accept the fat check that Luis wrote as a “donation” to not ask any more questions.
Between the two of them, they had bruised ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a few broken fingers, and mild concussions. Bonham was in the room beside mine, and he’d already had three surgeries to try and repair the damage to his foot. When the police came to question him about the obvious gunshot wound, he claimed that he’d stolen Rogue’s father’s gun and it had gone off during the collision.
Johnny Jack’s body was left inside his car alongside his driver, already burning to a crisp by the time the fire truck showed up. Rocco and his guys were long gone, and his name never passed our lips. As far as the hospital or cops knew, he was just a doting father to his injured daughter who’d been in the car with me.
And then there was Rogue.
I took a shaky breath, the sound mingling with the beeping machines as I watched him. I had every bruise memorized. Every cut. The deep discoloration of his skin. The fourteen stitches lining his skull. With dry eyes, I assessed every inch of the man I loved. I’d snuck in here an hour ago, right after my nurse did one of her nightly checks.
Mama had left hours ago. She’d been opting to go home to her bed rather than to stay with me at nights. I wasn’t surprised. She put on a good show, crying for the nurses when I woke up. I knew she cared for me, but her reaction felt hollow, and I was too exhausted to play pretend with her. My daddy was conveniently in the Bahamas with his girlfriend again, so he was off the hook as far as hospital visits. He sent a bouquet of flowers and a “Get well soon” balloon in lieu of himself.
My fingers curled around Rogue’s as I studied him. He was nearly unrecognizable. His face was mottled with bruises, a neck brace surrounded his neck, and for the first two days, he’d had such bad head trauma that they’d kept him in a medically induced coma until the swelling went down. He’d only woken up twice since then, once for a few minutes with the doctor, and once earlier tonight, when I’d been in my room.
I let my finger trace along the edge of his hand, needing to keep feeling him. Every time the nurse dragged me back to my own private room, my heart started racing with panic again. It only settled if I could be with him. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw the look on his face while I’d been dragged away, helpless to stop the men breaking his body.
Mr. and Mrs. Kelly called the hospital often to check in on their son. They didn’t bother to take the eight hour flight from London, though. They’d argued that they just couldn’t break away from the lucrative oil deal they were in the process of negotiating. I wasn’t sure I even knew what the Kelly’s looked like anymore. It had been a good few years since they bothered to be home with their son, and it infuriated me that they wouldn’t come even now. They loved money more than their own blood, and it made me sick.
I must’ve dozed off, because the next thing I knew, something woke me up. Blinking the sleepy haze from my eyes, I looked over to see Bonham beside me, sitting in his wheelchair. His foot was bandaged thickly from his toes to his knee, propped up and looking about twice the size of his other leg. Of course, because he was Bonham, he wasn’t wearing the blue hospital gown that I was stuck in. Nope, he was in a pretty collared shirt and khaki shorts, like he was ready to go out golfing.
“Hey,” I croaked, picking my head up. My collarbone shrieked in pain, but I gritted my teeth.
Bonham flicked his eyes over to me. “Hey.”
“I couldn’t sleep in my room,” I admitted, carefully releasing Rogue’s hand to adjust my arm sling.
Bonham nodded, like he understood. “Yeah.”
I studied him for a moment, noting the dark circles under his eyes. His dark blonde hair wasn’t combed perfectly to the side, and instead was a disheveled mess.
“How are you?” I asked, but before he could open his mouth to feed me bullshit, I cut him off. “I’m not your mama or daddy. It’s me asking, Bonham. I wanna know how you are.”
He snorted