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My thighs felt wobbly and powerless.
Even my feet were unsteady and hating me.
But somehow, I found the energy to push myself off the doorframe, dragging my body toward the bed, my breathing more labored the closer I got.
It was one thing to see the damage from afar.
It was a whole other thing to view it this close.
There were pads on his chest, an oxygen tube in his nose, and machines behind him that were monitoring his status.
The beep, beep, beep was all because of me.
The bruises were a midnight purple, not a violet, like I’d originally thought.
The cut on his cheek was much more rooted and jagged than it had looked from the doorway, the stitches so thick that I could see the exact spots where they had been weaved and sewn through his skin.
I could only imagine what was beneath the blanket. The color of those bruises. The cuts. The blood.
Oh God.
My knees buckled and slammed onto the floor beside his bed. “Diesel …” I sank to the ground, my forehead resting on his arm, a spot that was just as battered. I didn’t want to hurt him more, but I needed to feel him at the same time. “I’m sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I’m so, so sorry.”
That wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
“I’m going to be okay.” His voice—guttural, scratchy, and hoarse—cut straight through the air.
A reply that might as well have twisted the blade.
“I need you to be okay.” I wrapped both of my hands around his, looking up across his broad chest. “I need you to make a full recovery. I need you to be the same person you were before tonight.”
In every scenario I’d ever seen him, he looked massive.
But not here.
Here, in this bed, he looked small.
Frail.
Fragile.
I tried not to squeeze his palm, but I couldn’t help it. “I’m not going to leave you, Diesel. No matter how long you have to stay in Edinburgh, I’ll be here. At your side.”
I couldn’t do that for Preston. I’d wanted to, but I couldn’t. If Brady had to put a guard at the door of Diesel’s hospital room, I didn’t care; I wasn’t leaving this man alone. Not when he’d risked his life for us.
I rubbed his hand over my cheek. “I promise you’ll have me here until you walk out of this hospital.”
He locked his thumb around my hand. “You’ve got a good one here, Brady.”
How could he say that?
After everything that had happened tonight?
A night that still didn’t make sense to me. All I knew was the phone call had come in from hotel security, telling Brady that they’d found Diesel on the floor in the hallway outside our room. That the ambulance brought him to the hospital. We’d immediately left dinner and caught a taxi and come here, where we were taken into the emergency department.
What my gut told me was that David hadn’t been caught by the hotel security. That somehow, he’d slipped in and out without being detected.
