Page 137 of Mafie Kings

This is all a mess, a huge fucking mess, and I don’t know where it started or where it’s going to end, but I do know we won’t make it long without her.Iwon’t make it long without her. Even if I’m angry with her, I still love her. Which is why she has to pull through.

“She can’t die,” I whisper softly.

Alexi doesn’t say anything. We sit there and wait for almost eleven hours. Eventually, everyone comes to join us on the lawn. Angelo came from the boat, standing beside Alexi with his hands clasped in prayer. Arrow, who hasn’t left Laney's side, looks solemn as she silently cries into his shirt. For the first time in a long time, I haven’t moved an inch.

Even though we’re outside, the weight of the situation seems to constrict around us. Trapping us in a somber mood while we wait to hear Evie’s fate. The effects from the alcohol I from earlier are gone now and I’m left feeling empty and betrayed.

“Son,” Boris says from the doors, “you guys will want to hear this.”

We all walk in together to find the Doc nervously wringing his hands while standing with Boris. As soon as he sees us, he raises them slightly and my gut falls. My knees threaten to give out, but Lev pulls me harder to him, hard enough to catch Boris’ attention.

“We were able to get her stable,” Doc says. It takes a few seconds for the words to register until I’m finally able to take a breath for the first time in what feels like weeks.

“Waking up will be up to her. She could stay asleep for days because her body knows she needs rest to recover, but she should be out of the woods.”

“Where is she?” Alexi asks as I try to process the information.

“She’s in our ICU. We are keeping her sedated through the night to give her body the best chance to recover. She won’t wake up until tomorrow at the earliest, so you will all be able to get some rest.”

“Room?” Lev asks while we all ignore the suggestion to rest.

“1102,” he says with a sigh, and we all turn to go see her.

“Don’t crowd the room,” Boris says, but we ignore him too. I still don’t know why he showed up, but he will have to wait. I need to see that Evie is alive more than I need breath in my lungs.

Opening the door, I take in everything: multiple IV’s in her arms, a line in her neck, tubing in her throat to help her breathe, monitors all beeping at different times, and a shit ton of meds flowing into her. Her face is swollen and bruised; her lip is cut open with dried blood marking the tubing. Her right leg is in a brace and her right hand has a bandage around it.

The sight would make anyone sick, but all I can feel is relief. Her heart rate on the screen proves to me that she’s alive, even if a machine is breathing for her, her heart is still beating on its own.

I sit in the chair to the side as Lev carefully takes her good hand in his and bends down to kiss it. Silent tears slide down his cheeks, while Alexi brushes her hair to the side more gently than I’ve ever seen him do anything in his life. The girls stand at the end of her bed, but it’s Laney who finally speaks.

“What the fuck happened?” she says, anger and hostility in her tone.

The three of us exchange glances, not sure who we can trust right now. But to my surprise, Alexi answers her.

“When she was with you, someone dropped off a package at the suite, proving she’s been working behind our backs and feeding information about our organization to someone else in order to…” he pauses, taking a deep breath and moving to sit at the chair on her other side.

“Well, we actually never asked why.” Alexi’s brows pinch, contemplating the impact our actions had. His uncertainty matches the guilt that twists my insides.

“We watched her on video admit to who she was, but she didn’t know we were watching. When she came back to the room, we were angry and…” Alexi pauses again, shifting in his seat and looking at Evie. “We basically told her to leave.”

“Basically?” Laney questions, knowing full well that more happened than what Alexi is saying.

“What would you have done?” Lev asks Laney without taking his eyes off Evie. “What if you found out someone you loved was working against you?” He’s not accusatory with his tone, just curious.

“I would have talked to her,” Laney says without hesitation. “I would have sat down and tried to understand what made her do that.”

I scoff at the simplicity of her response. That's easy to say when you’re not in the situation. Laney whirls on me, looking so much like Evie for a second that I’m stunned.

“This,” she says as she gestures to the room like this is all of our faults, “this is exactly why women get more shit done. Welistenand ask questions. We don’t make assumptions, then shut down and only hear what we want to hear.”

She shakes her head like a mother would in disappointment with their child. Laney sits down on the small couch at the end of the bed with Nessa right beside her.

“You’re looking at it all wrong,” Nessa says, speaking for the first time today. “You got a package from someone you don’t know, which let out Evie’s secret. That means someone else here knows who she is. Not only that, but you were able to catch Evie doing or saying something she didn’t want you to see or hear. That doesn’t sound right to me.” She looks at Evie, then around at us. “We need guards at her door. This needs to stay secret. If someone was able to manipulate and plan all of this, then we need to have our guard up.”

We all nod in agreement. “Alexi,” Lev says, “we need to get supplies and set up the room next door for us. We need to write it all down so we can piece things together.”

He nods.

---