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"Vittore, I will not tell you again."
I force my eyes open and lay them on the one person I would have never expected to see.
Christine, the ice queen herself is here... standing over me with a smoking gun.
* * *
Blinking my eyes feels like sandpaper rubbing against my eyelids. I try to talk but something lodged in my mouth makes it impossible. What the hell is going on? Where am I?
I try to turn my head and look around but I don't see anything but sterile white. Pulling my hand up, it moves slower than usual. Is this some sort of torture technique.
"You better stop before you pull that tube out again. Go back to sleep." A grating voice assaults my ears and I search the small space trying to find the source. Slowly a dark figure comes into view.
Giancarlo pushes his hair back out of his face showing a serious shiner under his left eye.
Once again I try to talk but whatever is in my throat stops me. I raise my hand again but this time Gian stops me and shoves it down by my side. "It's a breathing tube Vitto. You were a dead man. In fact, you died three times already. You need to relax."
Relax? Is he out of his mind?
I shake my head and try to move my hand again. I need to know what happened. Did I succeed? Where is Christine? More importantly, where is Stella and Chance?
He holds my hands down and I grab hold of his wrist as hard as I can, though I have very little strength. Without the use of my voice, I don't know how to express to him that I need to find Stella. That the thought of not knowing where she is once again is more important then not living. She's my purpose. She and that child is the only thing I have to live for so if I've lost them again I don't need to think about living.
Grabbing his left hand I squeeze his ring finger and then raise my hand up to my chest. I do the same thing over and over and after a minute he finally gets it.
"She's fine physically." he looks away from me and I slam my hand down on the edge of the bed. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
I grabbed his wrist again and squeezed making him look back down at me. When he doesn't answer me right away I try to sit up. If I'm not going to get the answers I need from my brother then I'll find someone else to tell me.
"Shit, stop being an ass." Giancarlo pushes me back down again. I'm not sure how extensive my injuries are but he's really doing his best not to be too rough with me. "I promise she's okay. Babbo hasn't even asked to see her again. He's too busy making moves to ensure all the Isley contacts know that it was him who took out the Isley family. There has been a bit of backlash but we're all doing our part to make sure shit goes over smoothly."
I roll my eyes and slam my hand down again on the bed. I don't give a shit about how the takeover is going. I want to know what's going on with my woman.
"Diego still has her. She and Chance is still at his place. Christine and Babbo have been keeping her in the dark and making sure the rest of us have been too. That woman is a firecracker. She's tried to escape and get to you several times already. I'm sure Diego is going to want to talk to you about some sort of compensation." Giancarlo chuckles but I don't see the humor in the situation. They don't know Stella like I do. If she really wants to leave she's going to find a way to get away from them.
I squeeze my eyes shut and for the first time, I can feel the first twinge of pain pulsing through my body.
Running my hand up my body as far as I can and realize that my entire midsection is bandaged. I look back up at my brother expecting some sort of explanation.
"You lost half your liver and your gallbladder. Not to mention some serious damage that you got from the bullet to the leg. The doctor was confused as to how you stayed alive so long. The bullet nicked your femoral artery. You should've bled out right there." Giancarlo tries to smile but I can see the worry in his dark eyes.
In my final gesture, I poke at my face right in the same spot where he's got the shiner and he sighs hard.
"You'd think finally finding a man to put up with her shit would be enough to cool her out but it turns out that she's just as combative as everyone tried to warn me about. I don't know what Babbo thought was going to come of this marriage but I don't think she's going to last longer than a year."
I raise an eyebrow at the statement. If he's already plotting ways to get rid of his new wife she must be a real chore. He also must be desperate because if our father heard him talking like that he'd break my brother's legs. I want to ask him about Rosie but I don't want to hurt him any more than he needs to.
"Of course, I'd come in and hear the two of you gossiping like teenage girls."
That same cold voice was the last thing I heard right before I passed out before. My oldest sister is here. She walks over to my bedside but instead of staying Giancarlo gives her a disgusted look and walks out of the room without so much as a goodbye.
What the hell is happening there?
"I don't have time to play fucking charades with you so use this to talk." She hands me a notepad and I sigh in relief, finally.
"What happened?" I scratched out on the pad.
"We won. What do you think happened?" She scoffed before she pulled up a chair and sat down next to me.
