Lisa and her surgeon boyfriend, Matt, were waiting for us as soon as we got back to the apartment, with their equipment set up in Liam and Mikey’s room. Liam was still drifting in and out of consciousness, but I trust that I am placing him in the best possible hands. My baby brother is one of the toughest men I’ve ever known. I suspect he’s concussed and lost a lot of blood, but I won’t be able to breathe again until Lisa tells me that he’s going to be okay. They are in the room with him now, while Jessie, my brothers and I wait anxiously in the hallway.
Jessie chews her nails. Mikey paces up and down muttering to himself. Conor leans against the wall with his eyes closed and I do a combination of all of that because the waiting is fucking killing me.
“Shall we just fucking go in and see what’s going on?” Mikey eventually snaps.
I glance at my watch. “They’ve only been in there with him for twenty minutes, Mikey. Let them do their thing. Lisa knows how worried we are. She will come out here and tell us what’s going on as soon as she can.”
He takes a deep breath, his brow furrowed in frustration and worry. “Fine,” he snaps and goes to stand next to Jessie, who stops chewing her nails and wraps her arms around his neck instead. He drops his head low, resting it against her shoulder while she rubs his back with one hand and runs the other one through his hair. It seems to calm him down because he stands still.
I stand still too, watching her with him. I heard everything she said to Alexei earlier today. She would never have had to go through with it because I was ready to drop him as soon as he made a move, only she had the balls to do it herself anyway. I’m still not sure if I’m pissed or impressed that she was willing to do that for us. The fact that she would give up her life and spend it with him to save the four of us, should make me proud of her. It should show me that she truly is one of us, willing to sacrifice her own happiness for ours. I would do the same for my brothers, and for her too, and I know that they would do the same for me. But she still doesn’t get that there is no happiness for any of them without her. I wonder if there is any for me without her either.
It has been forty minutes since Lisa closed that door and left us out here so she and Matt could treat Liam. It has seemed like an eternity and the tension in this hallway is so thick that I could slice through it. When I wonder how much longer of this we can all stand, the door opens and Mikey runs toward it. Lisa has one of those faces that is unreadable. I’m sure it’s a skill she has honed over the years having to give families and loved ones difficult news, but it means she also has that same damn expression when she is giving good news too. And for a few seconds, my whole world stops turning.
“He’s going to be okay,” she says and only then does she smile as Mikey picks her up and almost squeezes the life from her. My heart starts to beat again and the relief courses through me.
“Thank fuck, doc!” Conor shouts as he walks over to Lisa, pulling her into another bear hug as soon as Mikey puts her down. Jessie hovers behind them with a huge smile on her face and tears in her eyes and I instinctively reach out to her and pull her toward me. I have no doubt that she has been blaming herself for Liam being taken by Alexei, and I also know that she is just as happy as we are to find out that he is going to be okay.
I wrap my arms around her and she melts into me, pressing her face against my chest as she starts to cry quietly while the tension and the fear she’s been carrying for the past twelve hours slips away from her. I hold her there as the sobs convulse through her body, allowing her to let it all go so that she can be strong again when she sees him.
“You did good, Hacker,” I say as I press a soft kiss on the top of her head and regret it because I smell her hair and it reminds me of all of the other times I have kissed her. My pulse quickens, and the blood rushes south as though my entire body is hardwired to want her.
“You can go in and see him now,” Lisa says and Jessie stands straight, wiping the tears from her face with the sleeve of her hooded sweatshirt. “I’ve given him some strong pain relief and it will be kicking in very soon, so you only have a few minutes before he’s out.”
“Let’s get in there,” I say, and Jessie and my brothers walk into the room in front of me.
“Thanks, doc,” I say to Lisa as I reach her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“You’re welcome. Go see him, and I’ll bring you up to speed on the damage and his aftercare in a few minutes.”
Walking into the room, I see Liam lying in bed, covered in dressings and bandages and dried blood, and even though he is groggy, he is awake. Jessie and my brothers crowd around him and he smiles at them all. “I told you I’d be fine. Doc says I’m invincible,” he mumbles and Mikey and Conor start to tease him about only wanting time off work, while Jessie gives him a kiss on the cheek. He reaches for her and wraps his bandaged hand around her fingers. “Come in here with me, baby,” he attempts a wink but the meds are kicking in and he doesn’t quite manage it.
“Maybe later, sunshine,” she laughs and he smiles goofily at her.
I walk around to where she is standing, and she tries to move aside to let me in, but he refuses to let go of her hand. “Come here, big bro,” Liam insists as he waves me toward him with his other hand, so I have to squeeze in behind her until my body is pressed against her ass. Please do not let my cock get hard right now!
I reach my arm over Jessie’s shoulder and put my hand on his hair, which is still matted with blood. “Get some sleep, kid.”
“So fucking bossy,” he slurs his words as his eyelids close and I am able to step back and away from Jessie with a sigh of relief.
After Liam falls into his meds induced sleep, Jessie and Mikey stay in his room while Matt does some final checks and Lisa, Conor and I walk to my office.
“So, what’s the damage?” I ask when we are all seated.
“Fortunately, it is mostly superficial. He has three broken ribs, and they will hurt, but they will heal with rest. His shoulder and knee were both dislocated, but I have reset them. He has a couple of broken fingers on his left hand, which we’ve bandaged up. We’ve stitched his lacerations. Treated his burns, which shouldn’t scar badly, except, perhaps, for one on his back. He had one of his molars and one of his wisdom teeth ripped out, but that shouldn’t cause him any ongoing issues. He has no internal bleeding that we can detect and nothing that will require any further treatment. Except his dressings will need to be changed regularly. He was smiling when I told him that because he said that Jessie is going to be his nurse.” She arches an eyebrow at us and I can’t help laughing.
“I bet he was,” Conor laughs too.
“Overall, he is just pretty beat up and he is going to need lots of rest to allow his body to heal. He has experienced significant trauma, and if he tries to push himself too soon, his recovery will take much longer. You need to make sure he takes it easy,” she warns us both.
“We will,” I say with a nod.
“And he also has a concussion,” she adds. “Who knows how long that could take to heal. It could be days. It could be months. But just keep an eye on him, and like I said, make sure he gets plenty of rest.”
“Yeah. Rest,” Conor nods. “We will.”
“I mean proper rest. Like bed rest.” She arches an eyebrow at Conor because after we rescued him from the Russians two years ago, he refused to rest for longer than an hour at a time.
“We’ll make sure he does,” I assure her.
“Yeah. And trust me, doc, I would have stayed on bed rest too if I’d had the nurse that Liam is going to have.” Conor flashes his eyebrows at us both and Lisa laughs.
“Yes. I noticed Jessie is back. For good this time?” she asks.
“Yes. For good,” Conor answers her before I even have a chance to open my mouth. But I nod my agreement when Lisa looks my way.
“Great. I’m going to get back in there and help Matt get cleaned up, and I’ll talk to Jessie and Mikey about how to change his dressings. I also noticed Jessie has a cut on her cheek which I want to have a look at. Are either of you hurt?” she glances between the two of us.
“No,” we both reply in unison.
“Okay. I’ll leave you both to it then,” she says as she stands.
“Thanks again, Lisa,” I tell her before she leaves the room.
“Any time,” she says, but she has a serious expression on her face. “But I wish you boys would retire. Because I am terrified that one of these days I’m going to be discussing taking a body to the morgue instead of trying to enforce bed rest.”
I suck in a deep breath as I watch her walk out of the room.
“Well, that was sobering,” Conor says with a grin.
“She’ll kick your ass if she sees you grinning like that,” I warn him as I smile at him too. Lisa is right, and we both know it, but right now we are too fucking relieved that our baby brother is okay to be anything other than thrilled.
“You want to come bring the guns up from the car while Lisa and Matt finish up?” I suggest, wanting something useful to do.
“Why not?” he agrees with a smile and we walk out of my office together.
It doesn’t take Conor and me very long to clear the car of weapons, and we leave them in one of our safe rooms in the basement before heading back upstairs. We talked the whole time we worked, about the club, about the football, about the new bar staff our manager hired, all the while avoiding the elephant in the room that is me and Jessie.
As we stand in the elevator on our way back to the penthouse, I feel Conor’s eyes burning into me.
“What is it?”
He turns his body toward me. “You know that I respect the hell out of you, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you are the person I trust most in this whole world?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So, understand that I say this with the greatest of respect and love for you as my brother, and the man who raised me, but you are a fucking fool.”
“What?” I blink at him. After the start of that speech, I had no idea this is where it would go.
“What the hell does she have to do to prove herself to you, Shane? She gave up everything for us and that’s still not enough for you?”
“It doesn’t change anything, Conor,” I snap.
“Really?” he shakes his head at me.
“Really.”
“You have this incredible, strong, kind, sexy woman who fucking adores you and you’re letting her slip away from you because of some stupid rule you have about not giving people second chances. And I know that you love her too, Shane. I see the way you can’t take your fucking eyes off her. So, if you want to die on this you only get one chance with me hill, then be my guest. It’s one less person I have to share her with,” he says as the doors open and he walks out, leaving me to stare after him, wondering if has a point.
