Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Freedom Mansion
D’Angelo
Panic sheets through me. My heart beats hard in my chest.
My mind is foggy. I can’t think. Can’t remember…
…You were the devil who corrupted your family…
I’d been with Olivia. My brother’s wife.
I’d thrown myself to the floor. Then I’d tried to reach the door, but her boot ground my face into the carpet.
My pulse spikes with terror, but I don’t know why there is a blank gap in my memory after that.
My mind buzzes. It’s a strange — wrong — sensation.
My mouth is dry. My stomach churns.
What the hell happened to me?
My muscles ache like I’ve played three games of hockey back-to-back. My body is impossibly heavy.
With an effort, I force my eyes to open.
I’m staring up at the night sky. Even the light of the stars hurts my pounding head. But when I glance down and realize that I’m lying in silver sheets in my black silk pajamas, I relax.
I’m in my bedroom in Freedom Mansion.
I’m home.
Slowly, fragments of what happened begin to take shape in my mind.
I’m not only home.
I’m alive.
And I almost wasn’t.
I thought that I would never be here again.
My chest tightens.
Once, this had been nothing but an empty mansion. It was a place of loneliness. But then, the twins and Robyn filled it with their sunny joy.
They lit up its darkness, and my own.
Suddenly, I’m desperate to see that Robyn and Shay are real. I only heard them when they burst in like they were my white knights for once.
Clumsily, I twist on my side on the mattress.
My muscles are weak.
I hurt everywhere.
But all I need right now is Robyn and Shay.
They rode with me in the ambulance, Eden as well. I remember flashes of their faces, then Michael and his tests.
Yet it is blurred like it was happening to someone else.
“Robyn,” I whisper. It doesn’t sound like my voice. I clear my throat and try again, stronger this time. “Robyn.”
“Hey, he’s awake.” Immediately, Robyn leans over me, pushing me gently onto my back again.
She was already lying on the bed with me.
Has she left my side at all?
She is dressed in one of Eden’s cat t-shirts with the embroidered image on the front of a kitten drinking tea, along with the white words: Sip Happens, Just Purr.
If the stars are out, then does that mean it’s Friday evening? Have I been unconscious or asleep all day?
Shay bounces onto the bed, crawling to my other side. “How are you feeling?”
His hair is a mess, and his eyes are red-rimmed like he’s been crying for hours.
My heart clenches. What if he has?
He is naked. Not a surprise.
I swipe over my dry lips. “Like I’ve been run over by my own car. Twice.”
“You look like the Alfa Romeo hit you three times.”
“Thank you,” I reply, dryly.
“Drink,” Eden says.
I turn my head, finally realizing that Eden is standing on the other side of the bed.
How long has he been there?
He is watching me, intently.
Eden is dressed in gray joggers and a t-shirt. I can’t read his expression. He is holding out an opened bottle of water to me. I attempt to take it from him, but my hand is shaking too much.
Eden bats away my hand and holds it to my lips instead.
I frown. “I don’t need you to take care of me like that.”
“Since you can’t hold the bottle, you do.” Eden presses the lip of the bottle more insistently against my mouth.
“Dee has been brilliant,” Shay says, quietly.
“When you had the seizure, he knew what to do. He has taken charge and looked after all of us through this. I was too scared that you… I mean, hospitals tend to spin me out, and seeing what that bitch did to you and what could have happened, it messed me up. Dee was incredible.”
“Better listen to him.” Robyn strokes down my cheek. “Right now, Eden is in this uber dom mode, which is scarily hot. I wouldn’t risk disobeying.”
I stare into Eden’s eyes. “I’m the boss.”
The intimidating effect of my words are ruined by being muffled against the edge of the bottle.
Eden studies me with dark eyes. “You’re my brother.”
I feel fragile and split open.
My eyes smart, but I open my mouth, allowing him to tip the water down my throat.
“Small sips,” Eden commands. “Tell me if you feel sick.”
He’s careful, and no water slips out of the corners of my mouth.
As soon as the drink hits my parched mouth, I realize just how thirsty I am. I swallow greedily.
Okay, I forgive Eden.
I needed this.
My mind begins to clear, although I still feel exhausted.
Finally, Eden pulls back the empty bottle, placing it on the nightstand.
“Better?” He asks.
I nod. “What happened to Olivia?”
I have to know.
“She was arrested.” Robyn plumps the pillows behind me, before helping me to sit up.
“Dad lost his shit when he found out what happened. Don’t worry, he has the Bay Rebels lawyers and contacts making sure that Olivia doesn’t make bail and is charged with attempted murder. She could be given life imprisonment.”
“The least she deserves,” Eden mutters.
I look away, conflicted.
Olivia does deserve it. I’m saving my brother from her too. As his psychiatrist, she preyed on him.
But won’t this break him? Destroy his family for a second time?
Do his kids deserve it?
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Shay cuddles closer to me, laying his hand over my heart, as if he needs to reassure himself that my heart is still beating.
“I’m just thinking about Bruno.” I remember the way that my brother treated me at the recital.
He acted like he hated me. Yet Olivia told me that Bruno still loved me.
But it’s not healthy, unconditional love.
It’s toxic. He blames me for what happened because he can’t face the fact that he and my parents hold the true blame.
He can’t face that his prejudiced ass fucked up our lives. “He has three kids.”
“And I hope for their sakes that he’s able to accept them just as they are,” Robyn says. “In a way that he can’t you.”
I jolt, clenching my hands. “One thing that I did learn from Olivia is I can’t control everything.”
“Well, she’ll have to do her therapy from a prison cell. No one is touching you again.” Shay drags the blanket up me, tucking it around me.
I wrinkle my nose. “You don’t need to fuss.”
“I do.” Shay rearranges the blanket again. “Robyn only sweet-talked Mike into letting you back from the hospital a couple of hours ago, and you’ve been sleeping all the time. So, let us fuss, spoil, and pamper you, yeah?”
I squirm, as he adjusts the blankets again. “Cucciolo, they’re fine.”
“Do you need anything?” He asks. “Dee could make you chicken soup or—”
“A new body because apparently this one has gone on strike.”
Robyn chuckles. “Outrageous, considering how much it’s paid.
I don’t know what you can remember because you were pretty out of it.
But you had a lot of tests at the hospital, however, and Mike said that it was only a mild seizure.
There is no long-term damage, but you need to rest now.
We’re allowed to care about you, as much as you do about us.
We tried to tell you this before. Just because you’re the dom in the relationship doesn’t mean that your subs don’t need to show their care, especially when we watched you collapse. ”
“Twice.” Shay glances at me through his long lashes. “We’ve had to watch it twice now.”
I shift, uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t say it to force an apology.” Shay kisses my collarbone. “We need to feel connected to you again, that’s all.”
You could have died, is what he’s not saying.
You could have left me like everybody else in his fucking life.
I intend to fix my will. I won’t have any of these three seen as less than true partners in my life.
“Is that why you’re clinging to me like a limpet?” I tease.
“I’m always a limpet in bed.”
True.
Olivia attempted to strip away my control. The sensation of helplessness that she left with me is still shuddering through me.
I don’t need soup or tucking in, although the three most important people in my life being this close to me is perfect.
Instead, I need to take control again.
Suddenly, my eyes gleam with a dominance that makes me feel like myself again, despite the weakness in my muscles.
“What if I want to take care of you?” I say, silky and sultry. “We haven’t celebrated with the reward that we won yet.”
Robyn sits up.
“How about only when you can raise those hands to catch me?” She dances back on the bed with a mischievous smile.
She better not think that she can take advantage of this situation to brat.
I’m smart. I don’t need my own hands to be in charge.
Shay laughs.
Another big mistake.
I humor them both by attempting to raise my shaky hands, which I can barely manage.
Shay launches himself up, scrambling over me to join in the game. He dodges past my hands and kneels next to Robyn.
The curve of his lower back and tight ass is enough to make even my tired cock perk up.
“Looks like for once, we’re winning this hunt,” Shay boasts.
Both my pets are truly na?ve.
I allow my hands to slump back onto the bedding. But my eyes glint.
Shay swallows. “Why are you looking at us like that?”
“D’Angelo can’t catch his prey. We’re safe.” Robyn clasps her arms around Shay’s neck, drawing him into a long, slow kiss.
She glances back at me, wriggling her ass tauntingly.
I allow myself to relax back into the mountain of pillows that they built for me. Then I tear my gaze away from the delicious sight of my two subs entwined together and turn to Eden.
When our gazes lock, I know that he understands without saying anything.
Eden still raises his hands with a quirk of his lips, which is ghost of a smile that I have grown to treasure coaxing from him, as a show for our naughty subs. “I can raise my hands, however, and I’ve been coached to be your Sir’s hands for him when he needs them. Looks like the hunt is on.”
I relaxe further into the fluffy pillows.
I twist back to my pets.
Robyn’s eyes widen with alarm, but Shay’s widen with excitement.