“Shh, it’s alright, Babe. Just hold still,” Luis said, but his voice sounded shaky. So unlike the usual playful suredness.
“Please let him be okay,” I sobbed, even as the pain in my ribs and head flared.
I looked off to the side, and saw Godfrey with the mystery girl across his lap. She looked unconscious, but it was obvious that he’d been the one to pull her from the burning car. He was looking down at her, his lips moving, but I couldn’t tell what he was saying.
“Bonham?” I asked, looking back up to Luis.
“He’s okay,” he assured me.
“Are you?” I asked, my voice too high and unsteady.
He gave me a small smile. “Don’t you worry about us Heirs, Scar. We always make it through.”
“We need to move her and get you checked out, too,” a voice said.
Luis looked away to the paramedic now hovering over me. “Be careful with her.”
I felt Luis's touch leave my face, and then I was being lifted and put into the back of an ambulance. I passed out as soon as the doors shut.
Pain was a funny thing. On the one hand, it let you know that you were alive—that you survived. On the other hand, it fucking sucked to feel.
Broken collarbone, sprained wrist, concussion, and two broken teeth. My head trauma from the car wreck was pretty bad, but I wasn’t nearly as bad off as the guys.
Godfrey and Luis were discharged yesterday with stab wounds that they played off as being caused by the wreck. The police didn’t buy it, but I was certain that they were willing to accept the fat check that Luis wrote as a “donation” to not ask any more questions.
Between the two of them, they had bruised ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a few broken fingers, and mild concussions. Bonham was in the room beside mine, and he’d already had three surgeries to try and repair the damage to his foot. When the police came to question him about the obvious gunshot wound, he claimed that he’d stolen Rogue’s father’s gun and it had gone off during the collision.
Johnny Jack’s body was left inside his car alongside his driver, already burning to a crisp by the time the fire truck showed up. Rocco and his guys were long gone, and his name never passed our lips. As far as the hospital or cops knew, he was just a doting father to his injured daughter who’d been in the car with me.
And then there was Rogue.
I took a shaky breath, the sound mingling with the beeping machines as I watched him. I had every bruise memorized. Every cut. The deep discoloration of his skin. The fourteen stitches lining his skull. With dry eyes, I assessed every inch of the man I loved. I’d snuck in here an hour ago, right after my nurse did one of her nightly checks.
Mama had left hours ago. She’d been opting to go home to her bed rather than to stay with me at nights. I wasn’t surprised. She put on a good show, crying for the nurses when I woke up. I knew she cared for me, but her reaction felt hollow, and I was too exhausted to play pretend with her. My daddy was conveniently in the Bahamas with his girlfriend again, so he was off the hook as far as hospital visits. He sent a bouquet of flowers and a “Get well soon” balloon in lieu of himself.
My fingers curled around Rogue’s as I studied him. He was nearly unrecognizable. His face was mottled with bruises, a neck brace surrounded his neck, and for the first two days, he’d had such bad head trauma that they’d kept him in a medically induced coma until the swelling went down. He’d only woken up twice since then, once for a few minutes with the doctor, and once earlier tonight, when I’d been in my room.
I let my finger trace along the edge of his hand, needing to keep feeling him. Every time the nurse dragged me back to my own private room, my heart started racing with panic again. It only settled if I could be with him. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw the look on his face while I’d been dragged away, helpless to stop the men breaking his body.
Mr. and Mrs. Kelly called the hospital often to check in on their son. They didn’t bother to take the eight hour flight from London, though. They’d argued that they just couldn’t break away from the lucrative oil deal they were in the process of negotiating. I wasn’t sure I even knew what the Kelly’s looked like anymore. It had been a good few years since they bothered to be home with their son, and it infuriated me that they wouldn’t come even now. They loved money more than their own blood, and it made me sick.
I must’ve dozed off, because the next thing I knew, something woke me up. Blinking the sleepy haze from my eyes, I looked over to see Bonham beside me, sitting in his wheelchair. His foot was bandaged thickly from his toes to his knee, propped up and looking about twice the size of his other leg. Of course, because he was Bonham, he wasn’t wearing the blue hospital gown that I was stuck in. Nope, he was in a pretty collared shirt and khaki shorts, like he was ready to go out golfing.
“Hey,” I croaked, picking my head up. My collarbone shrieked in pain, but I gritted my teeth.
Bonham flicked his eyes over to me. “Hey.”
“I couldn’t sleep in my room,” I admitted, carefully releasing Rogue’s hand to adjust my arm sling.
Bonham nodded, like he understood. “Yeah.”
I studied him for a moment, noting the dark circles under his eyes. His dark blonde hair wasn’t combed perfectly to the side, and instead was a disheveled mess.
“How are you?” I asked, but before he could open his mouth to feed me bullshit, I cut him off. “I’m not your mama or daddy. It’s me asking, Bonham. I wanna know how you are.”
He snorted out a breath but it turned into a long, frustrated sigh, and he dropped his hand to his knee, barely touching the edge of the bandages. “I might be a fucking cripple, Scar. I might never get out of this goddamn chair. How do you think I am?”
Using my free hand, I placed it on his other knee and squeezed. “Listen to me, Bonham Brodie. You’re going to be fine. Your daddy has the best doctors in the country flying out this week to operate on you. They’ll fix you,” I said firmly.
“And if they don’t?” He asked the question quietly, while looking down at his lap. It killed me how broken he looked, like for the first time, his confidence in himself had slipped, and he didn’t know what to do about it. The Heirs were always so sure of themselves. Always so strong. And right now, when they couldn’t be, I resolved to step in and be strong for them. Because that’s what friends did for each other.
I moved my hand to grip his, and I squeezed his fingers. “If they don’t, then you’ll be fine then, too. You’re still you, Bonham. You’ll get through this, and we’ll help you,” I promised. “You guys are the motherfucking Heirs. Something like this can’t keep you down.”
Like they just materialized from nowhere, Luis and Godfrey strolled in right then, both carrying chocolate and various sacks of fast food. Their swagger was taken down a few notches with Luis's sling and Godfrey’s limp, but when I saw them, I beamed.
“Figured you’d be tired of this fucking hospital food,” Godfrey grumbled before putting the expensive box of chocolates on the bed in front of me. I grinned at the wrapping. Godfrey might have been a hardass, but he spoke the love language of chocolate.
“How’d you get it past Nurse Marcy? That lady is brutal,” I said with a shiver.