“I’ll let her decide,” he said, sounding as if he was going to give her a choice. We both knew what her decision would be if she was given one. “I owe her that much at least.”
Chapter 15
Scarlett
Each time a nurse came in, I was in a deep sleep thanks to the drugs the doctor had given me. Each time I had to open my eyes, Ciro was still sitting in a chair beside my bed, my hand safely tucked in his own. Whether he knew it or not, he kept stroking his thumb over the back of my hand, but when the nurse left I was able to find peace in sleep again because of it.
Papa was still there when I finally gave up on sleep the next morning after the last time a new nurse had come in. There was a tension in the room and from the look on Ciro’s pale, scruffy face I could tell he wasn’t happy about something. Figuring it was because he had to babysit me, I sat up and pulled my hand free.
“When can I go home?” I asked my father, who was watching me with concerned eyes. If my face looked half as bad as it felt, I could completely understand his worry. My face hurt more today than it had the night before. Between that pain and the headache that were fighting for my attention, I was one massive ache.
“When the doctor determines that you’re well enough,” Ciro said with a growl.
“I want to go home now.” I snuck a glance at Ciro, saw his face was set in stone, and quickly looked away.
Some of the things I’d said to him the night before were starting to come back to me, and I wanted to disappear. Had I really told him I loved him? Had he really said he was thankful that I did, or had my concussion made me imagine that? Shit, had I really peed while he held me above some nasty-smelling toilet?
I didn’t know and I needed some time and space away from everything else so I could try to remember. Or forget. “Please, Papa. I hate it here. How am I supposed to get well if I’m not comfortable with my surroundings?”
He seemed to think that over for a moment, then stood. “Okay, passerotta.” He bent and kissed the top of my head. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Papa.”
He shook his head. “Anything for you.”
As the door shut behind him, Ciro unfolded his large body from the chair he’d been in all night. I decided that the wrinkles in my blanket were more interesting to look at than him and refused to lift my gaze as he moved to stand beside me. His hand touched the mattress beside my head as he bent. I swallowed the lump that filled my throat when I felt his lips touch the top of my head, but didn’t dare look at him again.
“Scarlett, look at me,” he commanded in a low voice.
“How is Victoria?” I ignored his harsh exhale. I couldn’t do this with him right now. I just couldn’t. Everything was too raw for me. My emotions were close to the surface and the things I felt for this man were too jumbled in my concussed head to really make sense of them right then.
“As far as I know, she’s fine,” Ciro assured me after a moment where I imagined him glaring at the top of my head. “Cristiano went to check on her and I haven’t heard from him since.”
“Did you say she was at Anya’s?” I pushed the hair back from my face, unsettled that my sister was with Adrian’s sister. Too many things were wrong with that, too many things could go wrong. She should have been home, not somewhere Adrian could get his hands on her and fill her head with lies once again.
“Yes.”
“I need to talk to her. She’s probably losing her mind right now.” If it had been her in my place, I knew I would have gone insane with the need to see with my own eyes that she was safe.
“She’s fine,” he said again.
“I want to talk to her,” I repeated, finally looking up at him and meeting his guarded eyes with a glare that would send any other person running for shelter from my temper. “Can I use your phone?”
“No. You can speak to your sister later. After you’ve gotten home where you seem so determined to go.” He bent until his face was only a few inches from my own. “Now stop thinking those stupid things that have been going through your head since you woke up a little while ago.”
His eyes trapped my own and I couldn’t have looked away if my life had depended on it. “I don’t know what you mean.”
We both knew I was lying.
Ciro moved half an inch closer and I could taste his breath on my lips. My mouth fell open, seeming to have a mind of its own and craving more of his taste. “As soon as you’re better, we are going to sit down and have a long overdue talk, baby. Until then, stop overthinking the things you and I both said last night.”
“I have a concussion. Whatever I did or didn’t say last night wasn’t true.”
He moved so close his nose brushed against my own. “I pray that you’re lying, Scarlett. Because what you said to me has been the only thing that has kept me from losing my mind all night.” He pressed his lips to the corner of my mouth. I closed my eyes, loving the feel of his lips against me. “As hard as I’ve fought how I feel for you, part of me has always known that you are the only thing in this world that I could call mine.”
“No,” I tried to deny, but my heart was going crazy with the possibility that what he was saying was the truth.
“You’re mine and I’m yours,” he murmured, his tongue teasing at my bottom lip. “I’m tired of fighting it and I refuse to do it ever again.”
I leaned into his kiss when he sucked my bottom lip into his mouth. My hands went to his chest, my fingers fisting in his shirt, desperate to keep him close, scared he was playing with me and would pull away at any minute. That’s what he’d done in the past. Given me just a taste of what I could have with him, only to push me away and run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. I didn’t know if I could trust this now, but I wanted it more than I wanted my next breath.
If he was playing with me this time, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get over it. Not with everything so upside down inside my head.
“I won’t let you go this time, vita mia,” he said as he released my lips and pressed his forehead against mine. His breathing came in harsh pants. “Don’t push me away.”
My fingers tightened in his shirt. “Does this seem like I’m pushing?”
“No, but as soon as I give you room to breathe, you’ll be thinking stupid shit again.”
“So don’t let me breathe.” I tugged him closer. “Kiss me again.”
The kiss was short but made me more lightheaded than the drugs the doctor had put in me the night before. When he pulled back, his eyes were dark with a need that matched my own. I couldn’t wrap my head around what had just happened, but for now I was going to go with it. For too long I’d wanted this with Ciro and when I’d thought it was out of my reach, he was pulling me in with a taste of a fantasy I’d been holding on to since I was eleven years old.
“Scarlett…” He carefully kissed my forehead, then moved back just enough so he could meet my eyes. “Promise me something.”
“You know I can’t do that unless I know what I’m promising to do.”
He grimaced. “Promise me you’ll let me deal with Santino. No matter what your father says, I need to take care of this. Please?”
Maybe my head was more affected than I’d realized, because that made no sense to me. I opened my mouth to ask what he was talking about, but my father opened the door and came in with a man in a lab coat right behind him. “This nice doctor has decided to let you go home a few hours early, passerotta,” Papa said with a hard look in the doctor’s direction. “Right?”
Ciro straightened, turning his full attention on the newcomer, but he kept his hand beside my head. Always protecting me.
The doctor, a man in his late thirties, had the beginnings of a receding hair line and was more on the short side of six feet. From his accent I knew he hadn’t been born in the US, but it wasn’t so thick I couldn’t understand him. “Miss Vitucci, it’s against my better judgment to discharge you before the full twent
y-four hours are up, but your father has assured me that you will have the best care money can buy waiting for you at home. Is that true?”
“If my father said that, then it’s true.” I barely spared the man another glance. “Papa, I need clean clothes.” All I had on was a thin hospital gown. I had no idea where my dress was, or even where my underwear was, and I didn’t really care. But there was no way I was leaving that room in a damn gown.
“Mary is on her way,” he assured me. “She can help you dress when she gets here.”
“I’ll release you into your father’s care, Miss Vitucci.” The doctor forced my attention back to him. “But you will have to take it easy for the next few days at the very least. Staying in bed would be ideal.”
“I’ll make sure she stays there.” Ciro was quickly turning back into his domineering self, not that I was going to complain. I liked his assertiveness.
Most of the time.
Chapter 16
Ciro
Scarlett was set to get home. Even though I had wanted her to stay for at least a few more hours at the hospital, we were now back at the compound. We’d taken Vito’s car and I’d sat in the back with her the entire ride home.
As soon as the car came to a stop she was reaching for her door. “Will you please just let me help you?” I grumbled as I climbed out and then reached back inside for her.
“I can walk. Despite how hideous I look this morning, my legs still work,” she complained as I carried her into the house, but her arms were wrapped around my neck so tight I knew her bitching was more for show than actually wanting me to put her down.
“You couldn’t be hideous if you tried, vita mia,” I assured her as I pressed my lips to her forehead.
Pleasure filled her brown eyes. “When did you get so charming?”
I found myself grinning. “Right around the time you turned seventeen.” I winked and she sucked in a sharp breath.
That quickly I found my body hardening for her. One little gasp that told me she wanted me and I was ready to bend her over and slide into her heat. That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, though. She was sore and hurting despite the meds the doctor had given her before we’d left the hospital.
The guards all stopped to watch me as I tucked her closer. I had never let them see this part of me. Fuck, I had never let them see anything but the cold robotic-like machine I was supposed to be when I was working. I shot them a cold glare and they seemed to scatter. Scarlett lifted a brow at me, smirked, but didn’t say a word as I took the stairs two at a time.
Vito was somewhere behind us, but when one of his men stopped him, I kept going without him. The less time he was with Scarlett the better. I didn’t want to give him the chance to even make the offer we’d argued over the night before.
In her room, I placed her in the middle of her bed and then tucked the covers up around her. Straightening, I tossed the contents of my pockets on her nightstand and dropped down beside her. Fuck, her bed was comfortable. I hadn’t slept any the night before and now that Scarlett was home I could actually relax a little. Exhaustion was already trying to swallow me.
She shifted closer to me, her head going automatically to my chest, her left hand resting over my heart. “This is nice,” she said with a tired sigh. “I like it.”
Pressing my lips to the top of her head, I smiled. “Yeah, vita mia. I like it too.”
In only a matter of minutes I felt her breathing evening out and knew she was asleep. The meds the doctor had given her before we’d left the hospital hadn’t been as hardcore as the ones from the night before, but they were strong enough to take the major part of the edge off and help her rest.
With her warmth flooding into me and her slight weight pressed against me, I quickly found sleep myself…
All too soon my phone was ringing. Fuck. I didn’t want to move. I’d only experienced sleep that peaceful the night I’d slept in this same bed with Scarlett tucked against me.
Scarlett shifted beside me. “Make it stop,” she groaned.
Pressing a kiss to her head, I reached for the phone. “Go back to sleep, baby.” Grabbing the nosy thing, I lifted it to my ear without bothering to open my eyes to see who it was. “Donati,” I snapped to whomever had been stupid enough to wake me up.
“We got some new artwork downtown, capo,” Paco told me.
Fuck. I didn’t want to leave Scarlett. I was more comfortable than I’d been in weeks and the feel of her still against me was almost too much to resist. But when there was ‘artwork’ downtown, I knew I had shit to take care of. “I’ll be there in thirty.”
Dropping the phone back on the nightstand, I shifted so Scarlett was still lying on my arm, but I was leaning over her. She looked up at me through her lashes and my entire body instantly became one massive throb. Hell, I wanted to slide between her legs then and there and from that look on her beautiful, sleepy face, I knew she wanted it just as badly as I did.
I didn’t have to be present for what was going on at the warehouse. Paco could handle it. Why the fuck would I want to leave this bed—leave my woman—to deal with whatever was waiting on me downtown?
“You need to go,” she murmured, sensing my reluctance to leave her.
“I don’t want to,” I told her honestly.
A grin teased at her lips. “I don’t want you to, either. But I know that was important. Go. I’ll still be here when you get back.”
She wasn’t asking questions. Wasn’t complaining that I had to leave. She was urging me to go and promising to be right there when I was done. Not many women would do that. Not many would accept that there were things I couldn’t tell her. They couldn’t accept the fact that I would probably come home with another man’s blood on my hands.
Fuck. Why had I wasted so much time running away from this woman when it was obvious she was made for me? I was a goddamn idiot, that was why. I’d wasted so much time by pushing her away when we could have been happy together all along.
Lowering my head, I kissed her lips, being careful not to cause her bruised face any more pain. She tasted of honey with just the trace of mint. My dick flexed against the zipper of my jeans, the metal biting into my flesh and letting me know loud and clear that I either needed to take care of business, or stay and take what I was so desperate for.
Scarlett was the one to pull away first. Her long fingers cupped my jaw, her breaths coming in little pants. “Go, Ciro. But come back to me as soon as you’re done.”
***
Artwork meant Paco had someone at the warehouse downtown for me to question. Most of the time, questioning turned into an all-out bloodbath and by the time I was done it looked like I’d been playing in red paint. Tonight, I wasn’t the one doing the questioning.
I stared down at the man lying on the metal table with his arms stretched above his head and his legs strapped down tightly. He stared sightlessly at the ceiling and if it weren’t for the fact his chest was lifting and falling with each gasp he took, I would have thought he was dead.
At the head of the table, Hawk Hannigan held a blade to the man’s throat, teasing him with the thought of slitting it. He’d been itching to stick his knife in someone since he’d stepped off a plane weeks ago. Now he was getting the chance and relishing every second of it.
Hawk had already sliced and diced the guy’s chest, cut off one of his pinkies, and his left ear. The scent of blood filled the back room of the warehouse where I took care of business of this nature. The screams hadn’t turned into pleas yet, and I wondered what the fuck this guy was on if he could withstand that much pain without passing out. Jr was an addict so it wouldn’t surprise me if his men were too. Whatever it was, it wasn’t enough to stop him from crying. Tears fell down his cheeks in rivers, but still he remained quiet.
Volkov had gotten a lead on Jr when he’d questioned the guy with the gut wound the night before. That poor sonofabitch hadn’t lasted long enough to do more than breathe the
only address he could think of. Volkov, Paco, and the MC guys hadn’t found Jr there, but his second-in-command—Fontana—was just as good. We would make the bastard talk, give up where his boss was hiding out like the coward he was.
As soon as Jr had taken his last breath, I’d be able to relax a little more. Until then I had to worry about Scarlett’s safety and whether Vito would actually give her the opportunity to end Jr herself. I could only pray I was able to get it taken care of before Vito was able to make that particular offer to his daughter. I’d worry about Vito being pissed later, but I couldn’t let Scarlett take so much as a step down that road. She might understand me having to handle things like this, but she didn’t know what it felt like to end someone’s life.
I was able to turn that part of myself off when I needed to. Scarlett wouldn’t be able to do the same thing. She was tough and stronger than any other woman I knew, even my mother. That was one of the things I loved about her, but I knew she wouldn’t be the same if she took another person’s life.
Hawk skimmed the blade of his wicked-looking knife down the man’s cheek. “Where is Santino?” he asked in a voice that was oddly quiet, almost like he was trying to soothe the guy he had just carved up like a turkey.
No answer. He didn’t even open his mouth.
Jet Hannigan stepped up beside the guy’s hands. Using a pair of pliers, he pulled out two of the guy’s fingernails. The room filled with Fontana’s screams once again, but no one outside would have heard him. The place was deserted, but even if it hadn’t been, the building was soundproof. When they stopped, Hawk spoke again. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you over some pussy squealing like a pig.”
“Just kill me.” Fontana groaned weakly, his will to live gone now as he slowly bled out on the floor. “Kill me.”
“Nah, that’s too easy. We’ll pump you full of fresh blood if we have to, but you won’t be meeting the Angel of Death anytime soon.” Hawk scratched his scruffy chin and glanced around the room. “I’m bored with this. Who’s next?”