“He pulled you out. Helped you become you again. If he hadn’t…” His mouth quirks. “He’d be traded.”
“The protective big brother to the end.”
A shrug, his big hand encouraging me up to my feet. “It’s my job.”
“It’s really not. But,” I add before he can protest, “I love you even more because you think it is.”
“Love you too, kid. And, Ky?”
I pause.
“Remember. Just be you. That’s all he needs.”
Bolstered, I lift my chin and walk toward Colt.
Storm is beside him, looking pensive, his eyes filled with shadows I suspect are trying to mask his own demons.
I don’t know him super well, always kept a bit of distance between us because…well, because before Colt, I was broken.
And also because my brother is married to the woman he loves.
Storm pushes off the wall, meets me halfway.
“You got him?”
I nod.
“Good.”
I start to move past him but he catches my arm. “Ky?”
I lift my brows.
“That wound’s been festering for a long time. It—” His gaze slides from mine, and I can’t miss that it’s gone to Joey and Damon, same as I don’t miss the flicker of hurt deepening the shadows in his old-soul eyes. “He’s hurting. Don’t let him push you away, huh? No matter what it takes.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, dropping my arm, and walking out of the waiting room.
And I don’t know why…
But I just have the sense that I may not see him again.
Shaking that off, I move to Colt.
Only, the moment I lay my hand on his back, curl into his side, the doors to the waiting room burst open and suddenly his mother is there, storming over to Colt, getting in his face.
I react without thinking, putting my body between them.
Not that it seems to matter.
Donna Madden only has eyes for her eldest child.
“This is your fault. And I will never, ever forgive you.”
I press myself to Colt, and he wraps an arm around my middle, pulling me behind him, just as?—
Crack!
The sound of her palm hitting Colt’s cheek is gunshot loud in the quiet room.
