Aiden cut my restraints and I fell to my knees, gathering Noah into my arms. Gentry was right there, his hands covered in blood as he held them above Noah’s forehead, not touching him but clearly wanting to.

When Carson was freed, she joined us, her fingers seeking a pulse in my son’s wrist.

“Do you have a glucose meter?”

I shook my head. “Everything’s back at the house. We weren’t expecting this.”

She just nodded as she checked him over, pulling his eyes open so that she could check his pupillary reaction. Aiden towered over us.

“We called an ambulance. It should be here soon.”

I only vaguely heard him. There was sweat on Noah’s forehead and he was breathing shallowly. It was eerily familiar, this. He’d been like this when he was first diagnosed, sweaty and lethargic, his breath a terrible fruity scent. The doctors told me if I hadn’t gotten him to the emergency room when I did, he wouldn’t have made it.

I couldn’t go there again.

“It’s okay, baby,” I whispered, wondering if I was trying to reassure him or myself.

Chaos reigned around us. The police had arrived on Stone Security’s heels. The uniformed cops were rounding up the members of the motorcycle club while the Stone men were freeing their women and reassuring themselves that no one had been irreversibly injured. There were voices, footsteps, noises all around us, but all I could hear was the pounding of my heart in my ears.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” a paramedic who’d appeared out of nowhere said, pushing me to one side as he knelt to assess Noah. Carson got him up to date on what had happened and they immediately administered a small dose of insulin after testing his blood and discovering that his blood sugar was just over four hundred.

Four hundred. I’d imagined it was much higher.

It was the head injury that seemed to concern the paramedic. He probed the lump on the side of Noah’s head, frowning for reasons that were unclear to me.

“We’ll be taking him to Baptist,” he informed us as the lifted him onto the stretcher and headed for the door.

I stood to go after him, but suddenly became aware that Gentry wasn’t following me. I turned to find him still kneeling where Noah had been, his face pale even in this terrible light.

“Gentry?”

He looked up, then tumbled over with a groan. I rushed to him, slapping the side of his face in a weak attempt to get him to regain his strength. “What is it? Are you hurt?”

Carson had seen him fall. She knelt on the other side of his body, her hands expertly exploring his belly. We both saw the cut in his shirt at the same time. It was bloody there, but I’d assumed it was Bulldog’s blood because there had been so much of it. But when Carson tore open the slit in his shirt, there was a corresponding puncture just above his hip.

“Oh, God!”

“Hey, we need help over here!” Carson yelled.

One of the paramedics came running back, his supply kit banging against his leg.

The blow Bulldog had delivered to Gentry’s abdomen there at the end. That must have been when it happened.

Why hadn’t I noticed?

“I’m sorry, babe,” I said, smoothing the hair back from his head. “I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

I shook my head, tears flowing for the second time this day. “We’ll argue about it later, okay? You stay with me so we can argue about it later.”

“That’s a deal.”

Then he cried out as the paramedic pressed a bandage to his wound. I bit my lip, wanting to scream myself.

Aiden helped me to my feet as they lifted Gentry onto the same stretcher they’d had Noah on just a few minutes ago. They’d moved Noah to a bench in the back of the ambulance, determining Gentry’s situation was more serious. I couldn’t ride with them because the back of the ambulance was too crowded. Aiden and Carson loaded me into one of the SUVs from Stone Security and followed closely behind, breaking a dozen traffic laws along the way.

I half-expected the same doctor who’d informed us of my father’s death to be the one to greet Gentry’s stretcher, but it wasn’t. He was a stranger, barking orders to the team of nurses and interns who surrounded him, reassuring me by going right to work to stabilize Gentry.

The rest of the family arrived within moments of the ambulance, Jack insisting on a nurse checking out the bruises on Raelyn’s face while we waited for news. I paced, unable to sit still, rubbing almost unconsciously at the marks left by the flex cuffs. The police arrived, wanting statements from everyone involved, but no one really felt like talking. Jack took care of it, promising we’d all make a statement by the end of the day.

What if they brought charges against Gentry for killing Bulldog? The thought hadn’t occurred to me until we were standing in the waiting room, waiting for word. I heard the cops whispering to Jack, heard them mention that as a possibility. I wanted to scream at the cop who’d said it, wanted to make him see that Gentry had had no choice. He was in there fighting for his life, for God’s sake! But I didn’t say anything. I just kept pacing, waiting, feeling completely helpless.

A doctor came strutting down the corridor after what seemed like ages, but was really less than an hour. She asked for me and stepped forward, wringing my hands. The rest of the family gathered behind me, Carson slipping her hand into mine.

“How is he?”

“He’s fine. We did a CT on his head and it looks like he has a mild concussion, nothing serious. He’s responding to the insulin administered in the ambulance, bringing his blood sugar down to two sixty. We’d like to keep him overnight, but he’s going to be fine.”

I nodded, trying to hide my disappointment. We were talking about Noah. As bad as it sounded, I was hoping she was Gentry’s doctor. Gentry was the one bleeding from the abdomen, the one who was barely conscious when they loaded him into the ambulance. It killed me because Gentry was so strong.

But I was also relieved. Noah was going to be okay. That took a minute to sink in.

“Thank you, doctor.”

The woman nodded, her eyes surveying the room. “Looks like you have plenty of support here. You’re very lucky.”

She walked away without explaining herself, but I knew she was right. I turned into Carson’s arms and she held me, whispering words of reassurance in my ear.

“I should go be with Noah.”

“We’ll let you know if we hear anything,” Aiden assured me.

I started down the hall, but Jack came after me, stopping me with a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve been trying to find the right moment to speak to you, but there never seems to be one.”

“No, I don’t suppose so.”

“I want to apologize for being an ass the night of Remy’s dinner party.”

I grunted. That night seemed like a lifetime ago now. “No, you don’t have to apologize. You were right.”

“I might have been right, but I went about it the wrong way. For that I’m sorry.”

I took his hand and held it in both mine for a moment, becoming aware of the blood on my hands that I hadn’t noticed before. The sight of it cut at me like the tiny pieces of glass Carson had picked out of my skin the night of the firebombing.

“If you hadn’t done what you did, Gentry and I wouldn’t have fought and we might not have found our way back to each other. So I owe you a thanks, Jack. A huge thanks.”

He pulled me into his arms and hugged me tightly. “He’s going to be okay. Stone men are fighters.”

I nodded, wishing I was as confident as he. Then I pulled away and marched down the hall, pausing briefly before pushing my way into Noah’s room, relief rushing over me when I found him conscious and sitting up in bed.

“Hi, Mom!”

“Hey, darlin’…”

*

Carson became my medical dictionary over the next few days, explaining to me what the doctors explained to her. It was like having a translator while visiting a foreign country. And it was incredibly necessary.

Gentry had surgery within an hour of arriving at the hospital to repair a puncture to his lower intestine. While making the repair, they discovered damage they hadn’t expected, so the surgery lasted longer than they intended. Gentry had a bad reaction to being under anesthesia for so long and had to be kept on a ventilator when they brought him out. Then the repair leaked, so they had to go back in and fix it a second time. The infection set in not long after that.

There were three courses of antibiotics and continuing use of the ventilator to give his heart and lungs a break. I sat beside him for hours at a time despite the fact that they only allowed visitors in the ICU for short periods every few hours. The nurses took pity on me and let me stay as long as he was stable. But when his heart rate dipped, they sent me out to worry and pace in the hallway.

The whole thing was so fucked up!

Noah went home after his overnight stay. Jack and Brent and their ladies were taking turns hanging out with him while Chloe took care of his medical needs. Aiden, Bo, Remy, and Carson took turns staying with me at the hospital. Remy forced me to eat once a day while Carson forced me into a shower and onto a bed every twenty-four hours or so. I don’t know what I would have done without the whole group of them. I probably would have lost my mind.

We were coming up on a week. Gentry had been taken off the ventilator, but he wasn’t conscious yet. The doctors assured me it was normal, but I could see the worried glances they exchanged with the nurses. I knew it was pushing the bounds of normal and that it would eventually become something to truly worry about.

I prayed every moment I was conscious, praying that he would wake up and we’d be able to go back to the happiness that had just begun to envelope us before my dad’s death.

“I love you, Gentry,” I whispered as I sat with him now, my fingers absently playing with the scruff that had grown up on his jaw these last few days. “Please come back to me.”

“K.”

I jerked a little, pulling back and focusing on his face. He peeked out of one eye, a crooked smile dancing at one corner of his mouth.

“Gentry?”

He inclined his head slightly. “Ami.”

I jumped up and screamed for the nurses. One nurse that I’d gotten to know a little over the last few days came over and smiled when she saw him peeking at us. She quickly ran through his vitals, asking him questions that he was only able to answer with one word croaks.

“His throat’s dry.”

I nodded, not really caring why he wasn’t talking properly. I just wanted to know that he was on his way to recovery finally.

The nurses wouldn’t say anything definitive to me until the doctor checked him out. It took nearly two hours for the doctor to come, and another forty minutes for him to conduct a thorough examination. Carson stood with me in the hallway as we waited.

“What is the worst-case scenario?”

“Amelia, you don’t want to dwell on that.”

“I want to know.” I stopped pacing and stared her down. “Tell me.”

She tilted her head slightly. “There could be neurological impairment from the length of time he was under anesthesia and the bad reaction he had. There could be throat or lung problems from the ventilator. He could have lasting bowel issues because of the original injury.”

I nodded, my imagination rushing into overdrive as I considered what life would be like with one or all those possibilities.

“What else?”

She shook her head. “It really is a good sign that he’s finally awake.”

“But he was asleep for so long!”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I told you, the body takes care of itself. His body might have simply kept him asleep until the worse of it was over to protect him from other complications. Nature is an amazing thing, Amelia.”

I nodded, but I was still thinking wheelchairs and walkers and colostomy bags. And then the doctor came out.

“Everything looks good, Amelia. His reflexes are better than mine, his pupils are clear and reactive, his wound is healing nicely.” He smiled hugely. “If I was a betting man, I’d bet Gentry was going to be out of here in three days and fully recovered within a month.”

I struggled to absorb what he was saying. But then it slowly sank in and I turned to Carson. She hugged me and I collapsed against her, relief finally allowing me to feel all the stress and exhaustion that had been waiting just around the corner to take me down.

Noah was okay. Gentry was going to be okay.

I could breathe again.