“Your dad must’ve been pissed.”
“Pretty sure he was just glad I didn’t kill myself,” I mumbled as the doctor came into the room.
“Okay,” she said cheerfully. “Let’s get that arm fixed up.”
I thought Molly was going to hyperventilate.
* * *
“You think everythin’s okay now,” Molly mumbled an hour and a half later as I lifted her out of Amy’s car and carried her into the clubhouse. She was slurring pretty good after the drugs the doctor had given to calm her down. Jesus, she’d almost given herself a heart attack over a procedure that was easy as shit. I didn’t know what she would have done if I hadn’t been there. “Everythin’s not okay now, Will. Is not okay.”
“Alright, sugar,” I said calmly, trying not to laugh.
“You did me dirty. So dirty.”
“Let’s talk when you wake up, yeah?” I asked as we passed Farrah and Casper sitting on one of the couches.
“Dirty,” Molly said even louder, making Farrah smirk.
“Where’s Reb?” I called over my shoulder. I wasn’t stopping. Who knew what the fuck would come out of Molly’s mouth?
“Melanie took her to your mom’s to play with the girls,” Farrah answered. “They’ll be back in a few hours.”
Good. Hopefully Molly could sleep that anxiety shit off. Between the pain meds and whatever other shit they’d given her, she was out of it.
“Just left!” Molly was mumbling as I used my shoulder to open the door to my room. “Ghosted me. Thas what thas called. Ghosted.”
“You’re lit,” I said, the truth of her words making me sweat.
“Shouldn’t forgave you.” She held on tight as I tried to set her on the bed, and I ended up half on top of her, trying hard as hell not to crush her. “Where’s Reb?” She looked frantically around the room.
“She’s with Mel,” I said soothingly, moving so I wasn’t on top of her anymore. “Hangin’ out with my mom.”
“Oh, good,” she sighed, moving her bleary gaze to me. “She didn’t want me to leave her today.”
“Understandable,” I said softly as she rolled toward me, dropping her heavy cast on my chest.
“She doesn’t show it, ya know,” she said insistently, her eyes tearing up. “She doesn’t say it when she’s hurt, but I can tell. I can tell. I’m her mother. I can tell.”
“I know you can, baby.” God, she was killing me.
“I know when she’s sad.” She nodded her head sloppily. “I know when she’s scared and happy and mad.”
“That’s ’cause you’re a good mama,” I replied, pulling her closer.
“I can’t die,” she told me seriously, her face suddenly lucid. “No one else can tell when she’s sad.”
“You’re not gonna die.”
“Almost died,” she mumbled, pressing her face against my chest.
“That ain’t ever gonna happen again,” I told her, my voice breaking. I grabbed her hair and gently pulled her face from my chest. “You believe me?”
“Those guys—”
“Those Russians are dead men. You don’t ever have to worry about them again.”
“Okay,” she said tiredly, her eyes drooping.
“You ready to sleep for a bit?” I asked, letting her face burrow back against the side of my chest.
“Yeah,” she said blearily.
“Alright, Moll. Sleep, sugar.”
I dropped my head back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. Fuck.
“Good job, nephew,” Farrah’s soft voice called from the doorway.
I shifted my head to the side and realized I hadn’t closed the door and my aunt had been standing there watching us.
“I’m glad you got your shit together and came back.”
“Why does everyone keep sayin’ I didn’t have my shit together?” I asked, looking back at the ceiling.
“Baby, you’ve been ridin’ hell bent for leather for years. And I get it. When I was around your age, I went off the fuckin’ rails. But at some point, you gotta lean on the club and let them carry the weight for a while.”
“Is that what you did?” I asked, glancing at her.
“I let Cody carry it. Your great-gram, too.”
“Just wanted to take care of those fucks,” I admitted. “Kills me that I’m not.”
“I get that, too,” she said softly. “But you’re needed here at home. Sometimes you gotta let your brothers have your back, Wilfred. That’s the only way this works.”
“It’s not Wilfred, it’s William,” I corrected quietly, a familiar sentence that I’d said to her a million times before.
“Oh, right. Well, that’s boring,” she replied with a soft smile. The little joke was her I love you to me. It always had been. She left the room, pulling the door closed behind her.
I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t relax. I wondered where the boys were. If they were getting close. If those Russians were still holed up in the hotel or if they’d moved on. I really hoped that they hadn’t. It made me sick to think of the boys getting there and not being able to find them.
Molly shifted, and I reached down to pull off the sling she had wrapped around her. It didn’t seem to bother her, but the way she was laying meant that it pulled pretty tight on the back of her neck. Her cast ran all the way up and over her elbow and she was going to have a hell of a time doing anything.