Take care of your girl. Scouts will be there when she’s out.
Cole glanced at my screen and squeezed my hand. “At least one good thing came from this mess. You’ll get your shot at the NHL.”
“But you gave up yours.” The guilt twisted in my chest. “Cole?—”
“Don’t.” He exhaled slowly. “I feel like I should feel something other than relief.”
“You okay?” I immediately felt foolish asking the question. He’d just killed his own father.
Cole’s thumb traced circles on my palm. “I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter.”
He squeezed my fingers, and I remembered Eva doing the same thing, then steeling her spine whenever she had to do something difficult. How impossibly proud she was and how hard she worked, how hard it had been for her to accept our help. Her quiet strength.
Alek stopped pacing. “We should give her space,” he said.
I stared at him. “What? Absolutely not. We need to show her how much we—” My voice broke. “How much we love her,” I finished, lifting my chin.
His jaw clenched so tight, I could see the veins popping under his beard. “No. We should step back and let her get on her feet without us.”
“The fuck we should.” My voice rose with my frustration. “She almost died! Again! And you want to abandon her?”
“I’m not—” Alek’s hands clenched into fists. “I’m trying to do what’s right for her.”
“Leaving her alone is what’s right?” I was on my feet now, getting in his face. “After everything? After she?—”
“After she nearly died because of me! Because of us!” Alek roared, and the waiting room went dead silent, even the nurses at their station. “Because none of us have earned her trust, and now, she’s in the ICU because I fucked up.”
His voice cracked on the last word.
I inhaled sharply, ready to rebuke him, when Cole spoke up.
“She’s in the hospital again because of us,” Cole said. “Because my father fucked with her to fuck with me.”
“No—” I started.
“Yes.” Cole stood, his movements careful, like he was about to fall apart but didn’t dare, not yet.
“She deserves us,” I said desperately. “She forgave us.”
“Did she?” Alek asked quietly. “Or did we manipulate her into it? How many times did she say no, Tristan? How many times did we ignore her?”
I wanted to argue with them, but then I remembered blackmailing her with Cole, remembered how I kept showing up when she said no, remembered how I’d forced my way back into her life whether she wanted it or not.
“We’re poison,” Cole said, his voice flat. “My father, his business—she’s hurting because twice I was too selfish to let her walk out of my life. If you think this was bad, wait untilthe bloodbath as the bratva fights with my father’s creditors for the remains of his empire. I can’t let her get caught up in this fucking mess.”
“How many times are we going to have to ask for her forgiveness?” Alek murmured. “How much hurt are we going to force her to survive?”
“This is bullshit,” I protested. “Your father did this,” I said to Cole. “He did all of this. Not you.”
“When we had a chance to do better, did we take it?” Cole said. “Did we respect her wishes when she said she never wanted to see us again, or did we manipulate her into taking us back? She nearly died! Again! Because we were too selfish to let her go when we should have.”
“So what are we supposed to do, walk away from her when she needs us most?” I asked.
Alek’s jaw clenched. “We give her what we should have given her from the start—safety and real choice and time to make that choice.”
“Forever?” I rasped.
“As long as it takes,” Cole said, “until she’s ready.”