Four shifts beside me, jaw tight but steady. Dani’s name is tattooed on the inside of his wrist, it ripples as he clenches his fists. He’s locked in, focused.
“Three-day loop,” Angel adds. “Maybe four.”
Shit.
Four glances at me. “I’ll take the second unit.”
I nod, butfuck…Bex won’t like it. Not because she’s clingy, because she hates not knowing. She hates staying here alone.
When I push open our door, she’s sitting cross-legged on the bed in worn jeans and a tank top, hair still damp from a shower, reading something on her tablet.
She looks small in this room.
“You’re back early,” she says without looking up.
“Church wrapped quickly.”
That gets her attention. She studies my face like she’s reading a lab result.
“How bad?”she asks, her voice soft.
“Bad enough.”
I toe off my boots and sat beside her. The room smells faintly like her shampoo, and I want to bury myself in her scent, surround myself in all things her.
The walls are thin and somewhere down the hall a door slams. Laughter bleeds through drywall. Bex flinches slightly at the noise. I pretend not to notice because I can’t deal with that argument tonight, not when I know she won’t be happy with what I have to tell her.
“I’m heading out tonight. Could be a few days.”
Her jaw tightens for a fraction of a second before she smooths out her reaction.
“Okay,” she says, seeming to work through something in her mind. “I’ll just stay on call at the hospital, pick up overtime... There are on-call rooms upstairs I can stay in.”
“No.” It comes out sharper than I meant it to, but fuck that.
Her eyes lift slowly. “No?” she repeats, arching one brow.
“This is your home,” I say, keeping my voice level. “There’s shit moving right now. I need to know you’re here. Behind these gates.”
Her fingers dig into the edge of the tablet.
“Behind the gates,” she echoes.
“Yeah.”
Where I can protect you. Where Angel can protect you. Where my brothers stand watch.
She sets the tablet aside carefully, straightening herself out before looking at me saying, “You know the hospital has security and cameras. I would be safe there...”
“Not like this place.” I cut her off. Because my wife is not hiding out at the fucking hospital.
She doesn’t answer and the silence stretches longer than I like.
“You don’t trust it,” she says finally.
“I trust us.”
That’s the difference between us. I trust loyalty, my brothers above all else.