“The . . . the baby?” I whisper hoarsely. “Please . . .” I shake my head back and forth violently, tears of my own streaming down my face. Not our baby! Please, God, not our baby!
“What? Oh, Izzy, no baby. The baby is fine. You are fine. I’m so sorry I didn’t mean your blood. Princess, stop crying, I promise, our baby is fine.” He is quick to reassure me over and over telling me that our little miracle is safe and fine.
When I finally calm down, I look into his eyes—his beautiful eyes. “We’re okay?” I ask.
“You’re both perfect,” he responds smiling before giving me a soft kiss.
“Greg? Dee?” I ask when he moves away to sit down on the side of my bed.
“Dee is going to be fine. She’s shaken up. Shaken up pretty fucking bad, but she will be okay. From what she said, Brandon had just tied her hands and taped her mouth. He had only been there for about an hour before you showed up. I think the worst of her injuries are where he clocked her when she opened the front door and a split lip. She’s fine, baby.”
“Where is she?” I ask, looking around the room again.
“Beck made her leave. He is taking her back to his place for a while. She said she was putting the townhouse on the market.”
I take that in and try to process it. I understand. I wouldn’t want to be there anymore either.
“I offered for her to stay with us for a while, but she said she would have to think about it.”
I scrunch my nose at that. “Why would she need to think about staying with us?”
“I don’t know, Princess. That’s something you will have to ask her yourself.”
“What about Greg?” I ask, almost afraid to know.
“He’s going to be okay. He came out of surgery a little while ago. It wasn’t anything serious even though it sure as fuck looked like it. Bullet went straight through and missed everything important. He’s one lucky son of a bitch.”
“He’s really okay? There was so much blood, Ax. And he wasn’t moving. He wasn’t moving at all.” My panic is coming back again, at remembering the way Greg looked—lifeless. He looked dead. “Axel, I need to see him!” I yell.
“Hey, hey . . . calm down, baby. I promise he’s okay. He’s in recovery, but I’ll see what I can do about getting you on a field trip, okay?”
I look up and catch the slight concern that crosses over his eyes before his quickly masks it. I know he has to be a mess over everything that happened, but he is holding it in and being strong for me.
“Okay. I just really need to see him, Axel. I need to see with my own eyes that he is going to be okay.”
“I understand, Princess. I’ll make it happen.” He leans down and gives me a gentle kiss. “Got room for one more on there, baby? I need to feel you close.” His mask slips slightly for me to see the vulnerability simmering under the surface.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” I respond and shift slightly so he can lean his body close to mine.
His feet are hanging off the end and a good portion of his body is hanging off the edge, but he wraps his arms tightly around me and I cuddle close, breathing him in and letting the peace only he can give me wash over my body.
“I never want to feel that fear again, Izzy,” he whispers into my hair and squeezes me tightly. “Never been so scared in my life.”
We lie like this, together and entwined, until the nurse comes in. She fusses until he moves back to his chair. I can’t help but laugh at the pout he is sporting while she finishes up her vitals checks. When he hears me, the look is instantly gone and he looks over with a huge smile.
“Love that sound, Princess. Most beautiful sound in the whole fucking world.”
I stayed in the hospital overnight. There wasn’t anything wrong with me, but they wanted to monitor my vitals and make sure that my head wound was okay. Luckily, I came out of the whole ordeal with only a small bump right next to my temple.
When I’m released, Axel and I make our way to the floor Greg is on. Maddox and Coop are in the room when we get there. Greg is awake but groggy. I walk into his room on the arm of Axel, who hasn’t let me go once since I woke up. Greg looks up and a small smile forms on his pale lips.
“Baby girl,” he said with a tear falling from his eye. “Baby girl, you are a sight.”
I walk over to the side of his bed and push Coop out of the chair he was sitting on, pulling it close to his bed. “Hey.” Yup, that is all I have before I break down and bury my head in the bed next to his hip. Axel comes up behind me and rubs my back.
“Baby girl, I’m okay. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“I thought you were dead, G!” I cry harder into the bed. “Don’t ever do that shit again!”
He laughs but agrees, and I sit there holding his hand while the conversation continues around us. Coop tells Maddox about all the good-looking nurses who keep popping in offering sponge baths and how he might have to get shot if that is what’s waiting for him. Maddox was shakes his head, but his eyes never leave mine.