“He’s up,” Adrian says dryly from the hall.Footsteps.Caleb first, laptop tucked under his arm.Atlas behind him with a duffel.Last is Adrian, guided by two fingertips of Caleb’s free hand.He stops just inside the doorway, reads the room by breath and heartbeat like he always does.
“He won’t hurt you,” Adrian says to the nurse.He finds the chair between our beds like he put it there himself.Dark glasses.Jaw tight.He angles toward the sounds of the monitors.
“Back down,” the nurse mutters, trying to steer me.I don’t budge.
Atlas lifts his free hand.“Okay, big guy.Before you pop stitches you don’t even know about, she’s fine.Lay your ass down.”
“Where?”
“Next door,” Caleb says.“They tucked you in your own room because you kept trying to kill the telemetry in ICU.You’re welcome.”
“What the fuck is telemetry?”I ask before I realize I don’t give a fuck.“Bring her.”The words grind out of me.The only thing Idocare about.“Or I go to her.”
The nurse looks between the three of them like she’d love to sedate all of us.“He’s a liability.”
Adrian tilts his chin toward my bed.“We move her.”
“You can’t just?—”
“We move her,” he repeats, voice flat enough to frost glass.“Or he will.I prefer the version with fewer lawsuits.”
The nurse blows out a breath that sounds like surrender and homicide mixed together.“Ten minutes.”
They leave me with a blood pressure cuff strangling my arm.I stare at the doorway until the universe gets the message.
Wheels squeak a few minutes later.The door bangs.Her bed rolls in.Everything in me that’s been holding the world up lets go.
She’s pale, eyes clear.IV in her arm.Big pressure dressing over her shoulder where Sava packed the hole.Hair braided back, messy and perfect.Alive.
“Cassius,” she says, soft as breath.“You look terrible.”
“Flirt,” I rasp.She reaches across the gap and I catch her fingers.The monitor on my side slows.
“Both of you, do not sit up,” the nurse warns, snapping brake pedals down and sliding Lindy’s bed so close our knuckles bump.“I will restrain you.”
“Romantic,” Atlas says, trying for light.He sets the contraband coffee on my nightstand out of reach.“You get to look at each other.That’s it.”
“How long?”I ask, eyes on Lindy.
“Night and a day,” she answers.“You coded.I didn’t, so I win.”
I huff something that wants to be a laugh and almost black out for the effort.She squeezes my hand.
Caleb turns his face toward the blended sound of our breathing.“Girls are safe.”
The room stills.
“How many?”I ask.
“Seven at the site,” Caleb says, voice clipped.“Two more in transit.Dominic grabbed the driver.They’re all at the clubhouse.”
“Any losses?”
Atlas shakes his head.“None of ours.Havoc’s knuckles look like ground beef, but he’s thrilled.Marianna asked Emmy to see if she can ID any of them.I’m not sure she should try.”
“And the center?”I spit the word like a pit.
“Ghosted,” Adrian says.“She has half a dozen aliases but was born with the name Lavinia.”
