Ambros is already shaking his head. “She’s tired. She fought hard, but she knows she’s just delaying the inevitable and wants to enjoy what little time she has left. They’re talking about palliative care now.” He scrubs his hand over his face.
“The husband?”
“Wants to bring her home. He’s a fucking wreck, too. We might not always see eye to eye, but he loves my sister.”
“What about if we did a charity run or something, help with some of the medical bills? I know they have insurance, but I doubt it covers everything.”
“I have more than enough to cover the difference, but Harry won’t take it. Fuck knows why. Pride, maybe?”
“He’s trying to take care of his wife in the only way he can,” Midas tells him, making Ambros grunt. But I can see he gets it, even if he doesn’t like it.
“If we do a charity run, he’s unlikely to refuse that, right? I think it feels different when a community comes together to look after one of their own,” G points out.
“She is not one of?—”
Havoc cuts him off before he can continue. “You’re one of ours. That makes your sister one too. We’ll take care of it. I’ll get the girls on it. You know what Neveah is like—she’ll be all over it. Does Ella have anything on her bucket list she wants to do? Maybe we can help out that way?”
“You mean, apart from seeing her baby brother get married?” He huffs out a sad laugh. “I don’t know, but I’ll ask and get back to you. Think Neveah will sit with her for a little while tomorrow? Mike has to work, and I’ve got a meeting in town with my lawyer. She loves having Neveah read to her.”
“You know she will. I’ll drop her off there myself in the morning.”
“Thanks, Havoc.”
Pig walks over with a drink for Ambros, who takes it and drinks it down in one. I glare at the prospect, who hurries away. Midas chuckles. “You ever gonna cut the kid some slack?”
“Would you?”
“Fuck no.”
“What did he do?” Ambros looks between us, and I realize how out of the loop he is.
“He was supposed to be watching Delphi, and yet she managed to sneak out and catch a cab without him noticing. The fucker had the audacity to tell me everything was fine.”
Ambros chuckles. “Can’t say I miss being a prospect. You guys keep meeting women who turn out to be far more than most of us are used to. Grenades, cliffs, serial killers, stalkers…” He counts off on his fingers. “I think I might need to look for a Suzy homemaker, or I’ll be gray before I’m thirty.”
“Thought there might have been something between you and Neveah’s sister,” G says as he takes a sip of his beer. Havoc narrows his eyes on Ambros, but I know the fucker wasn’t blind to it.
“She’s not in any kind of place to even think about dating, especially a man like me who has his own fucking issues to deal with. We’re friends, and that’s what both of us need more than anything else right now.”
Havoc grunts. “You keep in touch?”
“Yeah, mostly through texts. Why?”
“Neveah says she’s gone quiet on her lately. She’s been worried.”
“I get that. How the fuck can Tink not worry after everything that happened to Citi? The thing is, Citi needs room to breathe. She spent almost her whole life confined. Give her space to spread her wings. She can’t do that if she’s worrying abouteveryone else, which is why I haven’t told her how bad things are with Ella.”
“I don’t like my woman upset, but I get it,” Havoc grumbles.
“You don’t. None of us does. None of us will. Nobody survives what she has intact, and I think that’s what she’s struggling with the most. The guilt that Nevaeh wants her twin back, when Citi wants that part of her to die so she can start over, reinvent herself.”
“Which is hard when you have a carbon copy of you staring back, oozing happiness because they got to live the life that was stolen from you,” I add, drawing all their attention. “What? I’m more than a pretty face, you know.”
Midas chuckles just as a cheer goes up.
I turn and see Blade and Sunshine walk through the door. Blade has a baby in his arms while Sunshine has a bag that looks like it’s filled to the brim with shit. I look around and grin when I see Inigo bringing up the rear with the other baby asleep on his shoulder.
I get to my feet and walk over to hug Sunshine, taking the bag from her shoulder, which weighs a fucking ton. “Hey, gorgeous. How you feeling?”
