Page 89 of Sebastian

“Sebastian, I know you want him to answer for this but there is no way that I can tell you to hunt him. My official stance is that you need to let me handle this through the proper channels.”

“And unofficially?”

“I hope you kill the bastard when you find him. We’ll figure things out from there.” Hank walked back to Daisy and sat, laying his hand on her belly as he kissed her cheek.

They sat in the waiting room for hours. When Natalie walked in, Sebastian tried to reign in his rage.

“What happened? Is Emma going to be okay?” Natalie asked frantically.

“We haven’t heard anything yet,” Sebastian growled. “I thought she was spending the night with you.”

“T-that was the plan, but she said she wanted to go back to the hotel after we had dinner and talked. She said Gage was coming to pick her up. I went in to check on Addie, and when I came back, she was gone. I-I didn’t even think something like this could happen.”

“How did she get past your security without it alarming as she left?”

“I disarmed it for a minute so she could leave when Gage got there.”

Sebastian saw red. It wouldn’t do him any good to lose his temper on Natalie. He got up and quickly paced around the waiting room. When he couldn’t take the emotions boiling up inside any longer, he rested his body against the wall, his head falling into his hands. “Oh no, it’s my fault, isn’t it?”

Sebastian was about to lay into her when a voice at the entrance to the waiting room interrupted him.

“Excuse me.” His eyes whipped up to the doctor. “Are you Emma Sullivan’s family?”

“Yes.” Seb pushed against the wall, racing forward to the doctor. “How is she?”

“Don’t you dare talk to him. I’m her emergency contact, he is nothing to her.”

“That’s not true, Daisy. I love her.”

“Would you prefer we go somewhere quiet to talk?” The doctor asked her, and his heart sank into his stomach when he watched Daisy nod in agreement.

As the two women turned to walk away, Seb reached out, gently grasping Daisy’s arm.

“You have every right to be upset with me. I will never forgive myself for what’s happened. But please, I need to know what’s going on. I have to know if she…” his voice cracked with emotion.

“Please take your hand off my arm, Sebastian.” Her eyes went to his hand and she lowered her arm the instant he released her. “I will find out what is going on, and then I will come back and let you know what I think she would want you to know. Nothing more, until she is okay to decide what information is shared. Got it?”

“Thank you. I’m not going anywhere.”

The minutes while Daisy was away with the doctor were agonizing. He couldn’t help but let his mind scrutinize every emotion that had been painted across the doctor’s face. Was she being calm and cool because she was shutting down her emotions to tell them the worst? Or was she just trying to be stone-faced to not give them too much hope as she delivered good news? Was Emma okay after surgery? Would they be able to tell that now or would she need extensive monitoring for some time before they could determine her outcome?

He should be on the phone to the top physicians in the country right now coordinating her recovery care, but he didn’t know what had actually happened, or anything about the injuries she’d sustained. He wanted to be angry with Daisy, but couldn’t because he completely agreed with her.

He pulled his cell phone out.

“Seb, what’s going on? Why are you calling me this early?” His oldest brother Declan cleared his throat from the other side of the line.

“I fucked up. I fucked up and the woman I love is going to die because I was too big of an idiot to see what was in front of me.”

“Whoa, slow down, Seb. What do you mean the woman you love? When the fuck did this happen?”

Sebastian walked to the far wall of the waiting room and pressed his back into the concrete. Tears fell down his face in a constant stream, but he didn’t care. The guys knew how much Emma meant to him. Hell, he knew how quickly they’d grown to love her like family, too. He held nothing back as he told his brother what happened.

“Shit, Seb. What do you need? What can I do?”

“Can you come down here?”

“Yeah, I’ll get a flight out as soon as I can.”

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