Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Oh, ah, okay,” I said, standing on numb legs, and handing off my son.
“It’s okay, honey,” Adrian said, walking with me until she couldn’t anymore. “He’s been asking only for you,” she added, giving me a warm, motherly smile before I was led away on wobbly legs with the nurse, and instructed to get into a gown before I could enter the room.
Taking a deep breath, I moved in, hearing the beep of Aurelio’s monitors, finding something comforting in that, the proof that he was alive, that his vitals were good.
“Angel,” Aurelio breathed out when he looked over to see me standing a few feet in the room, but seemingly unable to force my legs forward.
He looked so damn pale from the blood loss, making him almost match the sheets beneath him.
I had to focus on making my legs move forward, and I nearly collapsed with relief into the chair beside his bed, the tears I swore I wouldn’t cry in front of him starting to already pour down my face.
“You saved me,” he said, voice small as his hand reached out for mine, and squeezed.
“You saved Judah,” I said through my tears.
“Always,” he said as I leaned forward, resting my head on his leg and purging the rest of the tears. “Better?” he asked, eyes soft as he looked at me.
“Not until you’re home again,” I said.
“I will be,” he assured me.
“I met your mom,” I told him.
“I heard,” he said, smile sweet. “She loves you. And is excited about another grand baby.”
Judah.
She was already seeing Judah as her grand baby.
And Aurelio… Aurelio was seeing him as his own.
God, my heart, so torn apart for the past several hours, stitched itself back together.
“I want about half a dozen of them, by the way,” I said.
Aurelio’s smile spread.
“Give me a couple weeks, and we can get started on that.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Aurelio
“Where is Claire?” was the first thing out of my mouth when Lucky and my mom made their way into the hospital room. “And Judah?”
Maybe I should have thanked them for being there, assured them that I was okay. That was what you did with the family who’d been worried sick, waiting for you to come out of surgery after nearly dying from gunshot wounds.
But my only thoughts since I woke up in the recovery room, aching, weak, and disoriented, were about where they were, if they were okay.
I’d had nothing left in me at the end there, but there was no shaking the feeling that I should have been able to rally, to at least stay conscious to make sure they were okay before I let the darkness claim me.
“The waiting room,” Lucky said. “They’re both okay,” he added. “Worried about you, but okay. But listen, before we talk about anything else, we need to get the story straight.”
He’d launched into the story then, the one Damon had told the police when they’d shown up at the hospital. Some fake random drive-by crime that would be hard to prove and even harder to refute.
I had a vague memory of being in the car with Damon, of his hand pushing hard into my neck with one hand as he drove with the other, but everything was pretty much blank from the moment I shot my traitorous fuck of a guard, then dialed Luca’s number on my phone before passing out.
Luckily, it seemed, Luca had known something was wrong, that we needed help, and had called to wake up Damon at his hotel.
Then he’d shown up to grab me and drag me to the hospital.
Part of me was pissed that he’d left Claire alone in the house with the baby, even if he gave her weapons. Even if I was bleeding out in front of him.
But from the sound of things, his quick action was probably the only reason I was alive right now.
Well, the quick action and the fact that Claire had shoved Warren at the exact right second, making it so the bullet lodged in a relatively harmless area of my neck instead of anywhere else that would have all but assured my immediate death.
I understood that I needed to see my family all first, even if I was most anxious about seeing Claire herself.
Each set of visitors that came in to see me filled me in a little bit more, though, gave me details that I didn’t have, filled in blanks I’d been curious about.
It had been Milo, though, who had whipped out his phone, showing me a picture of Claire that looked like it was out of that prom scene in Carrie, with her drenched in blood.
Warren’s blood.
Apparently, she must have stabbed him dozens, if not hundreds, of times, according to Milo’s report on the state of his body.
He’d concluded she was a ‘badass’ for pretty much disemboweling her former abuser.