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Aston didn’t like that.
“Regent will return when he knows something,” Jose told her calmly.
“I should be with Maxim.” What if his injury was worse than she’d thought? This wasn’t good enough. She strode to the door. She wouldn’t let herself be intimidated by this behemoth of a man.
Jose stepped smoothly in front of the door. “You need to wait.”
“I don’t like waiting! Get out of the way, Colossus.”
Jose’s eyebrows rose just as the door behind him opened.
Oh heck. Her heart stopped as she looked at the enormous man entering the room. Jose moved out of the way to let him in. What was bigger than colossal? Immense? Gigantic? Humongous?
And this guy didn’t seem as friendly as Jose. Which, considering that Jose was about as warm as an ice cube, was saying something. Swallowing heavily, she forced herself to push her fear deep. Showing fear would be a mistake. She’d learned that the hard way.
“Is there something in the water around here?”
The new guy tilted his head.
“Giant water,” she muttered.
Did his lips twitch? Impossible, right?
“Aston, I’m Victor,” the gigantic man said. “Maxim’s brother.”
“Right. I’m Aston. But you already knew that, since you said my name.”
Urgh, chill, Aston.
Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders. “I want to see him. I helped save him, drove him here while he was bleeding out next to me, yet now I’ve been shut in here with a man who would win the silent game every time. And I’ve run out of patience. I’m done being nice. So I want to see him.”
“All right.”
His reply surprised her.
“All right?” she said faintly. She’d been gearing herself for a fight, and all he’d said was ‘all right’. “Yeah, all right. Now?”
“Sure. I’ll take you to his bedroom now.”
She narrowed her gaze at him. “That’s what you came in here for, isn’t it? To take me to him?”
He just stared at her without a word.
“Yeah, you were coming to take me to him.”
He gestured with his head at the door, and she followed him as they moved out of the living room and to the stairs.
Why does there need to be so many stairs?
God, she was so tired. Plus, her feet were really starting to hurt. She hadn’t felt them before, but the adrenaline rush had faded, and now she could feel every ache.
“Sorry I had to get grumpy back there,” she said. “I should have let you talk first before jumping on you. But I’m tired. And worried. Not that it’s an excuse. But I just want to know that he’s all right.”
Victor shot her a look she couldn’t decipher.
“He is going to be all right, isn’t he?” she asked, worriedly.
“You care.”
“Of course I care! I wouldn’t have raced out of my apartment in my pajamas and bare feet armed with just a knife if I didn’t care.”
He stilled and stared down at her. Then his gaze moved over her, taking her all in. He grunted.
She wasn’t fluent in grunt, so she wasn’t sure what he was trying to say.
“Knife?”
“Ah, yeah. I grabbed it from the kitchen. I really wished I’d grabbed my Mace too.”
“What happened to the knife? Was that the same one that was used to stab him?”
“No,” she whispered hoarsely as they reached the second floor. Her breath was coming in short pants. “Sorry, I’m not unfit. Just . . .uh, what did you ask me? Oh, the knife. No, that ended up in one of his attackers’ backs.”
Another grunt. Did he disapprove? But he didn’t know the whole picture.
“I had to stab him. He was beating on Maxim. I don’t know when he got stabbed. I’d do it again if I had to.”
He gave a nod. Was that in approval or disapproval? Maybe he didn’t believe her. Perhaps he thought she was a psycho who went around stabbing people.
They stopped in front of a door and he opened it, walking in. She guessed she was supposed to follow.
Inside was a massive bed against one wall and two men were standing off to the side by the windows, talking. One of them was Regent.
The other one was a stranger. But then her gaze left them, snagged by the man lying in the bed asleep. He was hooked up to monitors as well as an IV.
“How much blood did he lose?” she whispered hoarsely.
“Quite a bit.” She glanced over to find the stranger talking. “I’m Doctor Edwards.”
Victor placed his hand on the small of her back.
She jumped, but it gave her the prod she needed. She stepped forward toward Maxim.
It was hard to fight back her tears. But she didn’t know these men and didn’t want to show them any weakness.
Weaknesses could be exploited.
“Is he going to be all right?” she asked.
“I’ve stitched him up, but the knife was likely dirty,” the doctor continued. “We’ll keep an eye on him. He’ll sleep for a while yet, and when he wakes up, he’ll still need a lot of rest to recover from the blood loss. Luckily, it didn’t tear up too much muscle.”
