Just then, Karsen appeared at the edge of the room pushing a disgruntled-looking Brysen in a wheelchair. She looked disheveled and messy, but her eyes lit up from the inside when she saw me. I got to my feet and clapped a hand on Titus’s beefy shoulder.
“No, it never gets easier, but there are some things and some people that make the fight worthwhile.”
I made my way over to the girls and first kissed Karsen on the cheek then bent down to drop a kiss on top of Brysen’s head.
“Are you ready to blow this place?”
She nodded and looked up at her sister. “We were just talking about that. Where exactly are we going to go? The condo is a mess, I don’t know if the bank took the house from Dad yet, and there isn’t enough room at the loft for all of us.”
I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck and thought about it for a second.
“You guys can crash at Bax and Dovie’s. They have a guest room big enough for both of you until I can get the condo back in order.”
Brysen immediately started to shake her head at me. “No. Where are you going to go?”
“Back to the garage for a week or so. I just have to get the blood and stuff out of the condo.”
Titus made a noise behind me and I gave him a look over my shoulder. He shrugged at me and gave me a smirk. “That sounds like it’s becoming your full-time job—cleaning up the blood.”
I definitely had to do it far more often than I wanted to admit to. Not that I was in any kind of rush to tell him he was right.
“Why don’t you take Karsen to your brother’s and I’ll keep Brysen with me in the city until I get things straightened out in a more permanent way.” I glanced at the girls. “Does that work for you?”
Brysen just stared at me for a minute and then looked at Karsen. “Bax and Dovie’s place is closer to the high school, so I guess it’s fine for now unless you want to see if Dad’s still at the house.” Her tone indicated that she didn’t have much faith in her dad still hanging around after the curtain had been pulled back on his selfish actions.
Once again, Karsen proved that she was too wise and too aware for someone of her young age. “No, I’ll go to Dovie’s for a while. I think I’ve had enough of both Mom and Dad for right now.”
Once that was settled, we all filed out of the hospital and went in opposite directions once we hit the parking lot. I helped Brysen into the Stingray and fielded her rapid-fire questions about Booker’s condition and about how Dovie was doing. She seemed far more concerned about everyone else’s well-being than her own, but she was alert and totally on point and claimed that even though she had a nasty shiner and an enormous bruise on her temple, she felt fine. She wasn’t shaky, didn’t seem to be stewing or gloomy over the fact that she had been attacked or seen a man murdered right at her feet. In fact, she asked me to take her somewhere to get her hair fixed and just seemed ready to keep on rolling like nothing major had just happened to her.
I didn’t buy it for a second. Dovie had done the same thing initially after being snatched and scarred by Novak. It only took a few days for the nightmares to set in and then the moment of silence when it became obvious that she was lost in her head and reliving her moments of terror over and over again. I was just going to have to brace myself for when the storm hit with my pretty blonde.
Only I took her to fix her hair, which turned out even edgier and more like a twenties flapper than it already was, took her to get something to eat, took her back to the loft so she could shower and take a nap, and she still seemed rock solid. The next day she wanted me to take her shopping for some essentials, she wanted to go by the restaurant to explain why she was missing so much work and make sure she still had a job, and she wanted to go by the university to square up with her teachers. That night she cuddled into my side and fell asleep like there was nothing in her world to keep her up. The day after that, she wanted me to take her to Dovie’s so she could say thank you and see her sister. I dropped her off with a kiss, fully expecting her to be an emotional mess considering Dovie was still all banged up and had killed a man for her, but when I went back to pick her up after touching base with Nassir and Bax about business stuff, she was her typical cool and collected self and surprised the crap out of me by practically jumping me as soon as we got back to the loft.
I would never turn Brysen down when she wanted to have sex, but I was stunned, trying to treat her with care and delicacy considering her ordeal, but she was having none of it. She pushed, pulled, kissed, sucked, scratched, and writhed against me until it was too much to take and I ended up losing control and fucked her like I normally did. When it was over, I was left breathing heavy with her curled naked and satisfied against my chest. She had a sexy little half smile on her face and her eyes were heavy-lidded and sultry as she stroked a lazy hand up and down my chest. I wanted to question her about it, ask her how she was doing and make her tell me how she was really feeling, but before I could form the words, she was breathing evenly and had dozed off on me again, sleeping like a damn baby while I pondered what her actions, or rather nonactions, meant.
When she stirred an hour or so later, she rolled over onto me so that she was straddling my waist and looking down at me with her hands braced on my chest. Her blue eyes always reminded me of the prettiest summer day, and even with her bruised face she was still the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. The way she was handling herself, her resilience, made her even more amazing in my eyes and I kind of envied her. After Novak’s goons had kicked my ass and left me broken, I had holed away in this fortress for months and months, afraid of what else I might lose in the game I was playing with the Point. She was far braver and stronger than I was.