Page 134 of Diamond In The Rough

“How long?”

“Four months.”

“That’s sixty loads,” Minka sneers. “Sixty trucks, with twenty-five girls and women on board. And only three have been intercepted?”

“Doing our best. My job was to watch Tiia, and Tiia’s job was to keep Malone out of Wilkes’ scope.” He forces his eyes open and stares at me over his sister’s body. “We don’t have to like you to want to keep you alive. Letting Wilkes destroy a founding family would end only with blood on the streets and a free-for-all as the city scrambles to reestablish a new hierarchy. Your family is trash,” he decides, dropping his gaze again, “but it’s not the trash my team has to take out.”

“Stop being mean to them.” Tiia’s sleepy, rumbling voice startles my hand away from her flesh. Then her twitching eyelids send me shooting up straight, my spine crackling into place as my heart thunders. Shoving to my feet, I press my hands to the mattress and stand over her, searching her slack face.

“Tiia?”

She clears her throat. Barely. The tiniest movement that still ends with a furrowed brow and pain, I know, shooting into her abdomen.

“Mo chroí? Hey?”

“Mo chroí,” Roscoe growls. “The fuck is that?”

“Shhh…” She whispers. “No arguing. It hurts my brain.”

“Ipo?” He grabs her hand and squeezes it between his palms, bringing it to his lips without a single care for the fact he jerks her swollen and aching body. “You’re awake.”

“I got shot?” Her voice is raspy and dry. Her words, painful and scratching. But she fights to push her eyes open, the amber coloring so typically setting me on fire, now surrounded in red.

So tired. Broken.

But then she finds me, silent, observing. Near. And her lips curl into a small smile. “I knew you would be here.”

“You kn—” I reach to the bedside cabinet and pick up a plastic cup of water. Then I glance at the only doctor I know and wait for her approval.

Smirking, Minka lifts her shoulder in a shrug. “I want to reiterate, for the record, I specialize in the dead, so…”

So I yank the water out of reach. But Tiia brings her hand up anyway, weakly searching for my arm as my eyes swing back around and down.

“I’m thirsty.” She drags her bottom lip between her teeth and sleepily sighs, her eyes flickering closed as exhaustion threatens to take her. “I’m part fish. I’m allowed to have water.”

I look at Roscoe, my co-parent in a wildly unconventional situation. He’s a fucking Fed, and yet, I defer to him for permission. My dead, buried, and decomposed piece of shit father would roll in his shallow grave if he knew. But when he nods, small and defeated, I bring my gaze back to Tiia. “How do you feel?”

“Like I got shot.” She wraps her hand around my wrist—part guiding for me, I suppose, and part support for her limp hand. “Like I pulled off the greatest heist of all time.”

“What heist?” I place my free hand behind her head and gently help her lift an inch or two off her pillow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I was a federal agent who danced with the devil himself.” Swallowing, she closes her eyes and lies back, exhausted and breathing heavier than she was even a moment ago. “I screwed a lot of things up, and I broke a good man’s heart.”

“No, you?—”

“You hated me. Or at least,” she breathes, pained and broken. “You pretended to hate me. All to send me away.”

“Tiia, s?—”

“But all I had to do to get you back was take a bullet in the belly. I knew that would bring you running.” She lazily smacks her lips and grins. “Did I ever tell you about that time I swam with sharks?”

“This is what I’m sayin’,” Roscoe snarls. “She’s going surfing whether we like it or not, hupo. Now you’re in the water too, and it’s your job to make sure she stays in one piece.”

“Stop talking about me. And stop calling him names.” She drags her beautiful eyes open and searches mine, though she smirks. It’s lazy and silly. But so fucking beautiful, it makes me sick. “He’s calling you stupid, by the way. But you called me a creature,” she releases a contented smile, sleepy and satisfied. “We know you meant love.”

“Tiia—”

“He means love, too. He’s just stressed.”

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