stop right behind us. Two men jumped out of a black sedan, both of them in jeans and hoodies. The driver was speaking in rapid Italian, and it took me a moment to decipher what he said.
When I realized why they were there and that Gian wasn’t coming to save me this time, my heart stopped.
Chapter 13
Monroe
My entire body was one big ache. The kind of ache people have after being in a car accident, their muscles so tense that when they finally start to relax, every inch of their body throbs.
It started after the doctors came to tell us Daddy was going to be okay. They had gotten the bullet out of his thigh and repaired the damage another bullet had done to his shoulder. My body hurt so badly that Mom convinced me to take what the nurse offered so I could get some rest, she and Aunt Raven assuring me over and over again that it wouldn’t harm the baby.
With Mila cuddled up with me on the bed, Lyric sitting beside her, Maverick in a chair by the door, and one of the MC brothers right outside my hospital room, I’d given in when the medication started to make me drowsy, and I fell asleep curled up with my sister.
I didn’t know if it was from the medication or the events of the day, but my dreams felt oddly real.
When I first started to open my eyes, I felt like I was floating. There was a thunderous pounding under my ear that sounded like a racing heart. But the one thing that caught my attention and made me smile was the slight trace of Gian’s scent filling my nose.
Sighing contentedly, I buried my face deeper into the hard pillow, desperately trying to hold on to sleep while inhaling deeply to take in as much of my favorite smell as I possibly could. I liked this dream. Gian was with me. He was holding me, and even that annoying, floating sensation that made me feel nauseated and dizzy didn’t matter as long as his strong arms continued to protect me.
Slowly, other things tried to poke into my dream world. I heard Gian snarling something in Italian, felt a slight, chilly breeze brush over my bare skin, heard a car engine rev.
None of that bothered me.
It was when I felt Gian release me that I protested. He was no longer holding me, and I began to cry in my dream. “You left me,” I sobbed. “You left me, and you didn’t come back. I-I needed you.” I touched my abdomen, where the tech had shown me our baby thriving earlier. “We needed you. But you don’t want us.”
“Hush, precious,” he commanded in a pained voice. “I will never leave your side ever again.”
“Liar!” I screamed at him and shoved his hand away when he started to touch my face.
It was his heat that made me realize I wasn’t in a dream. I blinked, but it was dark in the back of the car we were in. Confused, I glanced around. There was a man in the driver’s seat, maneuvering the car like he was trying out for the Indianapolis 500, but it was so dark I couldn’t see more than his profile.
Gian sat beside me, his hands raised like he was trying to calm a wild animal. I could only make out the shape of his face; his eyes were completely lost in the darkness of the night. But I could hear his heavy breathing, and I knew by how stiff he felt that he was just as tense as I’d been the day before.
“Where are we?” I demanded, glaring at Gian, but he couldn’t see me any more than I could him, so it was a wasted effort.
“Close to the airstrip,” he said, trying to make his voice sound soothing.
“What? Why?” I shouted and glanced around again. There were no lights anywhere except those from the front of the car. No streetlights, no businesses or homes, not even a single other vehicle was in sight.
Then out of nowhere, I saw the distinct lights of an airstrip in the distance, and my heart started racing. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but take me back to the hospital,” I gritted out.
“No.”
“The doctor admitted me for observation. I’m still cramping. I know you don’t really care what happens to this baby—”
His hand shot out of the darkness, grasping my upper arms and pulling me forcefully back onto his lap. Locking one arm around my back to hold me against his chest, he used his other to touch where the baby was. “I care,” he breathed at my ear. “I care so fucking much, precious. You and this baby are my only reason for living. Don’t ever say something like that to me again.”
“Your actions prove otherwise,” I snipped at him, fighting the warmth of his touch as the hand over our baby caressed my flesh. Grabbing his wrist, I pushed it away from me, but when I started to move off him, his arms became bands around my body, trapping me against him.
“I will tell you everything as soon as we get home, Monroe.” He pressed his forehead to mine, breathing deeply. “Until then, please be patient with me.”
“I thought my home was with you once,” I whispered, my throat clogging with tears. “You showed me I was wrong.”
He made a pained noise in the back of his throat, but he didn’t argue with me as the driver continued to speed toward the growing lights. I struggled to get off Gian’s lap, wanting space between us, but he only held on to me tighter until the car screeched to a jarring stop right beside a private jet, much like the one I’d ridden on with my family to New York for Tavia’s wedding.
The driver said something to Gian, and the meds must have been making my head fuzzy because I could only understand one word. Doctor.
While I was still trying to figure out what the guy said, Gian was quick to get out of the car, and he reached back inside to lift me out. As the cool night air hit my exposed skin, reality filtered back in, and I began to struggle against him.