“Never.” He smiled. Pushing my hair out of my face, he took a deep breath. “If it weren’t for him, we may have lost you again today. And I—” His voice cracked, and his eyes began to swim. I grabbed his face with my face and forced his eyes to mine.
“I love you,” I told him, sealing the declaration with a kiss. I could taste the salty tears on my lips as my mouth opened to him. “I’m so sorry. So much of this is my fault.”
The nerves in my stomach began to swirl and knot. If I hadn’t made them all trust Motshan, trust me, we wouldn’t be sitting at a hospital waiting to see if Seb and Finn were going to make it.
“There was no good way to go about this,” he told me, kissing me softly again. “And I love you. We all do. And with that love comes trust. Sometimes shit goes bad, and more often than not, it goes really bad when you’re in this line of work.” He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Let’s not think about things we can’t change. Let’s go inside, find Elliot, and make sure our boy is okay, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I agreed reluctantly. I went to move off of his lap, but he held me in place, cradling me again as he stood. “I’d prefer to walk in public,” I told him, half-heartedly protesting.
“I’d prefer to hold my girl.”
I rolled my eyes but let my head flop onto his shoulder. God, I was exhausted. I was going to sleep for a solid week after this, and I wasn’t going to let Seb leave my side the entire time. He took care of me, so I would take care of him.
“Got us a private waiting room,” Elliot said as we approached him at the counter.
“And how much did you have to pay for that?” I asked him, a smirk playing across my lips.
“Enough,” he said, his grumpy countenance not mimicking my playfulness. “They won’t release any information on Sebastian or Finn though,” he grumbled, turning his attention to Tristan. “That’s where you come in.”
“That’s where I come in,” Tristan agreed with a sigh. “Take the damsel, then.” He moved, shoving me into Elliot’s arms before either one of us could protest. Tristan gave me one last kiss before Elliot carried me down the hall.
He pushed through the double doors that I hadn’t been permitted to go through earlier, and I scoffed.
“Money gets you everywhere in life.”
He remained silent and continued to walk down the hall and around corners.
“You seem to know your way around this hospital,” I said, trying to pry some words out of his difficult mouth.
“I do.”
I sighed and leaned my head against his shoulder, letting my eyes slip closed as we made our way through the fluorescent-lit hallways. I must’ve dozed off because next thing I knew, I was being laid down on an extremely comfortable couch.
“Sleep,” Elliot commanded. “I’ll go get some stuff to get you cleaned up.”
“You’re leaving me?” I asked, grabbing his arm as he tried to walk away. His straight black hair was pulled back in a bun, but half of it had fallen out, hanging in his eyes as he looked down at me.
“Just down the hall. It’ll take me two minutes.” He gave me the smallest reassuring smile, and I reluctantly let my hand drop from his arm.
“Two minutes,” I repeated before my body gave out, and I let myself slip back into sleep.