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“Nova!”
Devan’s voice from the living room had me running back out of the room, straight into his arms. He squashed me and Huey in his grip, waking up the baby, who grumbled and then started to whimper.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” he whispered, his hands running all over my back. I pulled back a little, gently bouncing Huey, but I stayed wedged to Devan’s side. He rubbed his hands all over my back. “This is my fault,” he murmured. “All my fault.”
I thought I’d be a tear-fueled mess, but right now, I felt nothing. The cops came in next, followed by the paramedics. One of them guided me away, and I handed Huey to Devan.
“Hey there, my name is June. I’m just going to get you cleaned up.” That was when I realized I was bleeding. There was blood on my hands, and my face was sticky. There was blood on Huey’s sleeping sack. Panic hit me again, and I reached for Huey.
“There’s blood on that. Take it off him,” I yelled at Devan, who didn’t tell me to calm down; he just did what I asked. He threw the suit away, and then Huey was just Huey again.
“Look back at me, Miss Stone. I need to check out your face.” The paramedic held my face firmly as she checked me over. “Your nose seems to be broken, but everything else looks okay. Did you lose consciousness at any point?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“You have bruising on your neck.”
“She tried to choke me,” I said through the lump in my throat. Now that the medic had mentioned it, it kind of hurt to talk or swallow.
She looked over my head. “She probably should go to the hospital and check if there's any serious damage, but she doesn’t look like she has a concussion.”
Devan nodded. “We’ll take her.”
“Dev…” I just wanted to go home. Not here. Back to the home I shared with the guys, where I was happy.
“I’m not taking any chances with you. This was all my fucking fault. I knew Andrea was a problem, but I kept that shit to myself until I had proof.” He looked tortured.
Andrea was in cuffs by the door, and there were even more cops. They dragged her out, kicking and screaming like a banshee, until it took two of them to basically pick her up and carry her out of my apartment.
One of the remaining cops strode up to me. “Miss Stone, how are you doing?” His eyes seemed soft.
“I think I’m in shock,” I whispered back. I ticked all the boxes for it.
“I think you might be. Can you tell me what happened?”
I felt Devan’s eyes burning into me as I recounted everything, all the things Andrea had said—about me, about Huey, about the gun and the struggle. He wrote it all down, not interrupting unless he wanted me to clarify something. I told him the gun was under the bed.
The crime scene guys turned up, and one of them took photos of my injuries, their manner calm and gentle.
They were still talking to the big guy who saved me, Xander, but beside him was a short woman with killer curves and wild hair. She was talking animatedly to the cops, showing them something on her phone. The big guy had his hand on her spine protectively, and I had to assume she was his girlfriend, my other neighbor.
Their size difference was… alarming.
“How does he not split her in half?” I whispered to no one in particular, causing the cop beside me to make a choking noise.
Devan let out a snort. “Can I take her out of here?”
The cop nodded. “She’ll need to come down to the station and give an official statement sometime in the next twelve hours or so, but she can go home now. We’ll be here for a few more hours.”
“Come on, Star. I’m taking you to the hospital to get checked out, and then we’re going home.”
I went with him willingly. I didn’t ever want to come back here if I could help it.
ChapterForty-Six
RIVER
The callI’d received from Devan that day was the worst one of my fucking life. Firstly, because I’d completely missed it while we’d been out on the ice training, and secondly, because if anything had happened to Nova and Huey… I shuddered even thinking about it.
