Page 187 of Mad Love

“Love you, too,” he murmured. He waited for the firefighters to help me to my feet. Then we all walked away from this nightmare.

CHAPTER 65

MADDIE

Despite the hospital room having two beds, only one was occupied. Cori was curled against my side, not quite asleep but the most relaxed she’d been since…

Well, since before her father tried to barbecue us.

Royal sat in a chair on her other side, his phone in his hand as he talked to the guys and his brothers, giving them all a rundown of what had happened. Currently he was on the phone with one of his brothers that I hadn’t met.

“No, man,” he muttered into the phone, “we’re good. You only have ten days left on your contract. Don’t fuck it up by going AWOL.”

“Language,” Cori whispered.

Royal’s lips lifted in a smirk. “Cor’s already giving me sh—crap. Yeah. Hang on.” He held the phone out. “Wanna talk to Rook, baby girl?”

Cori twisted in my arms, reaching for the phone and tangling up the cording of the oxygen cannula fastened to her nose. Royal patiently helped her hold the phone to her ear and move the tubing aside.

“Rook?” Cori said into the phone, hope in her voice.

I couldn’t make out what he said, but it made her smile and then giggle. “A baby? What’s her name?”

My gaze shot to Royal, who leaned back in the seat and folded his arms over his stomach. “Rook’s been staying with the wife of a former teammate. He died in a mission gone wrong in the fall, so Rook stayed with her for a little while.”

My brows raised slowly. “Wow. That’s pretty big of him.”

“Well, it was more complicated than that. Turned out the reason the op went south was because one of their own team betrayed them, but one of the guys got away with some pretty damning intel that Ash helped decrypt over the past few months. Anyway, the guy who fuc—screwed with them was going after the girl of another team member, and she was living with the widow, who just had a baby.”

I blinked, trying to keep up. “It sounds like a freaking novel. Or made-for-TV movie.”

“You were kidnapped and drugged by your father before being caught in an earthquake and then almost burned alive by your ex-father-in-law,” he pointed out.

I winced. “That’s fair.”

“When will I see you?” Cori was asking Rook. Apparently he didn’t give the right answer, because her face fell. Her lips turned down. “It’s okay. Here’s Royal, ‘kay?” She paused, her small mouth twitching. “I miss you, too.”

With a sigh, Cori handed Royal the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”

Royal took the phone and stood but pressed a kiss to Cori’s forehead before walking to the window.

Corinne snuggled her head against my chest. “When will Ryan be here?”

I glanced at the clock. “Any time now, baby.” I stroked her hair, the sooty, brittle texture reminding me that we both needed a shower, but the doctor had given us strict orders to be on oxygen for at least four hours due to the smoke inhalation.

Thirty-two minutes to go before I could yank this thing off my face.

I hated the way the bitter scent of smoke clung to my nostrils. At least we’d changed into hospital gowns, so our clothes didn’t reek. I didn’t miss the pitying look in the nurse’s eyes as she’d bagged them up before asking me if I wanted them. I told her to throw them in the trash. Cori and I didn’t need a reminder of how close we’d come to dying.

Cori’s thumb inched toward her lips. “I miss Ryan.”

Sighing, I pressed my cheek against her head. “Me, too.”

And, like he’d been summoned solely by our mutual need, the door slammed open and Ryan barged inside with the force of an army. Which, considering all the men who crowded into the room behind him, wasn’t too far off the mark.

His electric blue eyes instantly found me and Cori, and his massive shoulders sagged in relief before he closed the distance. He went to Cori’s side of the bed and reached down to hug us both in his strong arms. I wrapped an arm around his back and felt a tremor shudder down his frame.

“It’s okay. We’re okay,” I whispered against his ear.

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