“I’ve texted Jayden about his sister,” Jackson added. “He had his phone on him, so he replied almost immediately, saying he supported the decision.”
I had no feelings either way when it came to Marni and her brother right now, but I was struggling to keep up. “Why would the charges get added to?”
“Marcus, man, don’t you think it’s a hell of a coincidence that her cabin catches on fire on the same day a random guy kidnaps your woman?” Elijah barked, keeping his voice low but powerful nonetheless.
I stiffened. “You think she planned this?”
He had a glint in his eye I hadn’t seen since Sadie had been attacked by the asshole stalking her. “I’d be stupid not to think it.”
“But why?”
“We won’t know the answer to that until we talk to this guy,” Remy muttered, his expression grim.
Pointing at some seats near us, Jackson got us to sit down after Jesse gave me a hug and left to do ‘Dexter’ things back at the ranch until we could get there, but bent in so he could talk to us without anyone overhearing what he was saying.
“We wait here until we get news on Addy, then you guys go back and get the information you need while I stay here. Hopefully, the nurses will think I’m you, so I’ll be able to stick by her side when she gets moved to a room.”
I didn’t want to leave her. Everything inside me rebelled at the idea, but at the same time, I wanted to deal with the guy who’d stolen her and locked her in the trunk of a car, leaving her to die in the heat.
Feeling my stomach churning, I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
“Remy, call Mrs. V and tell her we’ve got Addy at the hospital. I’m going to call her dad.”
The phone call to Mr. Valtolina went better than I’d anticipated it would. He didn’t threaten to kill me, didn’t call me an asshole or chump, and didn’t even blame me for what’d happened.
But at the end, after I told him we had the guy responsible at the ranch, he did say, “If you break his kneecaps, I’ll let you marry her.”
I hadn’t thought I’d smile any time soon, but those words pulled a small one out of me.
“If I do that, he’ll get to stay out of jail for a day or so while they patch him up, and even a felon gets to sleep on a relatively comfortable hospital bed and eat jello.”
“Fuck,” he hissed, and I heard the sound of something rattling around in the background, followed by a yell.
Hopefully it wasn’t one of his anger management patients getting something thrown at their head by him thanks to his frustration—which I understood because I felt the same way. I’d been planning on beating the shit out of the guy until I’d looked around and seen the equipment at the hospital and realized this is what he’d get if I did that.
“Okay, tell him her family’s Italian, and the ones in the motherland are in the Mafia.”
Motherland?
Feeling my lips twitch, I was about to say okay, but instead, I asked, “Is that true?”
“Fuck her around, and you’ll find out.” The words weren’t said with any heat or anger, more like he was shrugging as he said them.
“I wouldn’t do that to Adrienne. She’s my world,” I rasped, feeling like I had a lump blocking my throat.
“Good. We’ll fly in as soon as we can. Keep us updated and let Adrienne know her mother and I love her when she wakes up.”
“I might be otherwise occupied, but my brother’s going to sit with her, and I know Mrs. V and Adia are on their way, so one of them will text you the updates. I’ll see you when you get here.”
I was just about to hang up when I heard him say my name.
“If you can at least rough him up in a way that he won’t need hospital treatment, do it. Or find a hospital with a doctor from Sicily. Back home, the old school doctors didn’t believe in pain medication for treating bruises and breaks. It made you a real man to heal from them, even if your leg was shaped like a V for the rest of your life or your arm was hanging limp at your side.”
“Mr. Townsend-Rossi?” a nurse called from the mouth of the hallway where Adrienne was being treated.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I promised Mr. Valtolina, then hung up and gave the nurse my full attention.
I had no idea the damage that heatstroke and overheating could do to a human, and with Addy’s temperature being over one hundred and four degrees, there was a lot to be worried about. They were still working on bringing it down and rehydrating her, but they were also going to be running a lot of tests on her to see if there was any damage to her internal organs.