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“Why?”
“Because he might have slapped you back. He was raging tonight. Ma shouldn’t have come, shouldn’t have let him be there—how the fuck the doctors can work when he’s like that, I don’t know.”
We’d had no choice but to get out of there while Aidan was making a fool out of himself.
We were all fretting for Declan, but blaming Eoghan? Like it was all his fault? Like the mission was all on him?
Brennan had even tried to defend him, and Aidan had smacked him, so yeah, maybe he’d have hit me too…
I squeezed him. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I let him down.” He rolled onto his back, and although I ached for the small distance he’d put between his, his voice was clinical when he explained, “We hit the compound when the workers were on a break. For whatever reason, they didn’t get out fast enough. There were two dozen men just heading their way—”
“You’re only one person. Only had one gun. Could only reload so many times within such a tight timeframe.”
“They trusted me to protect them.”
“And they’ll trust you again because, if it wasn’t for you, then maybe Brennan would be in a hospital bed too. And maybe Declan wouldn’t be in with a chance, period. As it stands, he’s being sewn back together again.”
Maybe I sounded hard, and maybe that was because I was. No way in fuck was I going to let this weigh heavy on Eoghan, not when he wasn’t a goddamn miracle worker.
Because I didn’t have anything nice to say, I reached for his hand and connected ours together, feeling the bump of his scar against my sensitive flesh. Maybe it was psychosomatic, but it calmed me down.
“Eoghan?” I murmured, after several minutes passed in which I tried to get my irritation under control. He didn’t need this right now. Didn’t need my shit as well as all the other crap in his head.
“Yeah.”
He sounded sleepy, and I really hoped he was. Really hoped he didn’t remember this when I next woke him, and that he managed to get some rest before the surgeons called us in once more with news—good or bad.
“I love you,” I whispered softly, but only after a few seconds had slipped by, when his breathing had slowed into a rhythm that made me think he was sleeping for real so he wouldn’t know what I’d actually said.
He didn’t need to hear the words to know I was feeling that way.
I imbued it in the hold I had him in, in the touches I gave him, in the way I pressed a kiss to his chest.
That was enough.
I let him rest, even as I tightened my arm about his waist and rested my head on his belly.
Tonight couldn’t have gone worse for the family, but for me? Eoghan was safe and sound, and while I’d mourn Declan, grieve him fiercely if he passed away, I was starting to think there was no me without Eoghan. No Inessa without him because, in this crazy world we lived in, where bullets fell like rain and death was a constant companion, I knew that the one joy I was granted was this man.
This love I felt for him.
The freedom I felt in his arms.
No, he wasn’t perfect, but neither was I.
Yes, he was jaded and filthy, but so was I.
We complimented each other, and I thought he knew that. Believed he could feel it too.
And if he didn’t, I’d just keep on trying until he did. Until he wised up and recognized me for what I was—his soul mate.
