7. ELOISE
ELOISE
By the time the surgeon came to find me, Damian’s blood had dried beneath my fingernails and every person who passed through the waiting room had used the word lucky as though it could undo the sight of him collapsing in my arms.
The bullet had entered below his ribs, torn through muscle, and fractured one of the lower bones before lodging near his back.
It had missed his liver, kidney, and spine, but he had lost enough blood to require surgery, and the hours spent waiting for someone to tell me whether he would wake had stripped luck of any meaning.
Elaina sat beside me in a set of borrowed scrubs.
She had cleaned the blood from my hands when I could no longer stand looking at it and persuaded me to change out of my ruined clothes, but Damian’s cut remained folded across my lap.
His blood had soaked through the leather beneath the patch, staining the word DIESEL so dark it was almost impossible to read.
“The surgery went well,” the doctor said. “We controlled the bleeding and removed the bullet without complications. He’ll be in significant pain when he wakes, and he won’t be lifting anything heavier than a coffee cup for several weeks, but I expect him to recover fully.”
Relief moved through me so sharply that I had to lower my head.
“Can I see him?”
“He’ll remain in recovery until the anesthesia wears off, but someone will bring you through as soon as he’s settled.”
The doctor left, and Elaina placed her hand between my shoulders.
“You can breathe now,” she said gently.
I tried, but the first breath broke apart in my chest. “He stepped in front of me.”
“That’s what Iron Flames men do.”
“Then they’re all idiots.”
“Yes, but arguing with them rarely helps.” A faint smile touched her mouth. “Hawk was stabbed when we met. He still insists it wasn’t serious.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Not for a second.”
I looked down at Damian’s cut. “I met him yesterday.”
“I know.”
“That should make this impossible.”
Elaina was quiet for a moment. “Sometimes time tells you how long you’ve known someone. Sometimes it has very little to do with how well.”
I thought of the three years I had spent with Preston, waiting for affection to become love and control to begin feeling like safety.
In less than a day, Damian had given me more honesty than Preston had managed throughout our entire relationship.
He joked, flirted, and hid every vulnerable part of himself behind a grin, but when it mattered, he never lied about the danger or pretended he was anything other than what he was.
The truth of him had been there from the beginning. I had simply reached it faster than either of us expected.
Hawk arrived shortly after the doctor left and placed a coffee beside me. His shirt was marked with warehouse dust, and exhaustion shadowed his face, but his voice remained controlled as he told me what had happened after the ambulance drove away.
Preston had survived the gunshot to his shoulder and was under armed guard in another part of the hospital.
The police had arrested him for attempted murder, fraud, conspiracy, and his involvement in the weapons operation.
My father had admitted authorizing the property transfer and arranging the meeting with Rafe, although he continued to insist he had not known weapons were already moving through the yard.
“Do you believe him?” I asked.
Hawk pulled out the chair opposite mine. “I believe he thought he could take Black Thorns money without becoming part of their business. Men tell themselves a lot of things when they want the reward without accepting the cost.”
“He knew Preston hurt me.”
“Yeah.”
That was the part no explanation could soften. My father might not have known what was inside every crate, but he had known exactly what kind of man he was giving me to, and the company had still mattered more.
“The task force seized the weapons and froze every account connected to Ashfall Logistics,” Hawk continued.
“Gunner recovered the server records proving Preston forged your signature, and your father is cooperating in exchange for consideration when charges are filed. The deal is dead unless somebody inside Bradford Holdings tries to revive it.”
“They won’t.”
My father’s attorney arrived before dawn carrying a laptop, two folders, and enough bad news to age him visibly between one sentence and the next.
The board had invoked its emergency procedures, the banks were threatening to withdraw credit, and three senior executives had already begun protecting themselves by claiming they knew nothing about the south yard.
Six hours earlier, that kind of crisis would have terrified me. I would have heard my father’s voice telling me that the company depended on obedience, sacrifice, and preserving the Bradford name at any cost.
Now I heard Damian telling me to figure out what I needed.
I reviewed every document before signing.
I terminated Preston’s investment agreement under the criminal-conduct clause, froze the accounts my father had used to conceal payments, and authorized an independent audit of every Bradford property.
When the board asked who would exercise my father’s voting authority while he remained under investigation, I accepted temporary control without apologizing for it.
The final resolution rejected the fraudulent transfer and placed the south yard beyond the reach of any shell company connected to Rafe Maddox.
At four twelve in the morning, the agreement I had nearly been forced to marry was formally destroyed.
The company remained standing.
So did I.
Damian was moved into a private room shortly after sunrise.
He was still unconscious when a nurse allowed me inside, his face pale beneath the bruising and a thick bandage wrapped around his middle.
Machines tracked his heartbeat, oxygen level, and blood pressure with quiet, mechanical precision, but I did not trust any of them until I placed my fingers against his wrist and felt his pulse for myself.
He woke properly several hours later.
His eyes opened slowly, unfocused at first, before finding me in the chair beside his bed. For once, there was no grin waiting to soften whatever he felt. There was only surprise and something far more vulnerable.
“You stayed.”
I tightened my hand around his. “Where else would I go?”
“You’ve got a house.”
“I have several. None of them are home.”
His gaze moved toward the window, but not before I saw how deeply the answer affected him.
“The deal?” he asked.
“Destroyed. Preston is under guard, the south yard is locked down, and my father has resigned. I’ve taken temporary control of the company.”
A shadow of his usual smile appeared. “Knew there was a killer under all that lace.”
The joke should have reassured me. Instead, I heard the effort beneath it and understood that he was already rebuilding the wall I had seen fall the night before.
“The claim worked,” he said after a moment. “Rafe knows the Iron Flames are protecting you, and there’s enough evidence to bury Preston. You’re free to go back to your life.”
“I was free the moment I ran from the wedding.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know you’re trying to send me away.”
His fingers shifted beneath mine, but he did not let go. “I’m giving you the choice.”
“No, Damian. You gave me every choice except the one you’re frightened I’ll make.”
His expression closed.
“You got money, a company, and a future that doesn’t belong in two rooms above a towing office,” he said.
“Yesterday was danger and adrenaline. It made things feel bigger and faster than they were, but that doesn’t mean you have to build your life around the bastard who happened to be driving the truck. ”
“You didn’t happen to do anything. You chose to drive. You chose to protect me. You trusted me when I said I could help stop Rafe, and you stepped in front of a fucking bullet because Preston aimed at me.”
“Any brother would’ve done the same.”
“But you did it.”
He looked away again, his jaw tightening as though anger would be easier to carry than hope.
I leaned closer. “You’re very good at offering people an escape before they can leave you.”
His gaze snapped back to mine.
“Women stay for Diesel when they want a good time,” he said quietly. “They don’t stay for Damian once the night’s over.”
The honesty in those words hurt more than any joke could have.
“I didn’t climb into your truck because you were charming or hot.
I climbed in because I was terrified and you were the first person who listened when I said drive.
I didn’t stay because Diesel made me laugh, although he did.
I stayed because Damian gave me his real name, touched every bruise as though it mattered, and never once asked me to become smaller so he could feel bigger. ”
“Eloise—”
“You do not get to decide that I deserve better when you’re the best man I have ever known.”
His throat worked, but no answer came.
I lifted his hand and pressed it against my chest. “Yesterday, my father called me unstable because I refused to obey him, Preston called me confused because I wouldn’t marry him, and you told both of them that I had chosen you. Were those only words?”
“No.”
“Then believe me when I say it now. I choose you, Damian. Not because I need somewhere to hide and not because I’m grateful you saved me.
I choose you because you make me feel safe without making me feel owned, and because when I picture leaving this hospital, the only place I want to go is home with you. ”
His eyes closed briefly, and when they opened again, the humor was gone.
“I don’t know how to do forever.”
“Neither do I. I only know how badly things go when someone else decides what my forever should look like.”
“That apartment’s too small for half your clothes.”
“I’ll take the closet.”
“Not a chance.”
“You’re injured. I could overpower you.”
A real smile finally moved across his face, faint but unmistakable. “There’s my princess.”
I bent carefully over the bed and kissed him.
The angle was awkward and I couldn’t touch him without worrying about the bandage, but his hand slid behind my neck and held me there as the kiss deepened.
There was no audience to convince, no danger forcing us together, and no fake claim left to perform.
There was only the man beneath the patch and the woman who had finally learned that choosing someone did not mean surrendering herself.
When I drew back, Damian rested his forehead against mine.
“Stay,” he said, the single word stripped of every joke and defense.
I pressed my mouth to his once more. “Forever.”