Marcus lets out a heavy breath, meeting my eyes. “Don’t assume because of my name that I’ve never run for my life. I’ve been in this exact situation, Shayne. I know these scars just as well as I know my own.” He pauses for a beat, adjusting his weight to lean against the surgical bed as his voice slowly gets weaker, the pain shining through brighter. “I know my brothers. I know their techniques because they’re the same as mine, and trust me when I say, they went easy on you.”
My brows furrow as I move across the bed, discreetly giving him more space to rest. “Why would they do that?” I question. “I thought they wanted me dead.”
He shakes his head. “They did want you dead, but they assumed you shot me, and while we may be a little fucked in the head, we are loyal to our brothers. They were waiting to see if I would live because had you been the one to shoot me, they knew I would have wanted to kill you myself.”
My eyes widen, the words on his lips terrifying me to my core. “And if you had died?”
“Hierarchy,” he says. “Roman is the eldest, so he would have taken the kill.”
“That is so fucked up,” I say as he slowly lowers himself to the bed beside me and takes my hand in his. “I won’t forgive them.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “That’s your prerogative,” he says. “It is what it is, there’s no changing that, but I know my brothers, and they will fight to earn your forgiveness for the rest of their lives if that’s what it takes. They are forever in your debt … unless you wanna make things interesting and get even.”
“Get even?” I grunt. “How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”
“I could hold them down while you go at them with a machete, though that’s no fun since Roman would just lay there and take it.”
I gape at him in horror. “Absolutely not. Fucking up your brothers with a machete is off the table, despite how good it sounds right now. I know you get off on that kind of shit, but unlike you, I have morals. Besides, if they’re going to get fucked up, it’s going to be my brand of fucked up.”
A soft knock sounds at the door and I glance up to find Levi hovering in the doorway, Roman slightly behind him with the two massive wolves peeking in through the gaps. “Who’s getting fucked up?” Levi questions nervously, his voice wavering and unsure, a quality I’ve never heard coming from this beast of a man.
Marcus stands, a curse on his lips as pain cuts through his chest. “You know fucking well who’s getting fucked up,” he says, thick irritation in his tone.
Levi nods, his eyes casting down to the ground, accepting what will be without question. He looks up through his thick row of lashes, his usually bronze, warm skin looking a sickly shade of white. “May I come in?” he questions, the hesitation in his tone putting me off. “Your wounds need to be looked at, and your stitches …”
“You’re fucking kidding yourself if you think I’m about to let you anywhere near me,” I spit, the hatred in my eyes piercing right through him as I will myself not to cry, the very sight of him throwing me back over the past forty-eight hours to each of the times his hands came down over my body.
“Please,” Roman mutters, stepping in closer to Levi, the regret heavy in his obsidian eyes, looking absolutely sick with himself. “Your wounds need to be cleaned and bandaged properly. Otherwise, you’re going to get an infection and the healing process will take longer. Please, just let us fix you up and then I swear, we’ll never touch you again, not unless you ask otherwise.”
My gaze flicks to Marcus who looks about ready to pass out. “Can’t you do it?” I ask, trusting him with everything I am despite the fact that, no matter which way I look at it, he still has DeAngelis blood pulsing through his veins.
“Come on, babe,” Marcus says, his breathing becoming shallow and labored. “I know you’re not blind. I’m barely going to last another minute before it’s lights out. I know it’s hard, but you can trust them. They won’t hurt you.”
I shake my head. “Then I’ll wait until you regain your energy. I don’t want them touching me.”
“Shayne,” Levi mutters, slowly creeping through the door. “Look at you. You tore your internal stitches when you tried to break out of here and you’ve bled through every single bandage on your body. You can’t risk waiting. We need to get you set up on fluids and morphine sooner rather than later. Your body can’t take this for much longer. Please, just let us do this for you.”