Page 26 of Brandishing Balance (Devil’s Psychos MC #3)
Nico
W atching Maya finally break down was both a blessing and a curse.
It needed to happen, it was long overdue in my opinion, but it still broke my heart.
I curled around her on the mattress—the Alaskan King that Kara had delivered as a housewarming gift—spooning her, while she sobbed into Marcos’s chest.
Jason stood at the foot of the bed awkwardly, before he put his knee on the mattress and crawled toward us. He pushed Marcos away and Marc shifted over to make room for Jason to lay between him and Maya. Jason pressed his face into Maya’s stomach, while her face was buried into Marcos’s chest.
The position was familiar, in a nostalgic way, and seemed to calm Maya down a bit, as she slid her fingers into Jason’s hair. Jason’s hands slid up under the back of her shirt, exposing bare skin. He kissed her stomach softly, nuzzling his face against her.
Slowly, Maya calmed down to just soft sniffles, before her body relaxed and she finally fell asleep.
I let out a soft sigh when her body went lax and let my own eyes drift shut. The rest of the world could wait; we had our woman in our arms again and she needed us.
Nico
Three hours later, Maya shifted between us, groaning softly as she tried to roll over. “What’s wrong?” I asked, opening my eyes in time to watch Marcos’s eyes snap open.
“I have to pee.” Maya’s voice was scratchy and hoarse, likely from screaming and sobbing. Hopefully she hadn’t injured her already sore throat.
I made a note to make her hot tea later. Or should it be cold ice cream? I didn’t know, but I made a note to offer both to her and let her decide.
Patting Jason on the shoulder, I shook him awake. “Jase, man. Let her go,” Nico said.
Jason grumbled and slid his hands up her back. He pressed a kiss to her bare stomach before he pulled his hands out from under her shirt and let her go.
I rolled away, going as far as to roll off the bed and stand up.
Maya tried to the do the same thing, but ended up gasping in pain. “Fuck,” she groaned.
“Shit,” I swore. “I’ll go get your meds. You need to eat too. Someone should make dinner.”
“I’ll order something. Maya what do you want?” Jason asked.
“Pizza,” she murmured, holding her hands to her stomach as she panted softly.
“Can I carry you?” Marcos asked.
Maya shook her head. “I just need a minute, or help up, or a new body. I don’t know.”
I snickered as I walked out of the room.
I pounded down the stairs glancing out the front window to see the darkening sky.
September was in full swing, and the days were growing shorter.
We’d slept the afternoon away, and I hoped that after we fed Maya and gave her more pain pills, that she would pass out again.
Just because she was home didn’t mean she was fully healed. Her colon was still healing from her surgery. It would take time, and she needed to take it easy.
In the kitchen, I found the pharmacy bag sitting on the counter with Maya’s other bags from the hospital. I grabbed everything and a bottle of water out of the fridge, and brought it all upstairs.
Marcos was hovering outside the ensuite bathroom door, while Maya was inside doing her business.
I heard her opening and closing drawers and cabinets, likely taking in everything of hers that we had already moved in—as in everything from her mother’s house, just like how we’d grabbed everything of Luke’s and put it in his room just down the hall.
In the week that she had been in the hospital, Jason had not only gotten the floors and carpeting done, he’d also arranged our moves. Marcos hadn’t had much from his small one-bedroom apartment, and Jason had been living at the clubhouse for years.
I on the other hand, had a whole two-bedroom condo to pack up.
Jason had arranged not only movers but also people to pack up all of my shit.
I’d never been more grateful for how strategic and focused my brother could be, because I had not been in the right mind to think of all of that while Maya had been lying unconscious in the hospital.
Jason hung up the phone as the bathroom door opened and Maya stepped out, looking pale, but she’d brushed her hair and pulled it up into a ponytail. “Pizza will be here in thirty minutes.”
Maya nodded and then yawned, covering her face. “Show me the house,” she murmured. She started walking toward the door before anyone could say anything.
Jason followed after her and I let him. It was his project; he deserved the credit for all of his hard work.
Jason
Sitting at the kitchen table, eating pizza like we had so many times before, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Maya. Even as pale as she was, she was utterly beautiful. She chewed her food and looked around the remodeled space in awe, like she was trying to see every inch of it.
“You said you all moved in?” Maya asked after she swallowed her bite.
“Yeah. I only had my one-bedroom apartment, so it made sense,” Marcos said.
I noticed how he conveniently left off the part about doing so because they needed the space for Luke. “I’ve been staying at the clubhouse since we moved out of here last time.” I shrugged.
Maya frowned and her eyes narrowed on the table in front of her. She didn’t say anything, but I could see it on her face. She didn’t seem to like that. Ignoring me, Maya turned to Nico and waited for him to speak up.
“I still have my condo, but everything is here now. I’ll probably rent out my place and use it as an income property,” Nico said.
“Where’s Luke?” She finally asked, glancing around the kitchen again, like he would appear out of thin air.
“He’s at your mother’s still. We thought we’d give you the night to settle in and he would come home tomorrow,” Marcos said.
Maya frowned again. “Did my mother really have an issue with me going back there?”
“No, Darlin’,” I said, immediately. I hated seeing her hurting so badly, and I knew the strained relationship with her mother was a trigger point. “She didn’t have any issues with you going home with her. She expected you to, but… well—”
“We wanted you here,” Nico cut me off. “We wanted you home, and didn’t want to wait. So we underhandedly asked your mother to help us. I’m sorry, Little Dreamer. It was a low blow and we shouldn’t have done it. We know how much it bothers you that things with your mother aren’t always that great.”
“It really hurt to think she was kicking me out after everything.” Maya’s voice was so soft, so dejectedly broken, my heart ripped to shreds in my chest. We did that to her. It was our dumb idea that hurt her and caused her pain.
“I’m sorry, Maya. That was my idea,” Marcos said.
“It was all of us. I’m sorry too,” I added.
Nico sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m really sorry, Little Dreamer.”
Maya looked so fucking lost as her eyes jumped between each of us. “I don’t know—I can’t fucking do this.”
Pain flared in my chest. I couldn’t blame her though—I really couldn’t—but it still fucking hurt. “Can’t do what, Darlin’?” I asked, my voice gravely.
“I don’t know how to trust you guys again. I don’t know to do this—” she waved a hand around her, gesturing at the house at large, “all of this again.”
I swallowed thickly and nodded slowly. I’d expected this, I could work with this, hopefully. “We get that, Maya. We know. We don’t expect you to just jump into anything. We have a truce, remember?” I asked.
She nodded slowly, swallowing.
“Just trust us enough to take care of you, ok?” I pressed. “The bedroom is yours, just like before. Kara gifted us the bed, but we all still have our old bedrooms—except Nic who took Kara’s old room downstairs, so Luke could be upstairs.”
“How can I trust you, when you don’t ask my consent?” She leveled her stare on me.
I swallowed and seemed at a loss for words.
Marcos shifted in his chair. “It was my call,” he said, taking the blame.
“I knew if we asked you, you’d say no.” He cleared his throat, glancing away momentarily.
Running a hand over his buzzed head, he met her gaze again.
“I’m sorry. We can take you back to your mom’s at any time you want.
I’m asking now, will you please stay here—at least while you recover—so we know you’re safe.
Hillcrest is still out there, and the safest place for you and Luke is here with us. ”
I continued up when Marcos finished. “I know we have a lot to work through. I know things are up in the air, but we want to work through things with you. If you want to, of course.”
Maya eyed us both warily, her eyes flicking between Marcos and I while she thought it over.
I waited, wondering if she was going to hand us our asses or not—the old Maya would have.
Maya had changed a lot in the last ten years, and one of those things had been her fiery personality.
It was something I noticed the first time I saw her again.
Life had been very hard for her, and I wished that we had known sooner.
I wished for the hundredth time, that things were different.