"What do you mean?" He felt his heart kick at the thought of her crying out for him in pain and he wasn't here.
"I don't know what happened, but after you called she became very over excited, kept calling for you and trying to run down the stairs … "
He walked to the bed quietly and sat next to her. "Thanks for taking care of her for me. Gramps you're staying here until I'm sure this thing is all the way done."
"Boy … "
"Gramps I'm tired, don't give me any of your shit. You know where your room is. Sue I can have one of the guys run you home if you'd like, or you can stay here tonight if you'd like."
"I'd like to stay here with our Jenna, if you don't mind."
"You're more than welcome to, thank you. You two can go get some rest now."
He waited until the door closed behind them to kick off his shoes and lie down next to her. He'd changed his slacks and discarded his jacket on the plane, but he was sure there was still some blood somewhere that he needed to wash off. But first, he needed the comfort of her warmth after the night he'd had.
She seemed to settle as soon as his arms went around her, but she didn't awaken. He guessed that was for the best, if she was still having pain. He'd sent doc home when he came into the house, with instructions to come back in the morning.
For once the older man didn't try telling him about prior engagements, or his practice or whatever, just said sure and headed out.
When he was sure she wasn't going to awaken, he headed for the shower to wash away the day.
She slept through the night, wrapped safely in his arms, while he got up every couple of hours to check on her and make sure she wasn't running a high fever, which was one of the things doc had warned was a possibility.
There was a knock at the door at first light and he looked down at her to make sure she hadn't been disturbed, before extricating himself from her. If that was someone come to tell him some shit had gone wrong, or they'd missed someone; he'd shoot the fuck.
It was Willie, and he was carrying a cage with the two butterflies he'd caught her. "I found the cage in the conservatory sir, thought it might do for now."
"Yeah thanks Willie, I need to talk to you about that a little later."
"As you wish sir."
He closed the door and looked around for the best place to put the cage, so that she would see it as soon as she woke up. He finally decided on the table next to the bed on the side closest to her, before crawling back into bed with her.
It was early yet, but he had to get a move on soon. There was going to be talk about the hits from last night and he had to make sure his name never came up in anyway shape or form.
Chapter 17
She finally woke about an hour later, her eyes flying open to land on his. He didn't even have to think about it as he lowered his head to take her lips. "Good morning beautiful Jenna." She smiled wide at him and caressed his cheek.
"Angel."
"Yes baby I'm here; look." He turned her head so she could see what he'd brought her. She made a sound of excitement before trying to rush out of the bed.
"Easy baby." He didn't want her hurting her shoulder with her quick movements. She ignored him and went to stand over the cage, her eyes wide in wonder. He'd seen that look before, mesmerized.
"Pretty." She looked at him then and she was so fucking amazingly beautiful, he felt that shit in his gut and places south.
He let her play with her new friends for the next half hour before it was bath time.
"Come baby time for your bath." She took her cage with her as she followed him into the bathroom.
"Angel stay."
Shit, he'd planned to leave her so he could go see what the fuck was going on in his world. He was going to have to break her out of her habit of making him sit in there with her while she took her bath.
For two reasons, one, it was getting harder to see her naked body and not pounce, and two, he'd never get shit done if he started off everyday like this. He should've been gone hours ago.
Of course he did as she asked, and after setting up her bath and putting her in, he took his seat. The talking started right away. You'd think she'd talk about the shit that had went down the day before, about being shot or her conversation with the dead, but no.
She peppered him with questions about any and everything else. He was waiting for the dreaded ‘momma' but she seemed too preoccupied with her butterflies. Thank fuck, because he still didn't know what he was going to do about that situation.
After he'd coerced her out of the water, he took her downstairs and implanted her in the kitchen with Sue and Willie to have her breakfast.
They knew the deal and distracted her with questions about her butterflies, while he made his escape with a cup of coffee. The guys were already starting to arrive, so he headed to his office with them following behind.
"The perimeter set up?"
"Yes boss, everyone's at their post, I saw them changing over when I was driving up." He still had twenty-four hour security around her for the time being, until the dust settled.
He wasn't expecting any backlash, but you can never be too careful; and besides, her dad was still out there and he didn't know which side of the fence this guy was playing on.
"First order of business, what have you heard? Anything?" He turned to Jameson for an answer.
"The news already picked up the story; the whole Bonata family has been wiped out in one fell swoop, the FEDs are having a feeding frenzy.
There's no word yet on who orchestrated the hit, but they have a lot of nominees, the Bonatas had a lot of enemies. I think the FEDs are more interested in who's gonna be taking over their territories. Talk about a cluster fuck."
"Fuck I care, as long as they don't come sniffing around me." He had some other personal business to take care of, shit he'd been doing before this whole thing fell into his lap so he dealt with that next. It was a good hour later before he got back to the shit that was on his plate now.
He went into his computer and pulled up the senator's official page.
"I still don't know who the fuck this is. Nothing on here gives me any indicators, and she doesn't really have much of a personal presence online."
Just then Jenna traipsed into the room with her cage in one hand and her toy in the other. He gave his men a look to remind them to watch what they say in front of her. He didn't want her scared or agitated in anyway.
"Angel what's...?" She scrunched up her face in that way that meant she was trying hard to put something into words. "Fuck."
"What the fuck … GRAMPS." The old man came strolling into the room eating some kind of breakfast sandwich.
"Boy what's all the yelling about?"
"Were you cussing in front of Jenna?"
"I was teaching her new words." He grinned like the demented fuck that he was.
"You know what's gonna happen now? She's going to be saying that shit … fuck … " He cut himself off and glared at the old reprobate.
"What's the big deal? She's an adult she can say any fuck she wants."
"Gramps I'll put one in your kneecap swear to fuck." Shit now he was doing it.
"I'm amazed, as long as she's been around the Bonatas that she doesn't know it."
That was true, and it got Andros to thinking how that came about. He'd heard her brother say it in front of her that night, but there was probably too much going on then for her to pick up on it.
But as gramps had said, if she'd been around the Bonatas for any length of time she'd have picked up the word and more. From his experience, she would be repeating the shit every chance she got once she knew it was forbidden. Hmm, it was something else to look into.
He tabled it for now as he went back to what he'd been doing. Jenna climbed into his lap, which is her new thing. He started asking his men what, if anything, they knew about the senator, when she suddenly turned his keyboard around.
"Baby don't you want to play with your toy?"
She didn't even answer him as her fingers flew over the keys. "Fucking shit." So much for not swearing in front of her but what the fuck!
Some shit came up on the screen that looked like encryptions, all symbols and numbers and weird dashes. Shit he was sure only a machine could decipher, but fuck if she wasn't studying it like she was reading the shit.
Then she did her turbo typing shit again and the screen cleared. She pointed out something to him but he wasn't sure what he was looking at.
"What's this baby?"
She did some more of her fancy shit and he saw what looked like a map. It had the coordinates to what looked like forestry or some shit. Then he understood; it was the directions to a place.
As he read on he realized it was the location of a house or some type of structure, which seemed to be backed by government land. It was a bit isolated from what he could make out. Still he didn't understand the significance.