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“I’m not a match,” I say. “But someone else is.”
My phone is in my hand before I finish speaking. I scroll through contacts until I find the number I need and hit call. It rings twice.
“Domenico?” The woman’s voice is calm. Calm. “What can I do for you?”
“Paolo’s been shot.” There’s no time for subtlety, so I don’t soften it. “And he’s lost a lot of blood. They’re struggling to find enough compatible blood, and they asked about known donors.”
There’s silence on the line, but I can still hear her breathing. “I’m on my way. Text me where you are.”
“How long?” I growl, needing a goddamn number. Something I can hold on to while my son fights for his life.
“The jet can be in the air within twenty minutes. I’ll call you when we land.”
And this is exactly why I always make sure one of my jets is in Chicago so she can use it for emergencies.
“Domenico?”
“I’m still here.”
“Look out for our son.”
29
Kira
The private hospital room is too bright and too quiet. Clean sheets, yellow walls, the distant hum of a ventilation system trying too hard.
I’m clean—showered, hair damp, wearing the yoga pants and sweater Donna brought from the penthouse. Domenico lies beside me on the narrow hospital bed, one hand resting on my thigh, his thumb tracing slow circles through the soft fabric.
After the CT scan, they told me I have a concussion, but it’s nothing major or worrisome. There’s no intracranial bleeding, just a nasty cut that’s been cleaned and sealed with butterfly strips.
And to say I felt so much relief at hearing that is an understatement equivalent to calling a tsunami a drizzle.
When they gave me strict instructions to rest, avoid screens, and basically take it easy for a few days, Domenico had us moved into this room. It’s nicer, if that can be said about any place in a hospital.
“You were told to rest,” Domenico grumbles.
As if rest is what my body wants right now. My hands won’t stop moving. They find his forearm first, fingers tracing the black-gray pattern of his sleeve tattoo from wrist to elbow as if I’m memorizing every line.
His skin is warm beneath my fingertips, the muscle firm under my touch, and when I reach his elbow, I slide my palm higher just to feel the solid reality of him. Domenico watches me with those intense blue eyes I want to get lost in.
His massive body is half-propped against the raised headboard, one leg stretched out, the other bent at the knee. I curl toward him, my cheek against his shoulder, and my hand slides beneath his open collar to feel the heat of his skin, the steady beat of his heart under my palm.
“You’re shaking,” he murmurs.
I am. Full-body tremors that started the second the adrenaline burned off and haven’t stopped. Not from cold—the room is overheated, if anything. No, this is something deeper. It’s the kind of shaking that happens when your body finally understands how close it came to something terrible.
“I know,” I say. My voice sounds thin, worn at the edges. “I can’t make it stop.”
He shifts, turning toward me, and his arm slides around my waist. Pulls me against him until there’s no space between us, until my forehead rests against his collarbone and his breath stirs the damp strands of hair.
“Don’t try to stop it,” he says. “Just let it happen.”
So I do that too. I let myself shake against his chest while his hand moves in slow, firm strokes up and down my spine. The longer I’m pressed against him, the less I shake. My body realizes that the danger is over.
That he—my husband—found me. That I’m back with him.
The strangest part is how happy I feel. Not relieved, exactly. Happy. A bright, almost giddy sensation blooming behind my ribs that makes no sense given the day I’ve had.
