“I mean, hell, maybe that’s not a bad idea for a distraction.” He grinned. “Want me to see about getting a couple of women to visit you?”
I grunted. “Here?”
“Well, at home. And it sounds like they’ll discharge you soon…”
“No. I don’t need any whores trying to distract me.”
“Because you want to stay grumpy and moody?” he challenged.
“Because I don’t want anything to interrupt my recovery.”
“You scared off all the nurses here. Terrorized the doctors.” He chuckled and pulled his phone from his pocket. “And—Oh, shit.” Shooting to his feet, he almost knocked the chair over. “The babies are coming. Now.”
“Go. Go.” I dismissed him with a wave as he ran for the door.
Once the door shut again, trapping me in with the view of these blank white walls, the loneliness crept in faster.
I knew my brothers cared about me, but Nik had hit a sore spot. Iwasn’thandling my recovery well so far, but I doubted the company of an easy piece of ass would do any miracles for me. That was all I wanted, too. No commitments. No long-term arrangements. I’d been a bachelor for too long that I doubted I’d ever change, and now wasn’t the time to attempt to. I had to focus on getting revenge, for personal closure, before considering settling down like my brothers had.
I sighed, waiting for sleep to come. Itwaspeaceful in this room, blocked off from the rest of the world. If I was going home soon, it wouldn’t be as quiet there.
Alek and Mila had their daughter there. Alana was almost two months old now. Then Nik and Amy’s twins, tentatively named Sophia and Pyotr, would be home sooner than expected. All those crying babies, and that wasn’t the end of my nieces and nephews. Emily—Becca’s daughter—had already been toddling around and learning to walk quicker before I was captured.
At the thought of the redheaded baby, I fell into the brief memories of the first time I saw her. She’d been taken away in a carrier, kidnapped by a Rossini bastard. I’d stopped him from taking her, but that wasn’t the only act of rescue I’d done that night.
Hannah.
I hadn’t forgotten her name, the babysitter who’d been hit by the kidnapper. She woke up and was so startled by my rushing into the apartment that I felt sorry to frighten her more.
I hope you’re doing all right.
I’d taken her to the very same hospital I was in right now. She’d suffered a concussion from being hit that night, but despite the injury, she made a hell of an impression, and not one of being a weak, helpless damsel in distress.
Hannah Durmont. She was feisty, stubborn, and determined to know whether Emily was all right. It had taken me several repeats of telling her that the baby she was watching had been returned to her mother, and that level of concern made a lasting imprint on me. She wasn’t just there for some easy cash for watching a kid. She’d really cared.
“Ready to go home?” the lead doctor entered the room without warning, jarring me from thinking about the raven-haired woman I hadn’t forgotten about.
It wasn’t time to think about her now. With this doctor’s announcement, I paid attention to my discharge. Alek entered the room with him. Mila, too. They were there to coordinate the transfer of care from here to something at home, and I was glad they were here to listen to all the mumbo-jumbo. I lost interest.
All I cared about was regaining my strength at home. It didn’t matter to me who they hired to assist me in the comfort of my own wing at the mansion. Just that it happened.
The first two weeks of being home proved to be much more difficult that I could’ve anticipated, though.
All the home nurses quit. The therapists gave up too.
“If you could just stop being such an asshole to everyone,” Ivan said as he helped me off the floor.
“Shut the fuck up,” I growled. I’d tried to walk across the room with my walker, but my foot hadn’t wanted to cooperate. All the casts were gone, but like I’d been nagged a million times, I couldn’t count on its bearing my full weight yet.
I loathed falling and being unable to get up easily. I hated that anyone had to coach me about not pushing myself too hard. That was all I knew how to do. Pushing myself hard and numbing out the pain were how I’d survived being tortured.
“I’m going to look into finding another home aide,” Alek said from the doorway. He’d come when I texted in the group thread that I needed help after a fall. I debated just staying there on the floor until someone found me. That was how much I hated asking for help.
“The fuck you are,” I told him as Ivan helped me upright.
“Are there any left that he hasn’t scared off?” Becca asked. She held Emily in her arms. The toddler’s leg wrapped over Becca’s growing baby bump.
I shot her a dirty look too.
