“No.” Madden shakes his head. “We’re fine. All calm. Right, Axel?”
“Just admit it.”
“You first,pup.This is your secret.”
“One you had no right to unleash! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Someone explain what the hell is going on before I toss you both out.” Warner wraps a protective arm around Ember, like he can shield her from us. “Axel?”
Fucking Madden.
On a good day, I tell myself I’ve made peace with the fiction that became my life story. The horrific lies I’ve told. The even more terrifying truth that I erased. Especially from the men I now consider my brothers.
The possibility that they’d ever know otherwise isn’t something I’ve dared to entertain. Not once. This isn’t a single white lie. It’s a monumental, life-changing, trust-shattering lie of epic proportions that will devastate my entire existence.
Worse still, I can see the goddamn amusement twinkling in Madden’s stare. He knows exactly what he’s done. All I want is for the motherfucker to admit it before I end his pitiful life.
“Fuck this,” Warner grumbles. “We have more important things to be worrying about than your ego contest. Shelve it, and we’ll have a very thorough conversation later on.”
“Sure, team leader.” Madden winks.
“Get out!” I howl at him.
“Come along now, Ax. You heard the man.”
“I’ll shelve it, but not while looking at your smug face. Get out.”
“I stay where Ember is.”
“Then I’ll get her as far away from you as possible!” I recoil at the feeling of my erratic heartbeat.
With a small, amused smirk, he throws up his hands then departs the clinical bay to wait outside. Not without taking a long, hard look at my girl first. Yep, walking corpse. He has a death wish that I’m happy to endorse.
Warner finishes chatting with the doctor then orders me to watch Ember while he’s taken to Hyland’s booth next. I nodcurtly, looming over her bed as the pair depart to find our missing enforcer.
“Ax?”
Her pained whisper rips me wide open, letting anger and fear melt into plain old relief. I slump next to her on the bed, allowing Ember to cuddle into my side. She smells like blood and smoke, but I still hold her close.
“Sorry,” I offer against her dirty braid. “I never meant for any of this to happen. Sometimes the right decisions aren’t the easiest or even the moral ones.”
“My head hurts,” she murmurs.
Yeah. Mine too.
“Lay down, dimples. The others will be back.”
“Will you hold me?”
“Yeah. Always.”
Ember curls up in my arms, the hospital gown bunching around her scraped, bruise-smattered legs. She tucks her head beneath my chin, fingers winding in my t-shirt, forming a strangling grip.
I don’t know what pain killers they’ve given her, but she’s already softening against me. Her breathing grows longer as exhaustion takes hold.
“I’m so sorry.” I moisten my mouth, trying to find the right words. “I’ve got secrets, Em. Big ones. Stuff that I should’ve told you all long ago but never could.”
“We all have secrets,” she replies sleepily.
