“Just sneak me in through the back,” Killian says, reaching for the door handle.
I grab his arm, stopping him—not that it’s a difficult thing to do. He’s cradling his ribs like he’s personally holding them together. “Oh, hell no. I’m not lying to the mother of our child because you’re too much of a pussy to take the heat on this.”
He falls back against the seat, sending me an exhausted glare. It’s accentuated by the blood running down his temple and the split in his lip. “She’s going to freak out.”
“Yes, she is.” I undo my seatbelt and step out of the car, walking around the front to get to Killer’s side. The look he gives me when I wrench his door open says magnitudes already. “The longer you stall, the more she’s going to worry.” I point up to the house, lights glowing through the windows. “She’s been waiting up all night.”
Rath’s up there with her, which is… something. But it’s just after midnight and neither Killer nor I came home this evening, all tangled up in a little misunderstanding with a few of Lionel’s boys that ended with some gunfire, so yeah.
She’s going to freak out.
“Come on.” I haul him out of the passenger seat, largely ignoring the pained grunt he makes as he lets me take his weight. Then it’s my turn to make a pained grunt, because I came out of that scuffle a lot less bloody and battered, but Killer weighs roughly the size of a tractor trailer.
Rath meets us at the door, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and a hard glower. “Those motherfuckers,” he growls, springing forward to catch Killian’s other side. “Please tell me someone died for this,” he says, voice strained as we lumber over the threshold.
“One,” Killer answers, hissing as we lower him to the ottoman. He wrestles with his jacket, saying, “Help me get this off before she—”
But Story is already there, watching us from the entryway. She looks soft and delicate, her hair pulled up into a messy knot. She’s wearing a simple pair of panties and a tight tank top, and I know it wasn’t intentional—this is how she dresses comfortably—but she looks like an erotic slumber party caricature.
Her hand flutters over her mouth. “Oh, my god…”
“This isn’t my blood,” he rushes out, struggling to pull the sleeve off. “Some is, but not… uh, most. It’s not as bad as it looks.” He shoots me a hard look, jerking his chin.
I give it to her straight. “He’s got a cut on his scalp from a bullet graze, and his ribs are probably bruised. Other than the split lip and the crooked nose, he’s good as new.” I give him a firm pat on the back.
“Nothing happened to my nose,” he argues, yanking his jacket from my grip.
“Oh.” I shrug, trying to keep my voice light. “It’s just like that, then.”
He holds up his hands, as if Story is some wild animal. “I’ve already been stitched and had x-rays. That’s what took me so long. I’m fine.”
Despite those assurances, her lip is still wobbling even as she does her best to put on a brave face. “Dimitri, could you bring me some towels and some warm water?” To me, she says, “Pull out the big bed?”
It’s not often we sleep downstairs, but sometimes we’ll do a movie marathon, or get too drunk to bother with the stairs, and we’ll pull out the big bed. It’s a mattress that rolls away into the bookcase, and I immediately begin hunting down a set of sheets for it. I get a crystal clear memory of that night at the cabin—Christ, Killer was shot then, too—as we all rushed about and tried to come down off the adrenaline high of almost dying. Much like then, my dick is hard and my head is pounding, and the only thing I want to do is crawl into bed and press up against something naked and wet.
When I return, she has his shirt off, fingertips skating over his left side. They hover over the old gunshot wound, the one he got from Ugly Nick, and then across to the letter brand on his chest. The tattoos and scars and self-inflicted damage tell a story—his story, our story—and I remember that not so long ago, we were all at odds. Now we’re a family.
Rath walks into the room, already dressed again and shrugging on his leather jacket. The handle of his pistol hangs out of the waistband of his jeans. “I’m heading out to go make sure everything is under control.”
“Alone?” Story asks, eyes wide.
“No. One of the boys is picking me up.” His phone vibrates. “That should be him.”