“Have they given you any grief about being here with him?” Abby asked.
Marin rolled her eyes. “No.” Lifting one shoulder in a shrug, she said, “The current rumor is that we’re getting married once we wrap up production . . .”
Her voice broke, and she clapped a hand over her mouth as the enormity of the night’s events hit her. “Oh . . . Oh, fuck . . .”
Her knees buckled and if Zach hadn’t moved to her side at that exact moment, she would have hit the ground.
A storm of emotion broke over her and she started to cry.
***
The low, monotonous beeping was annoying the fuck out of him.
It was almost as bad as the pain jabbing into his side.
It was even worse than whatever the hell that weird smell was.
It was almost like a . . .
His eyes flew open.
Brilliant white met him and he squinted.
“Hey, sunshine. Welcome back.”
The sound of his eldest brother’s voice had him groaning. Bright lights, Zane, headache. Had he gotten drunk? Was he hungover?
“Honey?”
“Mom?” he said. Or tried. His throat was so dry, he didn’t get a thing out. Clearing his throat, he tried again, but the pathetic whisper was so soft, he barely heard it.
“Yes, honey. I’m here.” A hand slid into his. “We’re all here.”
“Who’s we?” he said. “Where’s here?”
He tried to look around and realized he could see only with his right eye. Something covered the entire left side of his face. “What the . . .” he reached up, the movement uncoordinated and stiff. He’d barely touched the covering when Zane caught his hand. “Hold up, kid, okay? You gotta leave the bandage alone.”
Sebastien stilled. “Bandage?”
Zane’s face went taut.
Fear fluttered inside him. He looked around, understanding dawning. He was in the hospital.
“What’s going on?” he asked, forced to crane his head awkwardly so he could see everybody in the room. All of his brothers, his sister-in-law, Abby, along with Zane’s girlfriend, Keelie, and the woman Trey was dating, Ressa. He didn’t see his nephew, Clayton, or Neeci, Ressa’s niece and ward.
Instinctively, he looked away from Marin. Since she seemed to be doing the same, he didn’t see the problem there.
Nobody answered.
“What’s going on?” he demanded, his voice rising.
“Baby, it’s going to be okay,” his mother said gently.
He slammed his fist down. She stilled.
Immediately, he regretted it, and not just because it sent pain arcing through his side.
“Sebastien.”
At Zach’s voice, he looked away from his mother’s averted face.
“What?”
“You were out having dinner—you’d been with Monica,” his brother said in a low voice. Low, intense. “Do you remember?”
“Monica . . .” Closing his eyes, he struggled to do just that. Remember. “She was going to kiss me.”
Clouds half hid the memory, but as he focused, they started to lift. “I . . . I didn’t really much care if she did. Crazy . . . as much as I missed her. I thought I’d do almost anything to get her back.”
“Do you remember what happened next?” Zach asked tautly.
Sebastien swept his gaze to his brother. Pain sliced through him—his face, his side—as memory sharpened. Clarified.
“Hanson,” he rasped.
Clutching one hand in the sheets, he said, “Monica. Is she . . . Did he . . .”
“Seb . . .” Zach gripped his hand. “I’m sorry, man. She’s gone.”
Staring up at the white ceiling and the painfully bright light, Sebastien let that word roll through him. Gone.
He could see her in that pretty dress, her hair curling around her face as she smiled at him.
She was . . . “Fuck. She’s gone. He killed her.”
“You did everything you could.”
Turning his face away from his mother’s voice, he closed his one good eye. “No, I didn’t.”
After all, he hadn’t even known she was in trouble.
Staring at the wall in front of him, the silence behind him growing more and more weighted, he felt a numb cold spreading through him and he welcomed it. “What about that fuck, Smith?”
“Hanson Smith, he’s . . .”
His father didn’t finish, and Sebastien turned his head, staring hard at Ron. “He’s what?” he demanded.
“He’s dead.” His father looked like he’d aged a decade. “He’s dead. He had a gun . . . Do you— Well, that’s neither here nor there. He drew a gun on you and you had the knife he’d . . .”
“The one he’d rammed into me,” Sebastien said caustically. He barely recognized his own voice.
“Yes.” Ron just nodded. “He’s gone. Died almost instantly. Nobody else was hurt or anything.”
“Just Monica.”
Ron came closer and Sebastien flinched when his father squeezed his shoulder. “It’s okay to be upset.”
Upset. Am I upset? He didn’t know what he was. Slowly, he edged his legs over the side of the bed.