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“We’re as good as can be expected,” I tell her as honestly as possible. I don’t know how much she knows, but I won’t lie to her. The last thing I need is to end up on her shit list. “Lennon cut her feet up, and they’re still bothering her a bit. Is there anything I can make for them?”
Mama Rodriguez hums to herself as she thinks.“Si,”she says.
I grab a notebook to write as I listen to her instructions, feeling a wave of love at the worry in her voice.
“If you have any questions, call Tori. We aren’t leaving the house tonight, and we can do the Face Thing. The one where we can see each other,”Mama Rodriguez says, and I can just imagine her hand waving in the air as she explains.
She means FaceTime, and my lips press in amusement.
“Yes, Mama Rodriguez, if I run into any trouble, I’ll call. Thank you so much.”
I hang up as she says goodbye, turning to see Lennon watching me.
“Hey, baby girl. I was just grabbing a recipe to help with your feet,” I tell her, opening my arms for her to walk into them. Lenny obliges, snuggling into me. “I noticed how you were walking, and knew Miguel’s mom would have something.”
Sighing happily, Lenny looks up at me. “Want some company while you make it?” she asks.
“I would love it, but only if you eat a shortbread square first. We need to take a trip into the garden in the backyard. Even though it is a little overgrown, it should have what I need,” I explain.
She grins at me, chuckling. “Oh no, Daddy told me to eat sweets, whatever will I do?”
I growl, and her pupils blow in desire. I kiss her hard, happy to see Xav didn’t take this from us. I really do hope Derek and Orion make him scream for hours before he dies.
12
DEREK
I’m outside in the late afternoon light, sitting on the porch. Turner and Roark are napping with Lennon, and she’s hooked up to an IV again. Greg wants to make sure that Lennon is completely well as soon as possible, so he’s pushing a ton of vitamins into her.
“Hey, can I join you?” asks a voice. I glance over my shoulder, smirking as I see Greg. It’s as if I conjured him with my thoughts.
“Yeah, of course. I just needed some air,” I sigh.
“Something eating you?” he asks, walking over and sitting in one of the chairs next to me.
“I’m worried about everything that could go wrong,” I sigh. “The tracking device makes me feel better, as fucked up as it sounds. My father and Xav have hidden assets, they could take Lennon anywhere.”
My voice is rising with each word and I blow out a breath, forcing myself to lock my shit down. I’m becoming too good at removing my emotions when they become too much, and I’ll have to take a good look at that later.
“You don’t have to wipe the board completely when you get overwhelmed,” Greg says, looking out at the overgrown garden. It’s beautiful in its wildness, and there’s a crumbling brick wall at what looks like the edge of the property. “I saw you grit your teeth because you’re on edge. I’ve got Lennon, I promise. Our play here is dangerous, which is why I’m pushing vitamins into her. I have an agent ready to come in and teach her some self defense tomorrow afternoon.”
Thank god. I wish he had told us earlier.
He glances over at me, and something on my face makes him smirk. “I sometimes forget to read everyone into my plans. I’m the boss, and I’m an asshole. People usually just agree to whatever I have planned. I can’t do that here, you’ll worry. I don’t want you to think I don’t have that girl’s best interests at heart, because I swear I do.”
“I know you do,” I argue. “You’re the reason we were able to get Lennon out of there. Otherwise, fuck, I can’t even imagine what could have happened. Sure, she fought her way out, but they still could have caught her. God, or she could have gotten really desperate and slit her throat.”
I shudder as I think about how bad things could have been.
“Lennon is a girl who’s been pushed to the brink of what she can handle, but she made it back. Now we need to give her things to fight to live for, because she looked death in the eye, and found she wasn’t afraid of it,” Greg murmurs.
My hands tremble slightly and I swallow hard.
“There’s more than enough things in my opinion for her to live for, Greg. I think she needs to be taught how to fight for it. Len’s afraid of being taken, raped, or losing herself. I think those are legitimate fears, so how does she fight against this?” I ask, leaning forward.
His lips twist to the side and he nods. “We take away the power of a word that can make her lose herself by killing everyone who knows it. I don’t really care if everyone at the hospital is on that list, though I doubt it. Orion thinks there was a small number of people who interacted or knew about Lennon,” he says.
This would make sense, since the area of the hospital Len was in was restricted. “I’m in for eradicating assholes who should never have been in the healthcare system,” I growl.
