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“Avaleigh.” My father gave a tired sigh of relief at seeing me awake. “We were so worried,mo réalta.” My heart. He’d never called me that before. It made me smile.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. Matthias sensed my need and grabbed a glass of water from the nightstand next to his chair. He held the glass out to me, the straw perching on my bottom lip.
“Slowly,” he instructed sternly when I tried to gulp down half the glass. Damn, getting the shit beat out of me sure as hell made me thirsty. The blood loss probably didn’t help. Once I was finished, he set the glass back down on the table and helped me sit up against the headboard.
“How are you feeling?” my husband asked.
I grimaced. “Sore,” I answered honestly. “But nothing I won’t recover from. I think I prefer Christian’s cattle prod.”
Both of them growled, and the sound caused my eyes to widen. They didn’t feel swollen anymore, just a bit heavy and thick.
“Don’t joke about that.” Father shook his head.
I waved it off. “If you can’t joke about your trauma, then you’re already half defeated.” Or something like that.
“Krasnyy,” Matthias warned, but I just smiled at him.
Okay, that action hurt a little too much, but I was happy.
“Tell me what I’ve missed.”
They shook their heads in disbelief.
“You need time to heal, Ava.” Matthias’s gentle tone was unnerving. Who knew I’d miss his alpha assholeness. Now I was hoping it came back soon. Maybe if I annoyed him enough, it would make a sudden reappearance. Gentle Matthias was just plain creepy. “Dr. Radick is on his way over now.”
In a good way, to be honest, but I didn’t want gentle right now.
I wanted answers.
And revenge.
Again.
Damn, my life had become a mafia soap opera.
“I need you to not treat me as if I am fragile,” I scolded them. “I understand where this is coming from, but I have information you need, and apparently you have your own information to share.”
The pair exchanged a look.
I liked it better when they couldn’t stand each other.
“All right, Avaleigh.” My father gave in with a sigh. “But you need to let Dr. Radick check you over without a fuss. Understood?”
I held up three fingers and smiled at him. “Scout’s honor.”
He rolled his eyes at me, mumbling under his breath about me never being a girl scout. Eh, that was true, but still, the sentiment was the same.
“Tell us what happened after the building collapsed,” Matthias prompted after a beat of silence. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, centering myself before opening them again.
“Well, my mother’s family is batshit crazy,” I admitted. “Apparently psycho runs in the family as far back as anyone can measure.”
Matthias snorted, but my father did not look amused.
“Kristian knocked me out of the way of the building’s debris.” I swallowed back the rising emotion. “I knocked my head on something, and when I came to, the building was destroyed, and she was waiting for me.”
“Who?” my father asked. My gaze flitted to him, holding it steady.
“Sheila.”
