Sitting on the back seat of the SUV, I cradle Liam’s head on my lap as he drifts in and out of consciousness. Conor drives as fast as the car will allow, while Shane talks on the phone, making arrangements for their personal physician, Dr. Lisa Adams, and a surgeon friend of hers to be waiting at the apartment for us as soon as we get back. Shane and Conor quickly checked Liam over as soon as we got him to the car and decided we should head straight home.
Mikey sits on the back seat with Liam and me, staring anxiously at his injured twin brother.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t take him straight to the hospital?” I ask when Shane ends his call to Lisa.
“No!” the three of them answer in unison.
“He will freak the fuck out if he wakes up in hospital, Red,” Mikey says. “He is fucking terrified of those places. We both are.”
“Lisa and Matt will have everything we need at the apartment,” Shane adds. “This isn’t the first time we’ve dealt with something like this, Jessie,” Shane growls from the front seat.
“Okay,” I reply as tears prick at my eyes. Liam is lying here bleeding on my lap, and if he doesn’t make it, I have no idea what we will do. There is so much emotion and tension in this car, I can’t wait to get out of it and into the apartment. I will feel one million times better when Liam is in the hands of Lisa and the surgeon.
“No hospitals,” Liam mumbles as his eyelids flicker open.
I look down at his beautiful face and place my hand on his cheek. “Of course not,” I smile at him.
He smiles back as his eyelids flutter closed again. “I heard what you said, Jessie.”
I suck in a deep breath. I said a lot of things in that room.
“You were going to stay with him. For me?” he mumbles the words.
“Shush now. You need to save your energy,” I tell him as I lean down and softly kiss his forehead, but an unexpected tear falls from my eyes and onto his face. I brush it away gently with the pads of my fingertips.
“Don’t cry, baby. I hate it when you cry. And I am the happiest man in the world right now,” he smiles before he drifts back into unconsciousness.
I look up and Mikey is staring at me now with tears in his eyes.
“He’ll be okay,” I say with a confidence I don’t fully trust in.
Mikey nods. “You were going to stay with Alexei?” he frowns at me.
I swallow hard. “It was the heat of the moment. I had no idea what was happening upstairs. He had a knife to Liam’s throat.” I choke back the tears. “I told him I would stay if he would guarantee that the four of you walked out of there alive.” I wipe another tear as it rolls down my cheek.
I realize that Shane already heard me say some of that stuff, and now Conor keeps glancing at me in the rear-view mirror too.
“Even if it meant leaving us and living with a man you despise?” Mikey asks.
“I would do anything for you,” I whisper. “Isn’t that what being a family is? Wouldn’t you sacrifice yourself for your brothers if you believed you had no choice?”
Mikey stares at me, and I feel Conor’s eyes on me through the mirror. “You can be pissed at me all you want, but I would do it again in a heartbeat,” I sniff.
Mikey reaches out his hand and takes mine in his, squeezing gently. “I’m not pissed at you, Red. I think you’re a fucking queen. You just turned down the Bratva empire and shot your own father for of us. I am fucking honored to call you mine.” He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses it softly. “But know there is not a chance in hell that we would have left that place without you.”
He leans back in his seat and closes his eyes with my hand still clasped in his. I can’t see Shane’s face because he is sitting directly in front of me, but I see the hint of a smile on Conor’s lips as he keeps his eyes fixed on the road ahead, driving us all back to safety.
