Chapter Twenty-Six
Helios
This fucking house.
Five bedrooms, six baths, state-of-the-art security system, furniture out of a fucking magazine, the place smelled like new construction.
I didn’t want to know where Ghost had gotten the money for it. But I sure as shit was gonna check the property records to make sure it was in her name.
Sweeping the place that was exactly as Ghost had said—stocked and ready to go—including Feralyn’s clothes in the main bedroom’s closet and a fridge full of food, I took a second to figure out the security system. Then I changed the code.
Two and a half minutes later, I was back at the truck, passenger side.
Staring at me through the window, looking terrified as fuck, she disengaged the locks.
I opened her door and took my Glock from her shaking hands.
“All clear.” Holstering the 9mm, then grabbing my cell, I made a mental note to take her shooting as I issued orders.
“Same protocol. Cross your arms over your ribs and apply pressure.” Mindful of her casted ankle and wrist, knowing this would hurt her ribs, I picked her up as carefully as I could.
She drew in a pained breath. “I need crutches. You can’t carry me everywhere.”
The fuck I couldn’t. “You heard the doc. Broken ribs, no fucking crutches.”
“Then a scooter.”
Where she’d have to lean, brace with her injured arm, and use her stomach muscles? Not fucking happening. “Do I look like I’m gonna let you use a goddamn scooter?”
“You look mad.”
“Not inaccurate.” I walked us into the house and kicked the door shut. “But not at you.” I paused at the security panel. “Swipe to activate the screen, key in thirteen twenty-eight, then hit Perimeter and Enter.”
She armed the system. “That’s our birthday days.”
“Then you should remember it.” I headed toward the largest bedroom.
She leaned her head against my chest. “I always remember your birthday.”
I always forgot hers. Intentionally. Minus her sixteenth. “Never got a card.” Or a call.
“That doesn’t mean I forgot.”
Striding into the bedroom, I didn’t say shit else. I laid her on the bed where I’d already stacked the pillows on one side.
“Can you turn on a light?”
“Yeah.” I hit the lamp on the nightstand, then crossed the room and flipped a couple switches on and off until only a few overheads were throwing muted light by the bathroom and by the sliders that led to a fucking pool and a hundred feet of unprotected oceanfront access.
“This is…” Haven looked around, wide-eyed. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” Motherfucking Ghost. I fucking hated him.
Hated him more for giving her a goddamn house when I hadn’t.
Especially one this fucking expensive. This shit was a hundred times past the income bracket we’d come from, not that her piece-of-shit father couldn’t afford better.
He’d just never spent a fucking dime on her.
Fucker didn’t even bother to get her wheels when she’d turned sixteen.
“And it’s paid for? And in my name—or alias?”
“According to what that motherfucker said.” Grabbing my cell, I pulled up the county’s property appraiser website and typed in the address. There it was. Deed under Ferrah Morgan. “According to the tax records too.” I shoved the cell back into my pocket. “You own the place.”
“Wow. That’s…” She looked around again. “Expensive. I bet the electric bill alone is more than all the monthly utilities at the old house.”
“You’re not gonna worry about that.” I’d pay the monthly stroke for this fucking place.
Not that she couldn’t afford it now. I’d gone over every damn document in that envelope Ghost had given me, including logging into the bank account he’d set up for her.
Haven was seven fucking figures flush now—with blood money.
“I’ll worry about it every time I turn on a light.” She looked toward the sliders. “There’s a pool.”
Yeah. And a fucking hot tub. Both would be good for her rehab and hell on me.
But I wasn’t about to fucking mention that shit or the fact that the shower I’d given her was burned into my brain.
“I’ll give you the five-cent tour tomorrow.
” I set her pain meds and a new asthma inhaler on the nightstand next to a couple bottles of water I’d grabbed from the fridge when I’d cleared the place. “Tonight, you need sleep.”
Her voice dropped to shy. “I need the restroom.”
“Right.” Fuck. “Should’ve taken you before I laid you down.” Reaching to pick her back up, I issued a reminder. “Protocol.”
She crossed her arms over her chest.
I carried her into the en suite, set her down near the toilet, then flipped on a light. Closing the door that separated the fucking john from the rest of the bathroom, I raised my voice. “Knock when you’re done.”
“Please don’t listen.”
“You know the kind of shit I heard in the barracks?” Dudes shitting their brains out, puking, jacking it, crying like pussies—I’d heard it all.
“Oh my God.” She flushed as she pissed, then flushed again and opened the door thirty seconds later.
Standing on one foot, holding her ribs with her injured arm, wearing fucking hospital socks and scrubs because she’d had no clothes when they’d released her, she looked up at me. “I want to try to walk.”
“Great.” I picked her up, and she gasped in pain. “Starting in six weeks, you can fucking practice.”
“Helios,” she whispered, already worn the fuck out.
“Haven.”
“I need to wash my hands.”
No fucking way was she looking in a mirror. Not yet. “I’ll bring you a washcloth.”
“Thank you.”
“Welcome.” I laid her back down, and she adjusted onto her side while I headed back into the bathroom. Running the water until it was hot, I wet the washcloth and fucking counted.
Nine goddamn washcloths.
Between her being admitted and the shower in the hospital room, I’d gotten her eight washcloths. This made nine. I’d never gotten any woman a fucking washcloth. Not even the ones I’d fucked.
Wringing the damn thing out before walking it back to her, I fought the urge to wipe her hands myself. “Here.”
Taking it like I’d gifted her fucking gold, she held it to her face and exhaled, then she used it on her hands. “Thank you for making it warm.” She folded it up and set it on the nightstand.
“Welcome.” I grabbed the damn thing and tossed it back into the bathroom. “Give me a minute to get you something to eat, then you can take your pills and crash.”
“Don’t leave,” she whispered in the same broken voice that went straight to my chest—every goddamn time—and crushed it.
“Not going far, Haven, but you need food.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m not hungry.”
I did a mental rundown of the calories she’d consumed in the hospital today before we’d left. Wasn’t ideal, but it’d hold her until tomorrow. “You promise to eat a full breakfast?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Hold up. Don’t crash out yet.” I grabbed the pill bottle and shook out two Percocet before opening one of the waters. “Take these first.”
She inhaled, exhaled, then opened her eyes and looked up at me.
I fed her the pills and held the water to her mouth.
Covering my hand but not holding the bottle, she closed her eyes and took three swallows before turning her head.
I capped the water, set it down, then pulled the blanket over her. When I turned to leave, that fucking whisper hit my six.
“You promised you wouldn’t leave.”
I glanced back. Those amber eyes stared me down. “You need uninterrupted sleep.” I needed fucking sleep. “I’ll be in the next bedroom down the hall. You call out, I’ll hear you.”
“There’s a bed here.”
Fuck me. “Haven. Nothing’s going to happen to you.” Not on my fucking watch.
“Please don’t make me beg.”
The goddamn organ in my chest fucking stalled.
Then it kick-started, and shit rewired in my brain—again.
Except this time, it was a bad, bad fucking rewire.
“Not making you beg, Haven. You have broken ribs. Not sharing a bed. Not risking hurting you further by jostling your ass or doing who the fuck knows what else in my sleep.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
“Yeah. Because I’ll be down the hall.”
“You can sleep on the floor if you’re that worried.”
“Woman.” Fucking Christ. I’d been sleeping in a goddamn chair for four days. This carpeted floor would be an improvement, but I didn’t tell her that shit.
“Please,” she whispered. Then she placed her hand on the empty side of the king-sized bed like a formal fucking invitation.
I stared her down, but we both knew I was gonna cave.
Shaking my head, I cursed.
She didn’t say shit else.
I hit the lights, then I deconstructed. Glocks, keys, wallet, cell. All landed on the nightstand. Boots, socks, belt, shirt. Those hit the floor. Then my ass hit the bed.
Jesus fucking Christ, the bed.
“I hate that motherfucker Ghost more now.” Sliding my left hand under my head, resting my dominant hand on my chest in case I had to grab one of my Glocks, I exhaled.
“Why?”
Christ, her voice hit different in the dark. “Because this is the most comfortable fucking bed I’ve ever laid in, and that asshole bought it.”
Her small hand landed on my bicep. “Thank you.”
“You won’t be fucking thanking me when it’s oh three hundred and my snoring ass wakes you up.”
“You don’t snore.”
I didn’t know how she knew that, and I didn’t fucking ask. “Get some sleep, Haven.”
When she didn’t reply, I listened to her breathing. Same as it had in the hospital, the sound of air going in and out of her lungs was borderline hypnotic. A reprieve in a fucked-up world. My reprieve.
My haven.
“I looked it up,” she whispered into the dark.
Christ, I was fucked-up. And too goddamn tired. “Looked what up?”
“Lalochezia. You have it.”
What the fuck? “I don’t have shit.” Except a fucking death wish. If Ares showed up and found us in the same bed, he might actually shoot me. That fucker lying beside her would be one thing. But me? Fucking Christ, I needed my head examined.
“It means the use of vulgar or foul language to relieve stress or pain.”
“Bullshit.” I looked at her. Small as hell, propped up on pillows, holding another against her ribs, her eyes were closed. “That’s not a real fucking word.”
“It is.” She slid a hand under her face. “Google said so.”
I focused back on the ceiling so I wasn’t fucking staring at her. “The internet says a lot of shit, woman. Doesn’t make it true.”
She didn’t reply.
A minute later, her breathing evened out.
Thirty seconds after that, I was out.