Ruined (Barnes Brothers #4)(6)

Immediately, he regretted it, and not just because it sent pain arcing through his side.

“Sebastien.”

At Zach’s voice, he looked away from his mother’s averted face.

“What?”

“You were out having dinner—you’d been with Monica,” his brother said in a low voice. Low, intense. “Do you remember?”

“Monica . . .” Closing his eyes, he struggled to do just that. Remember. “She was going to kiss me.”

Clouds half hid the memory, but as he focused, they started to lift. “I . . . I didn’t really much care if she did. Crazy . . . as much as I missed her. I thought I’d do almost anything to get her back.”

“Do you remember what happened next?” Zach asked tautly.

Sebastien swept his gaze to his brother. Pain sliced through him—his face, his side—as memory sharpened. Clarified.

“Hanson,” he rasped.

Clutching one hand in the sheets, he said, “Monica. Is she . . . Did he . . .”

“Seb . . .” Zach gripped his hand. “I’m sorry, man. She’s gone.”

Staring up at the white ceiling and the painfully bright light, Sebastien let that word roll through him. Gone.

He could see her in that pretty dress, her hair curling around her face as she smiled at him.

She was . . . “Fuck. She’s gone. He killed her.”

“You did everything you could.”

Turning his face away from his mother’s voice, he closed his one good eye. “No, I didn’t.”

After all, he hadn’t even known she was in trouble.

Staring at the wall in front of him, the silence behind him growing more and more weighted, he felt a numb cold spreading through him and he welcomed it. “What about that f*ck, Smith?”

“Hanson Smith, he’s . . .”

His father didn’t finish, and Sebastien turned his head, staring hard at Ron. “He’s what?” he demanded.

“He’s dead.” His father looked like he’d aged a decade. “He’s dead. He had a gun . . . Do you— Well, that’s neither here nor there. He drew a gun on you and you had the knife he’d . . .”

“The one he’d rammed into me,” Sebastien said caustically. He barely recognized his own voice.

“Yes.” Ron just nodded. “He’s gone. Died almost instantly. Nobody else was hurt or anything.”

“Just Monica.”

Ron came closer and Sebastien flinched when his father squeezed his shoulder. “It’s okay to be upset.”

Upset. Am I upset? He didn’t know what he was. Slowly, he edged his legs over the side of the bed.

When his father moved to his side, he waved him away.

Something jabbed into his arm and he scowled, staring at the IV tubing. With deliberate thoroughness, he peeled back the tape and pulled out the needle, ignoring his parents and his brothers. He couldn’t see worth shit, thanks to the bandage, and he craned his head around, trying to see the room more clearly.

Travis was even there, silent, like always. His face was grimmer than usual.

Reaching up, Sebastien touched the bandage and pain flared under the light pressure.

Blood dripped from his arm as he rose and moved over to the mirror hanging over the sink.

The bandage was a thick, heavy pad and it covered the left side of his face from just under his hairline down to his jawbone, a bizarre Phantom of the Opera—just without an eyehole. He reached up and started to peel the tape away.

“Damn it, Sebastien, you’re bleeding all over the place and you’re going to rip the stitches out.” Zach came toward him, reaching up to try and catch his hands. “Wait for the nurse. I’ll go get her.”

But Zane interfered, blocking Zach and nudging him away. “He’s on his feet and steady.”

“The nurse—”

“Zach. Let him see,” Denise said softly.

It was Zane who joined him at the mirror.

Zane who came up and helped with the tape.

Zane who took the discarded bandages and who used them to make a temporary one for the bloody place on his arm where the IV had been.

And Zane was the one standing there when Sebastien forced himself to look at his face.

The scar ran in a jagged line from his forehead, just above the eyebrow, all the way down until it stopped about an inch away from the corner of his mouth. His eye was taped shut, and when he tried to open it instinctively, it hurt like a motherf*cker.

The cold inside him spread even more.

“I look like Frankenstein’s monster.”

“Nonsense,” Denise said. “We’ve already gotten the names of some plastic surgeons—”

“No.”

He turned back to the bed, but Zane blocked him. “We need to get your arm looked at, Seb,” Zane said softly. “You’re still bleeding.”

Sebastien looked down at it almost absently. What the f*ck did his arm matter? He pulled away the wadded-up bandage and immediately blood started to well up, forming a fat bead before it started rolling down his forearm once more.

A soft sound caught his attention, and he looked up, met Marin’s gaze.

She sucked in a soft breath and he looked away.

Yeah, he didn’t blame her for looking so appalled. His face was a scarred ruin. And the one time he’d actually needed to be the hero he was always pretending to be in movies? He hadn’t been able to do shit.