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“Did you lock me in a cell, Corvus?” she asked so quietly I wasn’t sure I heard her right. “Did you drug me? Tie me up? Make me watch a man I love fall to his fucking death?”
“I—”
“You didn’t do this to me. You fucked up. Royally. So did I. If I was able to control myself—”
“We might all be dead right now if you’d let Lenny Ace walk off that pier, AJ. No one knows what could’ve happened. We only know whatdidhappen. And what happened was we annihilated the Aces before they could take us out. And all of us are still standing.”
Grey’s gaze found me lying in the bed and guiltily darted in Rook’s direction. He shifted foot to foot, holding most of his weight on the rail of the hospital bed.
“Well, mostly,” he amended.
“We had casualties,” Sparrow continued to argue, and the way she saidwemade me sag with relief even if thatwedidn’t include me. She still counted herself a Saint and that was a fucking win to me.
Rook shook his head. “There are always casualties. That’s the cost of doing business.”
Ava Jade’s cheeks tinted pink, and I could tell there was more she wanted to say but wasn’t sure how. She hadn’t expected us to forgive her almost as much as I thought she’d never forgive me.
She was making it clear as fucking crystal that she was angry, butangerI could work with. I couldn’t work with indifference.
“Grey’s right,” she said, leaning over to snag one of the iced coffees from the tray balanced on my shins. “It’s done now. There’s no point in dwelling on it.”
Her hospital gown fluttered open in the back, revealing a slice of peachy ass and the little hollows at the top of her hip bones.
Not even near-constant pain and morphine could dull the start of a raging boner as it began to take shape beneath the thin hospital sheet. I lifted a knee, groaning at the movement to cover it up, nearly spilling the rest of the coffee.
Rook was fast enough to save it, a curse on his lips. “Corv,” he growled. “That’s it. No coffee for you.”
He took the iced americano that was clearly meant for me and removed the lid, tossing it into the trash to drink straight from the plastic cup.
His nose wrinkled. “How can you drink this shit, man?”
“What? Not a fan of my quad shot americano, black, no sugar?”
He thrust it in my direction with a scowl, and I struggled to sit up and take it, thrown onto my back again when my Sparrow shoved me down, climbing from my side to stand on the floor beside the bed and hit the button to lift the top end. The motor whirred as my back rest rose, pressing me up to a sitting position.
“I’m not a fucking invalid.”
She fixed me with a look that brokered no argument.
“…but I’ll be one for you.”
She rolled her eyes, taking the americano from Rook to hand to me, but she pulled it out of my reach before I could take it. “Wait a second. Are you even allowed to have coffee right now?”
The door opened behind her, and she turned, the ice in the coffee rattling as she jumped.
My doctor poked his head into the room, his gaze settling on Ava Jade instead of me.
“Ah, there you are,” he said, entering the room, leaving the door open behind him. “Thought I might find you in—”
“Is he allowed coffee?” she interrupted.
The doc lifted a brow, glancing between my hard ass stare and the cup in Ava Jade’s hand.
“Uh, well, no. Probably not the best idea unless it’s decaf. It’s a natural blood thinner and…”
He trailed off halfway through his explanation since Ava Jade was done listening and had already crossed the room and entered the small private bathroom with the cup. The toilet flushed, and she came back empty handed.
She lifted her brows in challenge at my glare. “Doc’s orders,” she said with a wide grin and settled into the chair in the corner of the room where Grey had been. She fingered the greasy paper bag from the floor and settled it into her lap, digging into the food. Clearly pleased with herself.
