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—
Lyrica was aware of her brother, her cousins, her sisters.
Her mother sat beside her, her lips split, one eye nearly swollen shut from where Dorne had struck her.
She hadn’t realized Tim was limping at first. His leg was fractured. How he’d managed to walk like that amazed her. How he was still sitting in the waiting room, she hadn’t figured out.
Even Zoey was there, her pale green eyes damp with tears, her broken arm casted, the deep bruising at the side of her face swelling her eye nearly closed.
Jimmy Dorne had been determined to force Tim, Mercedes, or Zoey to reveal where Lyrica was hiding.
They’d sworn they didn’t know. Even Zoey, the one who feared pain the most, had fought him back, daring him to shoot her, sneering at him when he hit her. She’d declared she wouldn’t tell him even if she did know. Her brother, she’d informed Dorne, had hidden Lyrica, and she’d dared him to try to force the information from Dawg.
They’d all suffered to keep Lyrica safe.
Curled in the corner of the hard plastic couch, she turned her head back to where she had rested it in her bent arm, and she continued to pray.
To wait.
She felt ragged inside.
Her soul felt shredded, destruction held back by the thinnest thread.
Graham.
Tears fell from her eyes again, pouring from her when there shouldn’t have been tears left to shed.
She could live without him. If he was just alive. If he was just somewhere in the wor
ld finding happiness, even if it meant finding that happiness with another woman, then she would survive.
She would get up every morning, she would make herself go through each day, and she might even find a measure of peace.
Somewhere.
Without Graham . . .
What reason would there be to get up every morning?
Her mother rubbed at her shoulder and Eve and Piper sat close, trying to comfort her. But there was no comforting her.
He’d taken that bullet for her, knowing what he was doing. If he hadn’t thrown himself in front of her then she would have been the one lying there in that operating room.
She would have much preferred it to be her.
“Hey, little sister.” Natches’s voice had her head lifting quickly, her gaze meeting his immediately as he squatted in front of her.
He and Rowdy both referred to her and her sisters as their own.
She looked around quickly. Neither the surgeon nor the doctor was standing there.
“He’ll be okay,” he said, the somber belief that gleamed in his eyes pulling a harsh sob from her chest.
Covering her trembling lips with her fingers, she fought to hold back the cries and was even mostly successful. The tears were another story.
“I love him,” she whispered, her voice so hoarse she barely recognized it. “If he’s just okay, then I can live without him, Natches. I can.”
Reaching out, Natches tucked the long, mussed strands of her hair over her shoulder and thought he must really be getting old. Only one time in his life had he ever wanted to cry as much as he wanted to cry for this grown-up version of his precious Bliss.
