Sempre (Sempre 1)

“You have to consider the possibility.”

Anger flared in her dark eyes. “He’ll wake up.”

“Yes, but . . . what if he doesn’t? Corrado wouldn’t want to be lying in a bed like this.”

“He’d want to live, and he will. He’s getting stronger every day.”

His sister sounded certain, but Vincent knew too much to succumb to her hopeful words. “The longer he’s unconscious, the less likely it is he’ll—”

“I know,” Celia said, cutting him off. “I’ve heard the doctors, but they don’t know Corrado like I do. He’ll come out of this.”

“What makes you sure?”

“Because he told me he would. When he left the house, he said he’d come back to me. Corrado has never broken his word.”

* * *

Haven awoke again to a bright room, squinting from the harsh light filtering in the window. She groaned as she turned away from the sunlight, her hand coming into contact with a body in bed beside her. Carmine was asleep, his chest rising and falling at a steady pace, his right arm wrapped from his fingers up past his elbow with an elastic bandage.

Clenching her jaw, she fought back the cry that threatened to come out as she rolled onto her side, the needle in her arm pulling when she reached toward Carmine. She hesitated an inch from his face, not wanting to disturb him, before running her fingertips along the bridge of his nose. There was a small bump that hadn’t existed before, and she knew firsthand where something like that came from.

Carmine stirred, grumbling incoherently before his eyes drifted open. He jumped, nearly falling off the bed as she quickly pulled her hand away.

“Shit, you’re awake!” he said. A smile spread across her face at the sound of his voice. She fought back her emotion, but it was too much to handle. Tears flowed down her cheeks, and he wiped them away. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Wait, of course you’re hurt!”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” he said. “You’re hurt, tesoro. Do you know how much you scared me? I thought I was gonna lose you! When I woke up in that car and you were gone, I thought my life was over. But I swore I’d never give up, and I didn’t. I couldn’t think about going on if you were dead.”

“I’m not dead,” she said through her tears.

“Yes, but—”

“No buts,” she interrupted. “I thought I was going to lose you, too. I begged them to leave you alone in the car.”

“You begged them?”

“They were going to kill you.” Her voice cracked as the memory resurfaced. “I told them I’d go with them, that I wouldn’t fight as long as they let you live. I would’ve given up anything.”

“You would’ve sacrificed yourself for me?” he asked, his expression serious. “You’d throw your life away if it meant I’d keep mine?”

“Yes. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

“You know I would.”

He tried to pull her into a hug, but it wasn’t easy maneuvering around their injuries. They both groaned and cringed from pain, his bandaged arm making the embrace awkward. “Your arm,” she said, nuzzling into his chest.

“The bone fractured when I was shot, so they had to splint it.”

She tensed. “You were shot?”

“Yeah. It’s not that serious, though.”

“Not serious? Someone shot you!”

“Yeah, Nunzio did.”

She gasped. “Oh God, where is he?”