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Levi tsked. “Next weekend.”
“Tell her it’s fine. Lauren and I will be there.”
“Good—she’ll be happy to hear it. I’ll make sure that I have my best team covering Hannah and Wes.”
“Great.”
“It is great,” Levi agreed, “especially because you’re paying for all this coverage.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’ll see you at home.”
“I’ll be the one with the bourbon. See you soon.”
Chapter 25
Lauren
“The nurse is coming back over. They’re going to reconnect your IV.”
Hannah put her hands on her hips. “Call them and tell them to forget it—I don’t need an IV. I need to be mobile; I’m going back in to see Wes first thing in the morning.”
I sat on the bed and scooted over next to her so our shoulders were touching. “You’ve been through a lot, and you need to get better. You’re no good to Wesley if you’re not healing.”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “I’m fine.”
“Listen, I appreciate that you want to be there for him. I knew you would, and I think it’s awesome. But you have to take care of yourself. Promise me.”
“I promise.” Hannah picked at her T-shirt for a minute. “But Lauren?”
“What?”
“What if…what if he’s not okay when he wakes up? Or…what if he doesn’t wake up?” Her voice cracked.
I hugged her to me. “Then we’ll deal with it.”
“Okay,” she said, even as she wept against my chest. “Okay.”
Later, after my poor sister had finally gone to sleep, Gabe and I went to bed. Gabe propped himself up a little, the sheet falling away from his broad chest. I looked away and then closed my eyes so I could think straight. “It’s been a hell of a day.”
“I know.” He brushed the hair off my face and stroked my cheek. “I gotta tell you, I really wanted to go after Li Na myself. I was ready to fight her, and if I couldn’t do that, I at least wanted to take out more of her guards. If I couldn’t do that, I was looking forward to having all our international partners bail out and leave her in the dust. I would’ve enjoyed the hell out of that. But do you know what’s so much better?”
“Um, no?”
He traced his thumb along my jawline. “Watching you rip up that contract and telling Li Na to fuck off. That was awesome. That was hot, babe.”
“Thanks for the, er, compliment, but I’m still very upset about what you did. I thought I was going to lose you…” Even all these hours later, I shivered at how close he’d come to being killed.
“You couldn’t lose me if you tried.” He flashed his dimple.
“Don’t try to use your dimple on me right now. I’m still angry at you. About the…shooting.” I could barely get the word out. I shifted away, my wrath resurfacing. “It was terrible seeing you like that—I was so worried you were going to get killed. You don’t have to prove anything to me, you know.”
“I wasn’t trying to prove anything to you.”
“You don’t need to prove anything to your brothers either.”
He moved closer. “It didn’t have anything to do with them.”
“Then why? Why would you put yourself in harm’s way like that?”
