Page 153 of Disgrace

He looked to the side as someone tugged on his jacket, and found Lucia staring up at him. Her red-rimmed hazel eyes were a stark contrast to his dry, blazing gaze.

“Is she okay?” Lucia asked.

John shrugged, but even the action felt like it took too much effort. “I don’t know.”

“John, we need to talk about the enforcers—”

He found the men staring at him over his shoulder again—his father, uncles, Andino, and his own men.

They wanted to talk.

He wanted to kill.

John looked back at the clock. “I don’t need to do anything at the moment.”

Besides, his choice for those enforcers had already been made.

She lived—they lived.

It was that simple.

It was in God’s hands now.

John’s hands were tied.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SIENA CRACKED aching eyelids open to see white stucco tile staring back at her from the ceiling. A strong antiseptic smell burned her lungs with every breath. The low, rhythmic beeps made her head pound. Something hurt like fucking hell in her chest.

She coughed.

Oh, God.

Yeah, shit, that hurt way worse.

Still, she refused to close her eyes and go back to sleep, no matter how much she wanted to do just that. She could tell she was in the hospital, but it was only after a few seconds of being lucid that she remembered why she had found herself there.

Her mother shot her.

Her own mother.

Siena blinked again.

“Look into this light for me, sweetheart, and follow it,” she heard a man say.

That statement was quickly followed by a snarled grumble in the corner of the room—an angry, heated hiss of words that both worried her, and comforted her. Siena’s bed was propped up higher, and her gaze found the person in question.

John.

His hard-set jaw, and blazing eyes would have nailed the doctor to the wall had the man been looking at John. He clearly didn’t like the man using pet names on Siena, and while it was cute, she didn’t even think she had the energy to smile at the moment.

“Follow the light, not the angry Marcello in the corner,” the doctor said, grinning just a little.

Apparently, she could smile.

It didn’t take that much effort after all.

“Sorry,” she rasped.