He chuckled. “What? You think you can stay in The Family and keep this one? Do that for too long, and everyone will agree he’s going to be part of The Family, even if he denies it. And when enough time has passed?—”
Leo left it at that, but I didn’t need him to finish to keep up with his train of thought and let the implications sink in as he stepped over Reg and let himself out of the room, his amusement lingering. There was nothing I could say to counter what he’d said, and I was left to stand there, stunned as I realized that although I had won this battle, it had not been a flawless victory.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
I was going to have to move out of the country and change my name if I didn’t want Dom to hunt me down, because there was no other way I was going to get away from him, obvious threat or not.
At least he and the others are safe.
Yes, there was that. Even with my original plan, I wasn’t going to have him anyway, but once again I felt a spark of hope, and the disappointment that followed those moments never failed to sting.
I hissed, my hand coming up to gingerly cover my face as I bent down and hung there for a moment. My face was on fire, and I didn’t dare touch anything for fear of making my injury worse, but I knew I was forever going to be seeing out of one eye.I knew part of the wetness against my hand wasn’t just blood, but the useless sack of eye that...God, what a mess.
“Levi...Levi, I need you to get up because I’m not sure I can get you up by myself,” Dom said, sounding desperate. “Please.”
It was that admission of weakness more than anything that made me suck in a breath and get to my feet so I could look at him. He looked like absolute hell, but he was there, he was alive, he was in one piece, a recovering piece but whole all the same. I couldn’t say the same about myself, and I held my hand to my face as I stared at him and felt...oh, I felt one eye pricking with the sharp needles of tears that wanted to slide down my face.
“I lost my eye,” I said, and the sound that came out of me would have been better suited to a particularly moody donkey.
“Shh,” he said, his eyes wide as if bewildered, and pulled me in close. “I got you, Levi. I got you. It’s going to be okay.”
“I don’t think it is,” I muttered against his chest. “You ruined everything, you asshole.”
“I’m good at that, just ask Micah.”
“I don’t think I like being compared to your moody teenage nephew.”
“Well—”
“Bastard,” I muttered in a thick voice.
“Come on, we need to get you to the hospital,” he said. “I don’t think your personal doctor is going to be enough for this.”
“Probably not,” I said softly. Nic would have been able to do it. I knew she could reattach limbs if she was paid enough and given what she needed, but I didn’t have the strength to argue.
“Come on,” he said, and helped me along, or tried to anyway. It was a miracle he’d managed to walk as much as he had on his own, so it was really both of us walking out of the building and into the parking lot where his truck waited.
“I can walk, unlike you,” I said, moving toward the driver’s side.
“Okay, Cyclops, but I have two eyes.”
I turned toward him. “Really?”
“What?”
“Jesus. Fine. You drive, clearly you can do that much.”
“Someone’s cranky.”
“I’m sure if you think hard on that, you’ll figure out why my mood might be soured,” I grumbled as I got into the passenger seat, the truck rocking as he got in on the driver’s side.
“So who exactly were those two guys?” he asked as he started the truck up.
“When was the last time you had this truck serviced?” I asked as I heard a clicking sound that definitely shouldn’t have been there.
“Levi.”
“That was Reg and Luis. Remember the explosion that scraped me up weeks ago?”
