But then I realized I could breathe easily.
That I could peel back my dry, sticky lids and open my eyes.
The light stabbed my corneas, digging ice picks into my brain, but after a moment I regained my vision again.
There was yellow thread spilled all over my chest.
No, not thread.
I tried to work through the fog of my thoughts and realized it was hair.
Golden hair.
Two heads of it perched on my chest.
Bianca and Brandon.
They were squeezed onto the hospital bed I lay in like two parentheses curved around my body, protecting me, comforting me even in my unconsciousness.
The way Bianca and I had lain with Brando in my bed on Christmas Eve.
My mouth was parched, but that wasn’t why my throat started to burn as I stared down at those halo haired Belcantes.
They were safe.
They were here.
With me.
Because they were mine and they wanted to comfort me even if I wasn’t aware of it.
I raised a heavy, trembling hand and cupped the back of Bianca’s head just to touch her.
“They spent the last two days in the waiting room,” Walcott’s voice said.
I looked up, expanding my world beyond the hospital bed to take in the rest of my surroundings.
Walcott, Ezra, and Henrik all sat crammed together on the ledge of the window. Beckett and Sarah sat in separate chairs pulled up to either side of the bed. Carter stood near the door, my youngest brother beaming at me.
They were all here.
Everyone.
My chest throbbed and I knew no amount of morphine would ease the ache.
“What happened?” I croaked.
The rumble of my voice through my chest woke Bianca, who peered up at me sleepily before her mouth fell into an ‘O’ of surprise. She squealed softly, an elated sound, and then gently pressed a kiss to my chin.
“Oh my God,” she breathed, kissing me there again. “If it wouldn’t hurt you, I’d kiss you all over. I’m so happy you’re awake.”
I laughed hoarsely then stopped on a wince when it pulled at stitches in my neck and side. “Rain check.”
Bianca smiled so widely, it almost blinded it me more than the light had. She shook her head, as if to free herself of an enchantment I’d cast over her, and reached over to the bedside tray to grab a cup of water. She raised it to my lips and I happily sucked it all back.
“What happened?” I asked again, clearer now.
Bianca sighed, ducking her head against my chest and stroked the fingers of one hand lightly over my jaw.
“I was taken by Bryant’s men when Tilda showed up at the gate and asked to speak with me. She’d been crying and I should have been smarter, but my first thought was to help her. Comfort her. I hadn’t thought to wonder if she was crying because Bryant had forced her to lure me out of the mansion. I hadn’t known he was blackmailing her with the affair she was having with a married oil tycoon.” When I growled with anger beneath her cheek, Bianca looked up at me. “Don’t be angry with her, Tiernan. People do desperate things when they’re threatened.”
Henrik picked up the thread of the narrative then, thumping his first against his chest in a gesture that spoke of his happiness to see me alive. “We were lucky. The idiots Bryant sent tripped the silent alarm. Walcott hurried Brando and Picasso into one of the cars and got them out of the house while I went after the intruders. I caught them in the back parlor. My guess is, they intended to fix the bomb to the gas tank downstairs, but they never made it that far so when they heard me coming they put it on the piano.”
Terror slithered through me at the thought of my family if Bryant had succeeded. Lion Court was an old house and I didn’t like the odds of them surviving that kind of blast.
“It went off when I was tackling the last one in the backyard. I could feel the blast of heat even twenty yards away. It took out the back-right corner of the house. So, we won’t be living there for a while.”
“I’ve already got crews clearing up the debris and an architect drawing up plans for rebuilding,” Walcott assured me, as if that mattered.
As if anything mattered but the two blondes settled safely in my arms.
“Bryant?” I demanded, fresh rage surging through me, eating at my drug-induced mellowness.
Carter was the one to explain then, stepping forward to clutch my feet in his big hands, as if he needed to touch me to ground himself.
It filled me with something warm and liquid, like my blood had been replaced with champagne.
Carter fixed his dark eyes on me. “He’s in lockdown right now.”
Bianca shifted her head on my chest to peer up at me with those vivid blue eyes. She touched her fingertips to my lips and clasped her heart-shaped locket in her other hand.
“I wish men wore lockets too so you could wear it visibly every single day,” she whispered.
“What?”
“My heart,” she said softly, harkening back to the words I’d told her when I’d given her the locket. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Tiernan. Your fight is my fight. You bleed, I bled.”
Looking into her face then, I understood how dangerous love could be. Because she was right. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for her, no line too far to cross, no price too step. I’d die and kill for her just as I lived for her now.
And I understood now that she felt the very same way.
That all the horror and pain I’d faced throughout my life was payment for this glorious woman. That I’d spend the rest of my life earning the gift of her.
“I love you,” I told her, and it didn’t feel like enough. “I’ll tattoo your heart on my chest so I can wear it every day like you wear mine.”
A slow, sweet smile like honey poured from an overturned jar. “I’d love that.”
So would I.
“He isn’t dead,” Carter continued. “We caged him in the house with our men and set up the monitoring system.”
“I’ll stay there,” Sarah said, leaning forward to pat my thigh, curling her hand around the muscle. “I-I want to stay. I’ll keep him calm, make sure he doesn’t get up to his old ways. You might have guards, but no one knows the old man like I do.”
“You don’t have to stay,” I argued. “This is your chance to get away from him.”
“I am,” she said. “I’m thanking you, now. And asking if you can ever forgive me for keeping your biological father a secret.”
My gaze skimmed over to Beckett who sat stiffly in the chair. His shirt sleeve was rolled up on one side, a bandage fixed around his elbow.
“If you want me to leave, I understand,” he offered reluctantly. “But I’d very much like to stay.”
“You were hurt.” I jerked my chin at his elbow. “You didn’t have to do what you did. I guess, now I know why you did it.”
“He also gave blood for you,” Bianca murmured. “There was a mass casualty on the interstate and they were running low on blood. One of the bullets hit your splenic artery and you’d lost so much blood.”
I blinked at Beckett, reluctant admiration trying to wiggle its way through the walls of my chest.
He shrugged. “I had surgery recently. I knew my blood type and we were a match. It’s not a big deal.”