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“Well, it is like that. So live with it. As long as youlive, I don’t fucking care what you think about it.”
The desperation in her tone cut right through the center of me. Even as my sight blurred completely, guilt wrenched through the worst of the pain like a wound in itself.
I’d failed her yet again. And how the hell was I going to protect her after this, with my body broken and battered?
TWENTY-THREE
Luciana
Returning from the hospital,Rafael scowled the whole way up to the loft. It was hard to tell whether he was more frustrated with his injuries or the help he was forced to accept.
“I can stillwalk,” he muttered, thumping along on his crutches. “You don’t need to coddle me.”
I ignored his grumbling, shooting a grateful smile at Jasper when he opened the building’s front door for us, and studied my bodyguard’s face for signs of concussion. A large bandage swathed the back of his head where he’d been bleeding the evening of the attack, two days ago. When I’d come to pick him up this morning, the doctor had told me that the most dangerous period had passed, but that I should still keep a careful eye on him.
That bandage was far from his only lingering impediment from the ambush. He needed the crutches because of the cast encasing his left leg from calf to thigh to stabilize his broken knee cap. Another cast covered his right hand and wrist, where the one asshole had stomped on him right before he’d left.
I should have shot that prick too.
The broken fingers made maneuvering on the crutches significantly more difficult. Rafael swayed a little as we approached the elevator, and Niko extended a hand to steady him.
Rafael’s scowl deepened, but he grunted a brief “Thanks.”
Quentin jabbed the button to summon the elevator, and Rafael outright glowered at him. “What are you even doing down here trying to take care of me?You’vegot a bullet hole in you, remember?”
Quentin shot him a wry grin. “I’ve also got two working hands and legs, which is more than you can say, old man.”
He kept his tone light enough that Rafael simply rolled his eyes. Their banter smoothed the edges of my distress. If they could joke around like normal, things couldn’t have gonetoohorribly wrong, could they?
Every time I looked at Rafael, I had to reassure myself all over again.
I didn’t even understand why that gang had attacked him in the first place. They’d said something about his brother and accused him of betraying them. How did that make sense?
I’d asked him about it in the hospital after he was bandaged up, and he’d brushed off the question, saying they were guys from his old neighborhood who’d taken it as a personal insult when he’d gone to work for the Cordovas rather than getting in deeper with them. That they’d gotten increasingly angry the longer he’d avoided them.
The explanation didn’t sit totally right with me—but this didn’t seem like a good time to badger him about it.
When he was healed up, I’d insist on getting the full story.
The elevator deposited us in the hall outside the loft. Jasper hurried ahead to open the loft’s door, and Niko and I flanked Rafael on his lurching journey toward it with Quentin bringing up the rear.
Inside, Rafael thumped over to the sofa and sank onto it with a faint groan of relief. “Fuck hospitals.”
Niko headed over to the kitchen. “I’ll make us some lunch.”
Rafael’s mouth pulled even tighter, and I expected him to argue about being served. Instead, he simply said, “Hold off on that for a minute. There’s something I need to say.”
As the guys came up around the sofa, I sat down gingerly next to Rafael and rested a supportive hand on his abdomen. He slid his fingers around mine and squeezed.
“Lou, you were right,” he said gruffly. “I was so caught up in protectingyouthat I wasn’t thinking about the threats the rest of us might face, and look where that got me. Now I can’t defend you at all.”
A pang ran through my heart, and I twined my fingers with his. “It’s not your fault. I don’t know how anyone would have been prepared for—”
He shook his head to cut me off. “I know you’re tough. I know you can look after yourself. But you’ll still need help sometimes. And since I can’t provide that until I’ve recovered, you shouldn’t be afraid to let the other guys help you. So I’m going to make sure thatthey’reas prepared as they can be—to protect both you and themselves. I already made the call.”
I knit my brow. “Call? What are you talking about?”
Before he needed to answer, a knock sounded on the loft door. My gaze darted to it with a hitch of my pulse, but Rafael smiled. “Someone go get that. We don’t want to leave her waiting.”
