Page 119 of Their Broken Legend

He halts before his eldest son, the submission in his loose shoulders a message of how defeated he is.

What could he possibly say?

How can he explain another absence?

Luca swallows hard. “I couldn’t decide on which tie to wear for the moment the doctor tells me that my boy is dead.”

Tears rush in twin rapids down my face.

Clay exhales a shaky breath. “You needed time.”

“He needed you!” Max barks from the seat, vibrating with restraint, his muscles flexing and convulsing against an angry need for violence.

Luca’s nose flares with the effort to not burst into roaring tears. He stares at Max through the rising emotion. “Let me be here now, son. Don’t send me away.”

God, the look on Max’s face.

Max is on his feet, storming over to his father, fisting his shirt and getting an inch from his face. “Don’t call me son! I have never been more disgusted to call myself a Butcher.”

The man opposite me curses, thrusting his hand through his hair. I cry harder; the pain is so palpable it’s sucking the air from my lungs, and I can’t breathe.

I watch through a moving pool of emotion.

Luca doesn’t fight his son, holding his livid stare in a submissive pool of tears. “I’ve never been prouder to callyoumy son, Max.”

“Don’t do that,” Max hisses. “Your words are worthless. Leave! We don’t need you here.”

Max releases him with a shove—wanting him far away—and stalks back to the seat opposite me, dropping down, showing the weakness of sorrow consuming his otherwise powerful muscles.

“Let me do one thing right!” Luca’s voice soars across the waiting room, breaking the fuck apart. “For once in my goddamn life, let me do one thing right! I’ll stay. I’ll stay until the end. Until his final breath.”

I hide my face behind my hands and sob into them, tears squeezing out defiantly. The feel of my mum’s hand soothing my spine only wrenches more emotions from me, the safety she offers with her touch enabling me to really feel everything we might soon lose.

And I don’t know what is worse: the waiting or the doctor’s words.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-SIX

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Thirty minutes later,the hairs on my arms rise as a man in a doctor’s coat appears in front of Clay.

I leap to my feet but stay in the background as the other Butcher men, Max, Luca, and Konnor—crowd the doctor.

Far more interested in ducking past them all, rushing into the room that he just left, and climbing into bed with my broken lover. But I stay.

Fight the impulse in my legs.

I quickly look at the Butcher Boys. Konnor is beside Luca; his proximity seems almost supportive. His body is not tight with the same bitterness that twists at his brothers’.

While Max stands with his arms over his chest, a protective pose that contains all the emotion I saw earlier. Red eyes betray that stance. And Clay has his hands clasped in front of him, expectantly.

The doctor’s greying brows are weaved, pensive. It’s a serious expression, one that I want to pick apart. He’s not scared…So, Xander is alive.He’s not smiling…So, it’s not over yet? Can I read into this more—

“Your brother has been stabilised.”

I cover a gasp; the sound follows shaky, soundless sobs.

He’s alive.

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