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“I’m not family.”
“You are now. You’re Gavin’s, which means you’re mine too.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You’re mine,” he stated boldly. “Someone fucks with you, they fuck with me. You and Gavin have been without family for too long.”
She was so distracted by Angel’s primitive views that it almost distracted her from what she was about to walk into. She went to the ICU desk, and when she gave her mother’s name, she received a wary glance. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the nature of her mother’s injuries, because the nurse heard about her freak out, or because of the host of men surrounding her.
“We’re limiting Beatrice Dalton’s visitors,” the nurse said, eyeing her group.
“We’ll wait here,” Angel said and kissed her cheek.
She didn’t know what to make of him. He was blunt, affectionate, and annoying. She glanced at Blade before she followed the nurse to her mother’s room.
“No changes,” the nurse said.
Even though she knew what to expect, the sight of her mother’s bandaged body with tubes coming out of her still hit her like a ton of bricks. She stopped in the doorway, unable to get her legs to move.
When she composed herself, she sat by her mother’s side and cradled her hand. She stared at her mother’s swollen eyelids and willed them to twitch or, better yet, open. Nothing. She rested her aching head on the edge of the bed and breathed. Her mother was all she had left. She had to live.
The beeping monitor and the sound of all the machines got on her nerves. She tried to ignore them, but the longer she sat there, the worse it got. She hated seeing all the tubes and needles and found herself reaching for the IV to rip it out of her mother’s arm before she jerked away. She was turning into a fucking psycho. Was she trying to kill her own mother? She forced herself to leave.
When she left the ICU, she found Blade, Angel, and the rest of the guards in the hallway. Angel moved forward and took her hand again.
“Good. I’m starving,” he said. “You hungry?”
“Hungry?”
“Let’s see what they have in the cafeteria. How’s your mom?”
“Same,” she said numbly as she stared at their clasped hands. She was holding hands with a member of the Roman family, one of the most ruthless and notorious crime families in America.
Angel noticed her glance and shrugged.
“It’s a habit you’ll have to get used to. I’m always taking Luci out, and you have to keep a hold on her or she’ll disappear.”
“Luci?”
“My sister.”
“How old is she?” she asked, trying to imagine Angel escorting a young girl around New York City.
“Twenty-five.”
She was outraged. “You have to hold your twenty-five-year-old sister’s hand?”
“You don’t know Luci. She could get into trouble at a library.”
“Do you hold your brother’s hands too?” she asked snidely, offended on Luci’s behalf.
“Only when they’re drunk,” Angel said without missing a beat.
“Do you always hold women’s hands?”
“Only the ones I don’t want to lose track of.”
“And you’re not married?”
