Page 153 of Pink

THIRTY

IT WAS soft, rhythmic beeping in the back of Gigi’s sleepy mind that drew her from the deep slumber. She didn’t know where she was when she first cracked open her eyes, the dryness behind her lids making the action slightly uncomfortable.

Not that she felt much of anything at all as she blinked, again and again, trying to discern the dimly lit room around her and the vaguely familiar scent she pulled into her lungs with every deep breath. It took her an entire minute to understand two things.

Important things.

She was staring at a hospital room.

And she was high.

Really fucking high.

That’s why she wasn’t feeling anything, even when she lifted her arm to see the IV lines—more than one—sticking out of her arm. There was a dull, sharp sensation poking at the edges of her senses. Stabbing into the numbness like it was trying to break the barrier of whatever pain medication was being fed into her body.

It couldn’t get through.

Part of her was grateful. Another wished she could think clearly. Or even, to think at all.

Because now, Gigi had no clear understanding of anything. Not where she was—or rather, what hospital. Not how she got here. And even her last memory, one she dug hard for in her foggy brain, was of water.

So much water.

Other flashes popped into her head, pictures snapping behind her eyelids when she clenched them shut to slow the rush of memories that suddenly didn’t want to stop. The beeping in the room picked up at the same time her heart began to pound so hard in her chest that it felt like the organ might lift her right off the thin mattress of the hospital bed.

“Hey, now,” came a new—dark and masculine—voice from the end of Gigi’s bed. “Calm down, we don’t need them all rushing in here like something’s wrong, do we?”

Her eyes snapped wide.

There, standing at the end of her bed in a black three-piece suit with a blazer tossed carelessly over his arm, was a man she didn’t recognize. Even though the tunnel of her vision, compliments of whatever pain killers she had in her system, she locked eyes with the unfamiliar man, ready to scream.

Hadn’t a man hurt her enough?

What was this one here to do?

“Andino Marcello,” he greeted, not moving a muscle, “I’m sorry it’s taken this long for me to properly meet you, Gigi Parker. Pink has only said … very kind things about you. His daughter, too. Arely says hello, but I hope you understand why she isn’t here with me. This is not a situation for a child. Certainly not one she can comprehend. As for your mother, well, she’s still healing but I promise she will be around as soon as she can make it.”

She swallowed hard, the words trying to form around the knot in her scratchy throat. Nothing came out but a croaky squeak which only made the man at the end of the bed frown.

“Water?” he asked.

She was still putting together who he was. Lev’s boss, right?

The mafia boss.

“Are you going to kill me?” she managed to ask, her voice raspy.

That had him looking offended.

“But why?” he returned.

She didn’t know.

It just felt right to ask.

Andino sighed, stepping around the side of the bed and coming to her right where a table waited with a cup and a bendy straw. Without asking her again if she wanted a drink, he simply picked up the cup and held the straw steady for her when he brought it close enough to her lips that she could take a sip. Cool liquid hit her tongue and throat with total relief. She easily sucked back a quarter of the cup before Andino pulled it away with a chuckle.

“Not too fast,” he said, “as it might come back up with the amount of oxy they’re pumping into you right now, and they want to wait a bit for your stomach to settle after how much water they pumped out of it. Seems you’ve got a bit of an allergy to morphine, huh?”