Page 115 of Diary from an Inked Throne

I nodded, smoothing back her sweaty hair from her forehead. “He’s home, and you’re going to be okay,” I promised her. “We’re all going to be okay.”

But I really had no idea if it was true.

35

NYAH

Dear Diary,

Blood doesn’t make a family. Kara proved that today.

“Hospitals are my new least favorite place,” Luca complained.

Dax looked over at him. “Is it the food or because someone tried to kill you last time you were in one?”

He grimaced. “They’re the same thing, aren’t they? The food here is terrible.”

It really was. I’d only been here forty-eight hours and I was already over the slop they served. But I was lucky enough to have three men who had barely left my side, except to go and get me takeout. “I can’t believe French did that.”

Luca shook his head. “He was desperate.”

“He should have gone to the cops. Or come to us,” Lynx muttered, anger in his tone.

Lara, French’s sister, had been one of the people MacGregor had dragged down to the cages beneath the house after he’d taken over. She’d been let out, along with Luca’s guys, and I’d still been on the scene, the paramedics trying to stabilize me enough to move me into the ambulance when French had shown up, Lara running into his arms.

I’d thought I was hallucinating the entire thing, which definitely could have been possible with the amount of pain meds I’d had by that point, but the pieces had all fit together in my head two days later when Luca had filled us all in on exactly how he’d realized MacGregor was back in town.

“Bruno and Viktor both send their love,” Luca said to me.

I raised an eyebrow, which was one of the few areas of my body that didn’t require heavy painkillers. “They send love?”

He shrugged. “That’s literally what Bruno said. Word for word. I don’t know, maybe getting shot and nearly dying changed him for the better.”

I didn’t care whether Bruno and Viktor started writing poetry or volunteering their time to bathe the homeless. All I cared about was they were alive. I’d been so sure they were dead, but both had been dragged out of the cages and rushed into surgery and were now recuperating in the ICU, with Luca only getting in to visit because he’d lied and said he was their brother.

If they decided to come back to the house, we’d take care of them.

Somewhere along the way, I’d come to care for them, and they didn’t know how much I appreciated the fact they’d both taken a bullet for me. They’d wave it off and tell me it was their job, but they’d nearly died and I wouldn’t forget that.

I’d somehow managed to score a private hospital room, maybe because I had so many visitors, between the guys, Violet and Amber, and the rest of the Slayers who had pretty much all traipsed in one by one over the last two days as they’d returned from their biker meetup. They’d ruffled my hair like they were my older brothers and affectionately told me they were glad I wasn’t dead.

I don’t know if they realized exactly how much that meant to me. Especially because not one of my brothers or my mother had bothered to make the drive to see if I was okay, or to meet their nephew and grandson. I knew they would have heard through the grapevine. What had happened with MacGregor was not only spreading through Luca’s social circles like wildfire, it was all over the news.

Reporters ambushed the guys every time they left the hospital or the house, wanting to know every detail from who MacGregor was to us, why him and I had been up on that bedroom balcony in the first place, and how our baby had been returned.

Luca, bossy as always, had instructed everyone not to say anything, other than we’d hold a press conference when I was out of the hospital.

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to that, but people deserved closure. I could see that on the faces of the nurses who came in and out to care for me. When they’d seen James in my arms and realized he was that baby from the news, one had cried in relief. So much so Dax had pulled her into a hug that I watched with tears in my own eyes. She’d gone red in the cheeks and stepped away, apologizing for being so unprofessional. But that she was a mother, with a baby of a similar age, and she just couldn’t imagine how I’d even functioned without him in my arms.

I didn’t know either. I hated I couldn’t do much for him with my arm in a sling and my leg in a cast, but that hadn’t stopped me from holding him with my good arm and enjoying hours and hours of snuggles. In a very uncharacteristic move of the hospital, they’d allowed James and one of the guys to stay with me each night, a bassinet and a rollaway cot being delivered to my room.

I suspected Luca had been greasing the wheels a bit there. But I was too busy learning everything there was to learn about my baby. I would always mourn the months I’d lost with him. I’d never have tiny baby photos, and that hurt my heart. But I would have photos. From chubby baby to toddler then small boy. I’d get teenage scowls and grown-up, successful-man photos of him.

We already had four phones overflowing with images of him and a group chat to share them with each other. And we’d only had him a few days.

I kissed James’s soft head and breathed in his perfect baby smell, silently thanking the universe for bringing him home.

Someone knocked on the door, and my perfect little baby world imploded in on itself when two cops stood in the doorway.