It hits me like a brick wall.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I sink back down on the hard, plastic chair. “Besides, you can’t get up. Your leg’s broken.”
“It is?” He squints down at his body and pales more. “Shit. What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
He looks at me with a frown. “Your father shot me.”
“That’s right.” The need to smash something is too strong. I bite on the inside of my cheek to get myself back under control. “He almost killed you because I handled this wrong. I should have told you more about him, about meeting with him, I should have thought he knew where I live. I failed you.”
His hand tugs free of mine, and I let go, bowing my head.
But then I feel his fingers in my hair, stroking. “Will you stop blaming yourself?” he whispers, his voice hoarse and low. “And if not… forgive yourself. We all make mistakes.”
I frown, echoes of my own words blowing back at me. I said that to him, didn’t I? Among the words I whispered to him in the apartment, in the ambulance later. In my impromptu prayers. I said I’d forgive myself if it meant he’d be okay.
I lift my head, and his fingers trail down to my face. “Can you forgive me?”
“I don’t need to. This ain’t on you.” He blinks, his eyes hazy with exhaustion. “You tried to protect me. Did your best. Gave me hope. I wanted to see you again. I want to be with you. So don’t let me go.” He licks his dry lips, and I see tears spangling his lashes. “I love you.”
My head feels too light, my chest too big for my lungs. There’s a bittersweet pain in my mending heart. If he loves me, if he believes in me...
“I’m not letting you go.” I catch his hand, turn it over to kiss his palm, and smile against it. “Never letting you go for as long as you want me, because you, Jason Vega, belong with me.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Raine
The taking down of Simon Gomez’s gang goes down on a quiet Tuesday evening, a couple of days after I found Jason bleeding out on my apartment floor. I’m at the hospital, at Jason’s side, when Riot opens the door and gestures for me to come out and talk.
The aftermath isn’t pretty. There was a shoot-out when the Club was stormed. In the basement of the building, in separate cells, Simon kept prisoners, and among them Jason’s friends. Adam, Mayleen, Josie, Mikey, Mia, and others. They made it out alive.
Confirming the names with Jason is heart-wrenching. The way his grip on the covers turns white-knuckled, the sorrow in his gaze, it’s too much. No amount of hugging in the world will take away the pain of knowing he did all he could to save them, and they ended up right where he never wanted them to be.
At least they’re okay. Looks like Simon only collected them as an extra card to play against Jason—and it really makes you wonder what the hell his beef is with his cousin. Jason doesn’t know. Sick fascination? Something more?
No matter what it is, I wanna smash Simon’s damn face in, hurt him like he’s hurt my boyfriend, but he’s not available for that. The Mob notified the cops about the prisoners in the basement and the bloodstains all over the place, so the police stormed the place, but Simon Gomez?
Nobody knows where he went. Now that is interesting…
Meanwhile, Jason has been discharged from the hospital, I’ve taken time off work, going as far as quitting my second job, and we’ve fallen into a routine, where I help him up from bed in the morning, help him to the toilet, in the shower, make him breakfast, then we talk about his plans for the future, his plans with me.
Then I make lunch and we watch TV on the sofa, where I hold him and kiss him until he blinks those brilliant dark eyes at me, dazed, to remind him how much I love him.
Over the past few days, things seem to be settling into a comfortable rhythm. I still find myself glancing over my shoulder from time to time, and Jason still jumps at any loud noise, but with every passing day he relaxes a little bit more, starting to believe that it’s all over. Simon, the MC, my father’s threats, the danger.
I help him with his crutches and the full cast on his leg, watch, and think. Is there danger? If so, I’ll protect him, if it’s the last thing I do.
But everything’s quiet.
Leaving him at home alone isn’t in my plans for now, even with the Damage Boyz keeping watch over him. Even with the cops keeping an eye on the building. No way.
But more and more days pass, and I need to go back to work. So I change my shift to afternoons, to be able to make his hospital appointments in the mornings, and ask him if he’d go with me to the shop, stay there while I man the reception desk.
He says yes. After being cooped up at the hospital and then in the small apartment, he seems excited to get out, even if to go sit inside the tattoo shop.
“Could we go to the park?” he asks for the millionth time since he left the hospital. “Just for a short while.”