with us. Her hand locked tight around my fingers and I held my breath as I waited to hear what he had to say. Whether he was about to end the world or save it.
The doctor's face split into a tired smile and hope blossomed in my chest like the rising sun.
"He survived the surgery. We stopped the bleeding. I can’t even begin to explain how unlikely...” He trailed off, shaking his head in disbelief. “Truly he should be dead. In fact, he was dead - twice. But by God, he's one stubborn bastard. His heart just kept coming back to life. He must have something he really wants to live for because I've never seen someone fight so hard to stay with us."
"Oh thank fuck," Tatum gasped before descending into sobs as I hugged her close and a relieved laugh fell from Nash's lips.
"When will he wake?" Saint demanded, getting to his feet and only looking marginally relieved. I knew he wouldn't believe it was true until he was looking Kyan dead in the face and seeing it for himself.
It had been a week of agony, waiting for him to wake up since his surgery to remove the bullet that was lodged in his abdomen. It had taken them hours to repair all the damage that had been done by it and pull it out of him, and he’d been in a fucking state afterwards. Then this morning he’d started bleeding internally again and they’d rushed him in for emergency surgery.
We’d endured seven days of hell while they'd kept him in an induced coma and monitored him constantly, warning us about how bad the odds were and encouraging us to say goodbye while we had that chance. Like hell we had. None of us had said a single goodbye to him. All he'd heard from the four of us all week were demands for him to fight this, stay with us, come back swinging like he always did. And it looked like the asshole had been listening. Though when they’d rushed him into the ER again an hour ago, I could admit that I’d been freaking the fuck out.
"Soon. If one of you wants to see him now, then-"
"We'll all go," Saint said forcefully, giving the doctor a look which was clearly aimed to remind him of who exactly was paying his wages here.
Tatum didn't wait for the doctor to agree, leaping from my lap but keeping hold of my hand and dragging me after her as she ran for the door.
Nash and Saint swept past the doctor too and we practically charged down the corridor to Kyan's room.
The place had been cleaned and aired out while he was in surgery, but he lay there now in the centre of the large hospital bed with the IV hooked up to his arm and more colour in his cheeks than I'd seen all week.
Tatum hurried to his side, smoothing his hair away from his face and leaning down to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. His eyes flickered beneath the lids and I grabbed one of the chairs, dragging it right up behind her so that she could curl herself into it while staying right beside him.
We pulled the other chairs close to the bed too, all of us crowding around him, watching him sleep and waiting for the drugs to wear off while Tatum held his hand.
"I feel like our future just opened up before us again," I murmured, breathing a sigh of relief.
"We just got our life back," Nash agreed, clapping a hand on my shoulder and squeezing tightly.
We shared a look, and I knew he was thinking of how it had felt to be chained up on that cross waiting to die just like I was. Everything had come so close to falling to shit yet somehow, here we all were, alive, free. My dad was safe back at our family home, nothing but a few scrapes and bruises to show for his time held captive at Royaume D’élite. And the club itself was gone. We'd killed all of the major players aside from Troy and Saint had officially handed over every bit of evidence he had on the club of horrors to his contacts within the FBI yesterday so that they could take down the rest.
It was all over the news, but there wasn't so much as a peep about any of us. Nothing. We were ghosts who didn't exist so far as