Finally, he opened them, and the fire burning in them wasn’t much less than the one inside me.
“I want to know shit as soon as you do, you get me?” he ground out. “That’s my sister, and those babies are my blood, too. You can’t honor your duty to them, you tell me, and you get the fuck out of their lives.”
Now it was me who was struggling not to lose my shit. He was saying that if I couldn’t make them the central part of my life, that I wasn’t welcome in theirs at all. “It won’t come to that.”
“You don’t know that, so I want your word.”
“You have it,” I growled. “But it won’t come to that.”
He said nothing back, but he held my eyes for a moment longer, and then looked away. Neither of us was happy with the conversation and where we stood, but at least I knew I could count on him to have my back to an extent.
“Doctor!” Bruce yelled as he ran out of the room, stopping when he was three feet away from a man in green scrubs.
Standing up, we waited for him to come back. Again I was reminded of the fact that, because of my fucking mess, I wasn’t the one hearing the news about my woman and kids.
Fucking fuck. Fuck!
With a nod, he turned around and walked back to us, looking a bit calmer than he had, but still not like the man I was used to seeing him as. I had to remember he was a father whose daughter was behind those doors, too, but it was so fucking hard when she held my heart in her hand.
“They’re all fine. Nell’s sleeping off the anesthetic in the recovery room, but the babies are okay, and he said it went better than they expected.”
When he finished, he went back over to the group he’d been talking to previously, one that included Rider. Whatever he said got him a nod from the man, and then he walked out the door, not looking back.
Moving so I was standing in front of Hunter, I saw he was watching where Rider had disappeared, as well. “Two things,” I began, getting his attention back. “Do you know the gender of the babies?”
“Both are boys.”
Jesus Christ, the Bratva had heirs.
There was an archaic rule that the first male child of the Pakhan’s eldest male heir was the next in the bloodline to lead the family. Everyone outside of my blood family, who knew that the marriage wasn’t real, was expecting the heirs to come from Donna.
The day before we’d gotten married, I’d laid it out, and had given her an ‘out’ before it was too late. Part of it was that our names might be joined legally, but she’d have to wait for children. I’d known that there wouldn’t ever be any, but my phrasing had to be precise to avoid giving it away.
Obviously it hadn’t deterred her, the greed for power and to do what her father had bid her to do was too great to resist. We’d lived in separate homes since, and slept in different beds always.
This definitely added to the shit storm I was going to cause, but I couldn’t find it in me to give a fuck.
“I need you to get me in to see them all. I have to leave to sort security out for them, but I’ll be back and expecting to see Nell and my sons.”
Hunter heard the seriousness, and knew as well as I did that additional security from my family was mandatory now. Turning to go to his dad, he said quietly over his shoulder. “Give me a couple of hours until we know they’re all stable and in the room. I’ll text you.”
Chapter Three
Nell
The painkillers were doing good, but the pain was doing better. By that, I meant it was winning the war against the meds that they’d given me after the cesarean and the top-up I’d had only thirty minutes ago.
A lot of it was due to the fact I’d been gutted like a fish roughly five hours ago, but the rest was thanks to the explosion.
Every muscle hurt, and I had four deep wounds on my back, with a total of twenty-one stitches in them. I also had bandages on my knees, and my hands were stinging, too..
This morning I’d ordered blankets for the babies online because my doctor was planning to do a section in three weeks.
Only six hours ago, I’d prayed for the first time in my life, and I did it, begging for Baby B to make it, as they injected steroids into me to help their lungs before they were born.
Now I was lying in the hospital bed while my sons were having some tests done in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and all of it seemed surreal.