, doctor." She said weakly, honestly grateful.

He nodded at her and turned to give Devlin a haughty glare. "An inspector is going to interview the scene of the fire and those that were involved."

Devlin and Ivan exchanged knowing glances. If the cops found out that the site that caught on fire was a warehouse for drugs, Devlin and all his boys would be arrested, that was for sure. Pamela couldn't bear the thought of Devlin ever being in prison, or killed or anything to that effect. She had just found him, and she intended to stay with him, forever, if possible.

"Can we see her now?" Pamela said, changing the topic.

"Yes. She has been transferred to the recovery room, and we would have preferred she rested for at least a day before receiving visitors, but she insisted we let you in."

Pamela nodded and shook the doctor's hand. He indicated to a nurse to lead them to her mother's room. As Pamela and Devlin started to move, the doctor dropped a bombshell on them:

"Oh, and by the way," they spun around to meet the doctor's somber face. He seemed to be having a lot of difficulties delivering the news. "She lost it."

"Lost what?" Devlin asked.

"Lost what?" Pamela echoed. She was frightened. What did he mean? Was her mom having mental issues? She dreaded the answer.

The balding doctor looked confused, from Devlin to Pamela. "She was bleeding a lot and was still bleeding from the cervix area even after the pierced areas had been brought under control. We did a test then, and found it out."

Pamela stepped forward. "Found what out?"

"That she had lost the baby."

~

Cody walked briskly towards the gate of the safe house. It was almost four in the morning and he'd seen Bob who was now considerably out of danger and was resting. Cody should have stayed with Bob till he was released but he had something very important to do. He had something very important to say to his boss, and it would get him very angry, he was sure, but he had to say it. He couldn't wait till dawn. He had been thinking of this since yesterday when he'd gone to pick up lady Pamela. It was a haunch, but one not to be discarded.

As he got close to the borders of the safe house which was silhouetted between trees and shrubs, he froze at what he saw. It was ambulance lights. Also, flashing lights of cop cars were seen too and that baffled Cody.

What happened?

He crouched low and tried to see from where he lay hidden what was going on but he couldn't decipher what was happening. He decided to go in. If cop cars and ambulance vans were in the safe house then his boss might be in danger, and despite his anger, Cody wanted to protect his boss.

He stood and entered the gates and saw that crime tapes had been drawn. He approached a cop that was scribbling something on a pad. "What's going on?"

"There was an explosion. The site is off-limits for non-officers."

Cody took in a sharp breath. Had it happened already? His guts instincts never failed him, but was he too late?

He saw more cops and analysts analyzing the scene and taking pictures and he let out a frustrated groan. They had tons of evidence that could indict them for possession of hard drugs. What was Sir Devlin doing right now? No one knew the location of the safe house, no one that wasn't trustworthy.

If they had been attacked, then it was Bull, and Bull didn't know the safe house, which meant someone snitched. And all he could think of was one particular person he'd been wary of even since he'd met him. It was crazy but he trusted his gut instincts; they never failed him. But if he wanted Sir Devlin to believe him, he had to have more than just a haunch. He needed concrete evidence, and fast.

But first of all, would Sir Devlin listen to him?

He massaged his temple in despair. Sir Devlin must think the worst of him right now, what, with him disappearing with Bob only hours before an attack? Was Sir Devlin even okay? Was he alive? He hoped to hell he was. Yeah, hours ago he'd wanted to put a bullet in Sir Devlin's head himself, but he'd been angry. Now all he wanted was to protect his boss at all costs. He had to find out if his boss was alive.

Cody looked at the cop and asked with fierce determination. "Which hospital were they taken to?"

~

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