The Woman at the Docks (Grassi Framily)

was incapacitated."

"You're very sure."

"This isn't my first rodeo, Miss Moreno. Or my first shootout," he added a bit pointedly. "There will be a couple more questions, but you won't have cuffs put on you. You won't even have your rights read to you. And I will be there every step of the way."

"I really don't care at this point if I'm arrested. I just need to find Luca. Do you know if he's alright? Where he might be?"

"My guess? Surgery floor," he told me, giving me the harsh truth. The bullets had done damage. And teams of people would need to try to repair it. "They won't let you up," he told me, shaking his head.

"Oh, they're going to let me up," I told him, hearing the iron slip into my voice as I moved over to the wall, looking for the floor chart, finding it, I ignore the nurse trying to usher me back, and climbed into the elevator, heading up to the surgery floor.

Tunnel vision on, I walked right out fo the elevator on the surgery floor, making my way past the desk as the woman sitting there jumped up.

"Ma'am, you can't be here. Ma'am!" she called as I made my way down the hall, heading for the waiting area I knew would be there, situated just outside the surgery doors, so the doctors could update worried families quickly. "I am going to need to call security," she added, making me turn on my heel right before the opening of the sitting area.

"Security? Go ahead. I will try not to tell the men sitting in there who have a very Italian sounding last name and images that end up in the newspaper along with headlines like mafia and mob and shooting that you didn't let me check in on my boyfriend who was just shot several times. I might not try that hard," I added as her face went pale.

I would feel bad about the threat sometime later, knowing the woman was just doing her job, knowing it was cruel to make her worry.

But right that moment, I was pretty sure an argument could be made that I wasn't exactly in my right mind.

"Romy, hon, you can't be here," Matteo's voice said from behind me, voice calm.

"Oh, not you too," I snapped, turning to face him, hearing the nurse's slip-resistant shoes squeak a little with her retreat. "I have every right to be here. I might even have more of a right to be here than you right now," I added, anger igniting. And I would burn this fucking place to the ground if one more person told me I couldn't sit and wait and make sure Luca was okay.

"Rome, you're covered in blood," he told me, making me look down at myself.

"Most of it is Luca's," I told him, watching as he paled a little. "I have to be here. I have to know he's okay."

"But you can't, honey. It is family only."

"We will make sure you stay updated," Matteo insisted. "But you have to leave," he said, nodding his chin behind me. "You're covered in blood and freaking out."

I didn't need to turn to know what I would find there.

The security team the nurse had called.

Rightfully so, but I felt more anger bubbling up, exploding outward.

"Don't you touch—" I started as the elevator dinged open, bringing a swaggering Lucky onto the floor as well.

"I got it, boys," he said, clapping a hand on their shoulders.

The security staff looked at me, then him, then at Antony, giving them all a nod, backing away.

"You don't want to touch me right now, Lucky," I warned him.

"I won't have to if you just come with me."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm afraid you are," he told me, stalking toward me, squatting down a bit, and throwing me over his shoulder.

"Let me go!" I yelled as he led me to the elevator, my fists slamming into his back, my knees trying to kick inward at his body. "Let me go, damnit," I cried, voice breaking, the dam busting open once again.

At the sound, Lucky lowered me down, pulling me against his chest, anchoring an arm around my back, the other holding the back of my head, just letting me purge it all out.

The shock.