Page 112 of Dead Serious with Benefits
“No, because this time you barely got hurt, I was the one left to bleed out on the floor, and you didn’t get much more than bumps and bruises. Has that ever happened before?”
“Can’t say it has,” I admitted slowly. “Are you trying to say the curse is broken?”
“I don’t know, maybe. I guess we’ll find out. Hopefully, that doesn’t mean I will need to go to the hospital every other week if the curse just got shifted around. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend that much time in a hospital.”
I snorted, brushing his hair out of his face. “I don’t think you have to worry too much about that.”
“You agree then?”
“I’m willing to see if you’re right without making a snap judgment.”
“That’s just...normal for you.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. Other than the gunshot wound, he had minimal injuries, so I didn’t have to treat him too carefully. He was going to need a while to recover from being shot in the chest, but time was something we had. “I hope you’re looking forward to how uncomfortable you’re going to be. One of my fears came true, your heart was hit...barely, but enough to cause some damage. And your left lung was punctured.”
“I kind of figured that out when I couldn’t breathe as well as I used to while lying on the ground,” he said, smiling when I gently laid my free hand on his stomach. “Things were kind of fuzzy near the end there, but my mother confirmed the one thing I couldn’t remember whether it was real...well, and?—”
His eyes narrowed, and I blinked. “What?”
“Your neck.”
“Oh,” I felt myself flush. “Yes, Devon got his hands on me. They tell me I’m lucky there was no permanent damage. I have a sore throat that will linger for a while, but nothing to worry about.”
“And your mom really beat the shit out of him?”
“She struck him, apparently harder than I originally thought. I’m not sure if she knows about his status or if she’ll even care that much when she’s told.”
“I’d tell her,” he said with a smile. “She deserves to know what she’s willing to do to save one of her own.”
“You say that as if she doesn’t already know,” I said.
“Make sure to tell her in front of your siblings, that way the next time she threatens them, they’ll think twice.”
“Matilda has never threatened to use violence to keep any of us in line,” I said with a laugh.
“I distinctly remember the other day she was threatening to beat your brother so hard he would fit in a shoebox by the time she was done,” he said with a snort.
“Well, Mason has that effect on people,” I said with a shrug. “It’s no worse than what Moira or Jace has threatened him with in the past.”
“Speaking of...how is everyone?”
“Mmm, Matilda and Marcus got a few bruises, but they were sent on their way, nothing serious. Your parents were barely touched; apparently, they put up less of a fight than the rest of us. Although your mother did get the back of someone’s hand when they ambushed her and started making demands,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. I didn’t remember seeing a mark on her face, so they hadn’t been too rough with her.
“Which explains why she was behaving,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “I couldn’t tell you the last time someone was willing to hit her...well, other than me. I never hit her, but I’ve been tempted.”
“The rest of the staff were more or less okay. One of the cooks broke his hand trying to get out of the cooler. Matilda said he was swearing up and down that he could come back to cook breakfast in the morning because he didn’t need both hands.”
“That would be Kevin. When my mother hired him, I thought she was having a midlife crisis.”
“Um...why?”
“Because he looks like he just came out of prison, ink, shaved head, the works. I thought she might be having some sort of crisis where she suddenly wanted a younger, hotter man around the place. Then I tasted something he made and realized it was probably because she liked watching him work, but also because he was good at it.”
“Very...efficient.”
“That’s my mother for you. By the way, I also wasn’t out of it so badly that I didn’t realize there was no reason for police and paramedics to show up when they did. Do we know what happened?”
“Devon might have been proud at how well he thought they executed his plan, but the reality is that they missed someone.”
