Implicitly, I know that the answer is yes.
It is because I do.
In this hospital—arguably a place that the hot, fragrant tea of the underworld has seeped into even more thoroughly than at Gram’s house—it’s easy to see that. Hubris and hurt feelings and semantics don’t matter very much here.
“I would,” I tell her, meeting her gaze dead-on and hoping like hell she doesn’t start calling a bunch of agencies over my well-being. I would bet my left tit that Cat has already paid off the cops more than once today. But I don’t need to be dealing with anything else.
The woman turns and guides me back to Sin’s room.
He’s awake. Thank fuck. I almost collapse against the wall in relief, but the need to go to him … it’s too insistent to ignore. It gives me strength when I have none left.
Sin lifts his eyes up toward me and they soften just enough that I can hear a million unsaid things passing between us. This is an affliction, his gaze says. This love is a wound that I never want to heal. There’s relief there, an almost overwhelming surge of it. He was willing to die to save my life, but it’s so much sweeter that we’re both here to be reunited.
While his eyes remain gentle and inviting, the rest of him goes taut and rigid at the sight of my swollen face. I practically stumble in my haste to get over to him, and then I’m climbing on the hospital bed despite the nurse’s protests and pressing our mouths together in this brilliant surge of emotion and heat.
It’s like nothing I’ve experienced before.
I don’t think I have ever been kissed like this. Nor do I think that I have ever kissed anyone like this.
It’s something different than my usual, than that awful black grit that seems to coat everything from my heart to my soul, taints my bones and my blood. This is a kiss that isn’t born of shared heartbreak. It isn’t lust and heat. It’s … feeling. There’s feeling in this, real, genuine feeling.
I put my hands against the sides of Sin’s face, drawing back just enough to get a breath. My eyes look down into his as he rests his hands on my waist, looking back up at me. I’m straddled over his lap, and with only the thin cotton of his gown and the sheet beneath me, it’s easy to tell that he’s already hard.
The nurse—or whoever she is, really—is talking to me, but I’m not listening.
My thumbs trace Sin’s lower lip as I take in the charcoal gray of his eyes, the almost lavender rings near the edges of his irises, the subtle blue cast beneath it all.
“I’m going to punch you in the balls later,” I whisper, and he almost smiles at me, and then cringes with the movement, tilting his head to one side like his neck hurts. My own face smarts and throbs from our kiss, but there are certain types of pain that feel exquisite, and this is one of them.
It’s the pain of knowing you’re both still alive, and everything hurts, but that’s okay. Because you’re still breathing; your heart still beats. If you’ve got that, you can tackle anything else. Anything.
Well, except for … I glance slightly to one side, as if I could see Grainger through all the walls that separate us. I look back at Sin.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I continue quietly, as he very carefully pushes me back with his hands on my waist. “You shouldn’t have pushed me and run, shouldn’t have fired at them—”
“Are you okay?” he asks me instead, his voice rough but threaded through with steel. “What happened to your face?”
“Gaz,” I say, and a flicker of horrible rage passes across Sin’s face. I cup it between my hands, even as the nurse sighs dramatically from behind me.
“Please don’t make me call security,” she says, and I lean forward quickly, putting my lips against Sin’s ear.
“He’s already dead. Try to relax.” I draw back and hop back down to the floor, giving the nurse a dirty look that she doesn’t deserve. I know that. But sometimes it’s impossible to remember that life doesn’t center fully around you and the people you love. “I’d explain, but I’m not sure it’d make any sense to you.”
“Regardless, your other friend is out of surgery and doing relatively well.”
“Relatively?” I ask as Sin coughs and then groans, reaching up his right hand to press gently at the side of his neck. I worry about him. About Grainger. I worry that the mafia will get their fingers into this hospital. It’d be so easy, to slip a drug into one or both of the boys’ IVs and … No. Fuck. My father has people all over this place, goddamn it. Since when I did start doubting the club’s might?
If there’s one thing I should be certain of, it’s the power that Death by Daybreak—and in turn, my father—holds. The Grey Wolfe Mafia is strong, too, no doubt, but we’re talking clashing titans here.
No one group holds the advantage over the other.
“We remain cautiously optimistic,” the nurse assures me with another sigh. I can tell that she wants to say more, but I’d be surprised if someone hasn’t already filled her in as to my identity. Nobody who lives in Ashbury is unaware of either the mafia or the club. Every now and again, they’ll protest one or both of us. Every now and again, a politician will make empty promises.
It never matters.
At this point, the US government would have to send in the military to deal with this mess.
Even then, I betcha we’d give ‘em a run for their money, guerrilla warfare style.
“Can we have a minute?” I ask, and the woman pauses, like maybe she wants to protest. In the end, she nods and steps outside of the room, closing the door behind her. “What happened to you?” I ask, reaching up to put my hand over Sin’s where it still rests against the side of his neck.
“I got grazed by a bullet,” he says, his eyes narrowing slightly with the memory. “Well, I got shot.” He moves the sheet aside, and then points to a spot on his arm, his shoulder, his waist. “Nothing vital. Except for this. A shot grazed my neck.” Sin wets his lips. “I was bleeding fucking everywhere.” He shivers and exhales, closing his eyes for a brief moment. “I was sure that was it for me, Gidge.”
I sit on the edge of the hospital bed and lean my arm against his, the fingers of my left and his right hand tangling together. Warmth travels through me, but not sexual warmth.
Okay, that’s a lie. Some of it is sexual, whether I want to admit it or not. My body is reacting to Sin’s in the same way his is reacting to me, even if neither of us is up for sex at this moment.
But mostly, it’s emotional warmth.
It’s possibly … no, no undoubtedly—much as my fucked-up brain hates to admit it—love.
That’s what it is.
Like a rose blooming in a field of weeds.
I wasn’t sure that I’d ever see Sin again after taking off to find a gun, running into Gaz, watching my father lift a weapon and point it at my face. Where is Cat now? What is he thinking? What is he doing?
Because he can’t be doing well emotionally speaking, not after shooting his only son.
From four children down to … one.
Down to me.
His least favorite.
Shit.
I was right all this time to fear Cat, wasn’t I? I mean, I knew that I was, that he really would kill his own child if necessary. But then, how am I still standing here? What was different about my betrayal as compared to my brother’s?