“Pretty much fine,” Bartosz replied, “we’ll have a small fine for the damage to the boat, apparently some of the seats were damaged in the scuffle, but that was it. Renai laws are notoriously lax when it comes to actions taken in defense of a female Renai. The soldier who shot you is from a prominent family, and since he didn’t know you were a Renai, and because you lived, he is not going to get the death penalty, but they were still debating his punishment when we left.
I shook my head in disbelief.
“We literally held the son of the Renai council at knife point, and we got off with a fine? That’s crazy!”
Bartosz shrugged nonchalantly.
“Again, in the defense of a female Renai, almost everything is permissible and warranted.”
It reminded me that I still had a lot to learn when it came to the world of the Renai, a world that I now belonged to.
I wanted to talk to them about Constantine’s mother, but whatever was going on with the other three boys had to be ironed out before anything else could be figured out.
Ettore, his lower lip no longer the smooth plush thing that I loved to run my tongue against, and instead rough and bitten and not in the fun way, approached. He stood in front of me as if I were the judge that he had to answer to and not the judge or judges that he had to face in the courtroom.
“Mina,” he said solemnly, “I have failed you. By unnecessarily striking the Rat, I upped the tension, and by making him bleed, I aggravated everyone, putting you in a dangerous situation. By continuing to fight in the boat, I caused the brawl that allowed the soldier who shot you to be able to get a shot in.”
He looked me straight in my eyes and spoke with so much certainty that I knew that he believed what he was saying down to his very core.
“I have failed you, Mina. I don’t deserve to be with you. I’ll stay with you until you are healed and healthy, and then I will leave.”
I pulled myself up as straight as I possibly could, once again pulling my stitches.
“Do you no longer care for me?” I asked him evenly, no expression on my face, as impartial as a goddess.
“No, no!” He said vehemently, “It’s not that, I-” I cut him off.
“Do you think I am self-possessed? Do you think that I am intelligent?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Will you go along with the decisions that I make about what type of people I want around me?” I asked him finally.
“Yes, of course,” he replied resignedly.
“Good, then I want you with me until I heal, and then, what did Jin Woo say? I want you with me forever.”
Shock and then relief flashed across his face, and I reached my arms out and pulled him into me.
“You were an idiot, but the whole situation was honestly fucked. I’m just glad that none of you were seriously injured or killed. All of you were doing something incredibly risky and illegal and putting your lives on the line for me, if any one of you had been hurt, I couldn't have handled it.”
Jin Woo spoke next.
“I shouldn’t have left your side. I knew that was where you were vulnerable, and it was my job to make sure that no one did what that soldier did. I’m truly sorry.”
I reached out and cupped Jin Woo’s cheek, drawing him closer to me.
“Thank you, Jin Woo. I know that this wasn’t your fault.”
Oskar pressed his face against my thighs for a long moment before he pulled away from me.
“You took a bullet that was meant for me. Thank you for protecting me.”
I smiled warmly at him.
“Of course, always.”
There was a chorus of ‘no’s, ‘hell no’s, and ‘never agains’.
