43
KNIGHT
The soft beep of Izzy’s heart rate monitor sounds through the cramped hospital room. Honestly, I feel like I’ve spent more time in these rooms than some of the doctors have. Perhaps it’s time to buy shares in the hospital, though I truly hope this is the end of this bullshit.
Elias is nothing more than fish food, along with the men he hired to do his dirty work, and Mae is rocking a nice orange jumpsuit. And no, orange is not her color. As for the twins, they’re safe in their parents’ arms, and while I haven’t had a chance to catch up with Jonah yet, I’m sure he has every intention of making sure those little girls get whatever help they need to process everything they witnessed over the past twenty-four hours.
Harper has been itching to get out of here and see the girls. She holds the weight of everything that happened on her shoulders, and while she’s spoken to Jonah and Emily andchecked in on the girls over the phone, she won’t be able to sleep until she sees the twins in the flesh and can see for herself that they’re unharmed.
Ace and Diesel sit across the room, trying not to take up too much space, but they’re big guys, and they can’t fucking help it. And seeing as Harper demanded that her bed be wheeled in next to Izzy’s, there’s not an inch of space to move inside this room.
I sit in Harper’s bed with her, her body snuggled up next to me as she mindlessly scrolls through social media, but I don’t think she’s actually seeing any of it, just scrolling on autopilot as she waits for her best friend to wake.
Despite Harper’s objections, she’s only here for observation. Her chin had a nasty gash on it, and her body was covered with the evidence of my brother’s brutality. I could see where he whipped her with a belt, where he scratched her, where her face was slammed against the headboard, but they’re all superficial injuries that will fade with time. There are burns on her arms and legs and scratches from the explosion, but for the most part, she got lucky. Considering everything she went through, coming away with superficial injuries, a concussion, and a shitload of trauma to process is about as good as it gets.
The thought of what could have happened has kept me up throughout the night. There were at least forty men on that ship, and my only guess is that they had no idea that Harper was there, bound and ready to be used in whatever way my brother saw fit. If they knew, I’m sure I would have found a different version of the woman in my arms, and while I’d do anything to have been able to keep any of this from happening, I’m just grateful that her heart is still beating, and my brother’s is not.
What she had to do to survive . . . fuck. It’ll be a long road of healing for Harper, but she’s strong. She’ll make it through, and I’ll be right here for her to lean on when it becomes too hard, ready to take the burden off her shoulders.
Harper sighs in my arms before putting her phone down. Her gaze shifts toward Izzy, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. “She should have woken up already,” Harper murmurs, her fingers finding mine.
Ace scoffs from across the room, not having taken his eyes off Izzy since the moment we got here seven hours ago. “It’s Izzy,” he mutters. “You really think she’s just going to wake up and put us out of our misery? Hell nah. She’s gonna make us sweat it first.”
A small laugh rumbles through Harper’s chest. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” she murmurs. “But on the other hand, she probably can’t wait to wake up just so she can bitch me out for getting her shot.”
Diesel smirks. “Do you need some armor?”
“Couldn’t hurt,” she says, her agitation visible in the way her knee bounces under the blanket.
I pull her in tighter to my chest, hoping like fuck that I’m not being too firm on her burned skin, because I’ve more than learned that she’s not going to tell me if I am. “She’ll wake up soon,” I tell her, my lips brushing over her temple. “She lost a lot of blood. It won’t be easy to bounce back from that.”
“But it’s Iz. She always bounces back.”
“I know,” I tell her. “But she’s also never been shot through the chest and bled out like that before. She’s okay. Her surgery went well, but she needs to rest. The more sleep she’s able to get, the stronger she’ll be. You know that.”
“Don’t use logic on me.”
I smile against her temple before kissing her again, and just as she goes to scootch down in her bed and curl herself around me, a soft, croaky voice fills the little room. “Bitch, did your mom seriously shoot me?”
Harper gasps and all but throws herself from bed as she lunges toward Izzy, grabbing for her hand. Ace and Diesel practicallytackle each other to get to her other side. “Oh, thank God,” Harper cries, her voice breaking. “I’m so fucking sorry. I never should have—”
“Ugh. Don’t even start with the guilt-ridden sob fest. This isn’t your fault,” she tells Harper, her throat dry after surgery. “I didn’t have to get in your shitty little Honda, and I didn’t have to go inside that house, but I did. That’s on me, and you don’t get to claim my fuckups. They’re mine to sulk over.”
Harper’s bottom lip wobbles, and she slips straight up onto the edge of Izzy’s bed, doing what she can not to jostle her around too much. “I thought you were dead,” she tells her. “Elias dragged me away before I could call for help, and you were just lying there helpless. I—”
“Wait,” Izzy cuts in with a low groan. “I don’t . . . I don’t remember seeing Elias.”
“Shit, Iz. I’ve got so much to catch you up on. It was insane. There was a cargo ship, and people were being shot everywhere. I saw a guy with a snapped neck just soaking in a pool of someone else’s blood, and fuck. We had to literally jump off the ship because it was riddled with explosives and because I’d smashed some stupid oil lamp. The whole ship exploded. It was insane.”
“The fuck are you talking about?” Izzy questions, her brows furrowed as though trying to follow along with Harper’s recount of our night is giving her a headache. “None of that makes sense.”
“Literally insane,” Harper says. “It was so shitty and scary, like flames actually trying to burn me alive, but like . . . wild. Sexy SWAT dudes everywhere doing their SWAT thing, and they had to fish me out of the water.”
“Mmmm. Love a sexy SWAT dude. I need one of those.”
“Uhhhh, right here,” Ace mutters.
Izzy shakes her head, her eyelids growing heavy. “Noooo,” she groans. “I mean a sexy one that can swoop in like a superhero with his muscles all muscling and save me. You’ve got the sexy part down, but you don’t strike me as a swooper.”
