“I still can’t believe she killed him.” He shook his head and winced as he tried to lift himself up in the hospital bed.
“I don’t know what to do. I thought she’d just come out of it on her own, but it’s been a week.”
If anything, she was getting worse. Each day the pain in her eyes lessened, but it was replaced with… nothing. Just this black void, as though she was slipping away bit by bit.
“She’s probably never lost anyone, Gio, and she definitely won’t have killed before. She’s drowning.”
I hated how fucking helpless I felt. I could control dangerous men, run an entire empire, and put the fear of God into my enemies, but one small woman had the power to bring me to my knees. And that was terrifying. Emilia should have been at the bottom of my list of priorities right now, and yet there she was, right at the top, a flashing beacon. Even while I was handling everything else, she was a constant in my mind.
Tommy tilted his head, studying me. “You love her.”
“I…” Did I? Was this what love felt like? To be utterly consumed by one person, to the detriment of everything else in my life? I cleared my throat and pushed to my feet. “I need to go.”
He huffed a laugh, then flinched against the pain. “Fucking asshole Irish,” he grumbled under his breath while pressing the button on his morphine pump several times. “Should have kept that fucker alive for me, just so I could poke some holes in him.”
“Trust me, Una and Jackson poked plenty of holes in him.” Cut off a few body parts too…
He pressed the button again.
“You know you’re only getting one dose. Stop pressing it.” I swatted his hand away—he was a terrible patient. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Bring a damn cheeseburger,” he said as I headed for the door. “And smuggle in some extra morphine.” I shook my head as I stepped into the brightly lit hallway, passing the men I’d posted to guard Tommy’s room.
I had a million problems right now, but seeing my best friend alive put a small smile on my face. Now, to address my other big issue...
Tommy was right. Emilia was drowning, and I needed to pull her out. There was only one way I knew to do that, and as sick as it was, my dick twitched at the thought.
Emilia sat in the chair at the window, the gray light of fall making her look washed out and sallow. Her knees were pulled to her chest, her distant gaze focused on the gardens beyond the glass. A sketchpad rested on her lap, a pencil clasped between her fingers, but the page remained blank. Just like her. She was a ghost, a shadow of the girl I’d known only a week ago, as though grief had seeped into her, staining her.
Her fragility made me want to hold her, to piece my little kitten back together until she hissed at me once more. But if hugs and sweet words were enough, she wouldn’t be getting worse.
“Emilia.”
She blinked, her gaze shifting to me. Shadows lingered both beneath and within her eyes, and I missed the spark that always seemed right on the verge of turning into a wildfire.
“You have to leave this room at some point.”
With a slow blink, she turned back to the window.
I moved in front of her, blocking her view, forcing her to look at me. “Tommy’s awake. He wants to see you.” I hoped he would be the thing that snapped her out of this, even if I was frustrated that I couldn’t.
“I’m glad he’s alive,” she whispered and went back to staring at a spot on my shirt as though she could see through me to the outside world.
Fuck this. I wasn’t going to let her break over Roberto Donato, of all things. She would not shred herself for a man who got everything he deserved.
“Stand up, piccola.”
She slowly lifted those dead eyes to me, and when she didn’t move, I held up a finger.
“One.”
Her brows pulled together. “Gio—”
“Two.”
“No.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the tiniest thread of defiance from her. “Feel free to test me, princess. You’re already owed a punishment, and I’m still so very angry at you for putting yourself in danger.” Anger spiked through me the same way it always did when I thought about her trying to kill a damn mafia boss, a dangerous man with armed guards… I tamped it down because anger wouldn’t serve either of us.
I would show her with action what she meant to me and the repercussions when she tried to take herself away from me. “You should know better than to push me, though.” I grabbed her throat, and she let out a thready breath when I dragged her to her feet.