“I know,” she whispered on the exhale.
I brushed my free hand over her forehead, down the side of her soft cheek, then into her hair so I could twirl a lock around my finger. The smile she rewarded me with for the familiar gesture was worth more than her weight in gold.
“Cosima,” Giselle said softly after clearing her throat. “I know you just woke up, but what the actual fuck? You’re married?”
“Yes,” my wife affirmed immediately, relaxing into the bed as I stroked her hair. “I know you’re worried, but Alexander…cares for me. He is here to take care of me.” Her eyes flashed open and unerringly landed on Dante who still lingered like a tosser in the doorway. “And so is Dante.”
The doctor pushed into the room then, frowning at the many occupants and then immediately ordering their removal. Her sisters protested, but I’d had Dr. Steele flown in specially to tend to Cosima because he was the best neurosurgeon in North America, and he wouldn’t let anything get between him and a patient.
“I am the husband,” I told him, standing up to offer my hand.
Dr. Steele stared at me, his face impassive but for the twinkle in his eyes.
The man had known me for years, and when I’d called him to take care of my wife, he’d almost busted a gut laughing at the news I’d succumbed to something as mundane as love.
“Fine, but stay in the corner. The rest of you, out.”
“It’s okay. I’m awake now. I’ll see you again, soon, si?” Cosima said, her voice even weaker, and her lids fluttering to stay open. She’d been awake only ten minutes, and already, she was exhausted.
I burned with the need to shout at the lingering family to get the fuck out.
The sisters and the male stranger left before I was forced to take bodily action, but Dante lingered, leaning against the wall beside the door with his ankles and arms crossed like a lazy bodyguard.
And he was.
Lazy, inept, fucking useless.
Why the bloody hell hadn’t he been with her?
He should have stuck to her side like glue while I was away.
I shot him a scathing look that promised retribution later, but he only smiled thinly and answered Elena’s outraged call from down the hall, leaving the room to speak to her.
When the door clicked shut, I instantly moved. “Will I hurt you if I come onto the bed with you?”
“It’ll hurt more if you don’t,” she promised, shifting over with a wince so that I would have a sliver of the bed.
Carefully, more carefully than I’d ever done anything, I curled myself around her, one hand on her good side, the other over her head where I could play lightly with her hair. She sighed as soon as I settled and closed her eyes.
“I could sleep.”
“You can sleep, my beauty. I’ll watch over you,” I vowed.
“I know,” she whispered. “I knew even when Giuseppe threatened to take me to Noel. I knew you’d find me no matter what.”
Rage moved through me quick and silent as a possession. I swallowed thickly once, twice to speak through the wrath lodged in my throat.
“Always. Know also that Giuseppe is a dead man for hurting you.”
“Already dead,” she murmured, falling quickly into sleep. “I shot him.”
A moment later, her mouth softened, and her breath evened out. I lay there for a long while, listening to her breath as one might listen to a symphony, letting the sound move through my soul like a spiritual awakening.
She was alive.
Alive.
But she had been through too much, and enough was enough. From that moment on, Riddick and I wouldn’t leave her fucking side. Not until Noel was taken care of and put away, because no matter that it was Giuseppe’s thugs who had obviously hurt my wife, I had no doubt Noel had orchestrated it.
There was a gruff cough from the doorway, and I looked up to see Salvatore there, dressed all in black, his face a white mask of horror. There were tears in his gold eyes as he stared at the sleeping woman who shared those eyes with him.
“Madonna santa,” he breathed in a voice that was clogged with tears. “Look at her.”
“Look at you,” I countered coldly. “Alive and well.”
His expression shuttered, the wet glazed eyes turning cold as marbles. “As if you didn’t know.”
I leveled him with cold look, but I was curious how he could have known that.
“I was not exactly subtle as I should have been, mm?” he addressed my unspoken question as he moved into the room and into the chair on the other side of Cosima. His meaty hand trembled as he linked it gently with hers. “I could not be when my daughter was so close. I knew it was probable you and others had eyes on her, but I indulged my own need to see her more than was prudent if I truly wanted to stay dead.”