She’s stronger than she realizes, but she should never have been in a situation where she had to be that strong.
“Sit down.” Alessio puts his hand on my shoulder.
I’ve got to give it to the guy. He’s got balls to be touching me when I’m like this.
I shrug him off and pace to the other side of the waiting area, closer to the doors where nurses and doctors filter in and out. Above the doors is a clock.
The minutes tick by. I watch the hands move and try to remember to keep breathing.
Please be okay.
A doctor comes out and walks toward us.
I meet him halfway. “I’m Nero De Luca. Blake De Luca’s husband. Do you have any news?”
The doctor—a dark-haired woman about my age—gives me a sympathetic smile. “Hello, Mr. De Luca. She’s out of surgery, but she’s in critical condition. We're doing everything we can to stabilize her right now. The bullet nicked a major blood vessel in her abdomen. She lost a lot of blood. We’ve repaired the damage and are now restoring her blood volume through transfusions. The next twenty-four hours will be crucial,” she says gently, as if trying to cushion the blow of her words.
My chest tightens at the news, but a flicker of hope ignites inside me. She's alive. There’s still a chance she’ll make it through this.
“Can I see her?”
The doctor nods. “Yes, but only for a few minutes. She's still unconscious. Follow me.”
My heart pounds as I trail behind the doctor through a maze of corridors. We finally reach a room with a glass window, and I see Blake lying on the hospital bed, hooked up to machines and tubes.
My lungs still. She’s so horribly pale against the stark-white sheets.
The doctor opens the door and says something, but her words don’t register. My legs feel like lead as I approach Blake, each step heavy with dread.
Hand trembling, I reach out to touch her. Her skin is cold, but the faint rise and fall of her chest tells me she’s still breathing.
“I’ll be back in five minutes,” the doctor says, excusing herself from the room.
I pull up a chair beside the bed and take Blake's hand in mine, pressing it gently to my lips. "You’re going to be okay, Sunshine. You can get through this. I know you can.”
She doesn’t react. Not even a twitch.
My vision blurs.
This is all your fault.
Memories of our time together flood my mind, each one more vivid than the last. I see her the day I moved in—her hands onher hips as she chastised me for leaving my trash on the front lawn. Her eyes were bright with that mix of exasperation and anger she always had when I pushed her buttons. Fuck, how those eyes got under my skin.
I remember the lazy afternoons in Darkwater Hollow, the sunlight filtering through the window as we sat on the sofa, her head resting on my shoulder as we watched movies and talked about nothing. There was peace in those moments, a sense of rightness that I’d never known before. She had a way of making the world feel softer, like it wasn’t such a harsh place after all.
And then there was Christmas, just weeks ago. I can still see the way her eyes widened when she opened the envelope, the one that held the lease to her bookshop. I knew I'd nailed her present when she started tearing up. The way she'd looked at me then, awed and so fucking happy, made my heart swell with a love so deep it hurt.
But then the other memories surface, the ones that cut deep. I remember every tear she shed because of me, because of this life I dragged her into. All the times she told me she wanted to leave. All the times I refused to even consider it because of my stubborn conviction that she’d be safe with me. That she’d eventually embrace all of this.
Did I blind myself to the possibility that maybe—just maybe—she’d have been safer and happier without me? That all my promises of protection were nothing more than hollow words in a world where there are no guarantees?
A world she didn’t choose. A world I dragged her into, kicking and screaming.
And now here she is, fighting for her life in a hospital bed.
She will never be truly safe with me.
It’s one thing to choose this life with your eyes wide open, the way my mom did, deciding that the man she loved was worth the risk.
