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I attempt to lift my hand to touch his face, but my arm’s too heavy.
“I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head and drops down to place a kiss on my forehead. “Don’t apologize. I’m just glad you’re awake. You’ve been out of it for a couple of days.”
I frown. It’s been two days?
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He clears his hoarse voice. “You lost a lot of blood and needed a transfusion, but thankfully, the knife didn’t hit anything vital. Trouble says you were lucky.”
“Remi and Elijah?” I croak, worry for my friend and her child making my already low voice even lower.
“They’re both fine. Remi just has a bump on her head.”
I close my eyes in relief but pop them back open. “Diego?”
“Dead,” he answers, his tone hard. Before I can ask who killed him, he says, “Emo did it.”
I never would have thought I would be happy another human being was murdered, but Emo did the world a favor by killing Diego.
“And Benjamin, his daughter, and her mother?”
Something flashes in his eyes. Both remorse and bitterness. “Benjamin is dead. Diego stabbed him and hit his spleen. It was too late by the time we got there. And physically, Leddy and Charlotte are okay. Diego had them ever since Derek found him in his shed. The fucker was hiding in plain sight and forced Benjamin to take you from The Hill. He didn’t touch Leddy, thank goodness, but he raped Charlotte multiple times. In front of Leddy.”
My throat grows tight, and I swallow several times when my eyes water. That poor child. Diego may not have touched her, but he still hurt her in the most vile of ways. She’ll carry the vision of her mom being violated forever. That’s not something you ever get over. And she’s lost her father on top of it. The rest of her childhood will be a struggle. Hell, even adulthood will be hard.
A tear slides down my cheek and JW wipes it away with his thumb. The gesture is sweet and comforting. He reaches over to the table beside my bed, grabs a Styrofoam cup and brings the straw to my lips. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was until the cool liquid hits my throat.
He leans his weight on the bed, careful not to jostle me, and puts his face back to mine. It’s not until then that I notice how tired he looks. His face has more scruff than normal, his eyes are blood shot, and the shirt he’s wearing is wrinkled.
“How are you doing?”
I should ask him the same thing, because it looks like he hasn’t slept in a week.
“My side hurts a little. And I’m tired.”
He grabs my hand and brushes his lips back and forth across the back of it. Closing his eyes, his brow pinched, he pulls in a deep breath before kissing my hand and putting my palm against his cheek. He’s in pain, and I hate it.
“Hey,” I call. When his beautiful blue eyes open, I reassure him. “I’m okay.”
His frown deepens. “But you almost weren’t. I came too close to losing you.”
A stinging pain hits my side when I force him to let go of my hand so I can cup it around the back of his head. I push past the pain and pull him down closer.
“But you didn’t. I’m here. Okay?”
His throat bobs as he swallows and his eyes flicker back and forth between mine, like he’s making sure I really am here. He drops his head until his forehead touches mine. “Yeah.”
We stay that way for several moments, just sucking in the breath of the other, relishing the closeness we almost lost.
“I love you, Eden,” he whispers. His words both shock me and sends a crazy amount of happiness through me. He pulls back to see me better. “I haven’t said it until now, but I’ve felt it for a while. Hell, maybe even that first day. But finding you hanging from that ceiling, that knife sticking out of you and all the blood, knowing you could have easily been taken from me….” He stops, closes his eyes, and twists his neck to the side, as if pained by the very idea. His eyes are stormy when he opens them again and clears his throat. “I’ve never been so scared in my fuckin’ life, Gypsy. I’ve never felt pain like that before. I would probably survive if you lived but chose not to be a part of my life. But you dying being the cause?” He shakes his head, his eyes turning more serious than I’ve ever seen them. “I wouldn’t be able to survive that. I wouldn’t want to survive that. I’m a strong man and can handle damn near anything, but I’m not that strong.”
My lip wobbles as I try my best to stop the new tears. That’s one of the most beautifully tragic things I’ve ever been told. Of course, I would want JW to move on if something ever happened to me, but knowing he loves me, that the pain of losing me is overwhelming for him, makes me feel more special than I ever have before.
I twist my hand around so I can grab his wrist and put his palm over my thumping heart.
“Do you feel how crazy my heart’s beating in my chest right now?” He nods. “It’s beating that way for you. It does that every time I’m with you. It only beats that way when I’m with you. You make me happy, you make me feel cherished, and you make me feel loved. I’m the luckiest woman in the world to have met you, and I hope to stay the luckiest woman in the world because I get to keep you.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I love you too, JW. Probably an insane amount, but I don’t care. I love you,” I repeat. Those words feel incredibly good rolling from my lips after thinking I wouldn’t be able to say them.
