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“Hush, Bambi,” I urged gently. “It’s okay. I’m right here.”
“But my father…”
“Don’t worry about your father.” I struggled to keep the snap from my tone. The last thing she needed right now was that bastard.
“He’ll come to the hospital,” she insisted, her eyes focusing with full clarity. “You can’t…be there.”
The ambulance came to a stop, and the doors were opened. I hopped out so that they could get Allie the help she needed immediately. She grabbed my hand as the stretcher passed me.
“Please.” Her lovely eyes shone with desperation. “He can’t see you here with me.”
My lip curled with contempt for her old man. “I don’t give a fuck about him. I’m not leaving you.”
“We need to get you inside, Allie,” the paramedic insisted.
She squeezed my hand like a vise. “I’ll come to you as soon as they’ll let me. I swear. Please, Max…”
She coughed again, struggling for breath.
Fuck. I had to let the doctors treat her. I was only getting in the way.
I lifted our intertwined hands and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. “I’ll be waiting,” I promised gruffly. Then I turned my most forbidding glower on the paramedics. “Take care of her.”
The man swallowed hard and nodded. Allie’s grip loosened, and her hand slipped from mine as they took her away from me.
The loss of her tender touch was a knife in my chest, but I had to let her go for now. She would be safe in the hospital. Her father would come, and there was nothing I could do to stop that from happening. If my presence caused her stress when she needed to focus on recovering, then I would give her some space. Her wellbeing was all that mattered.
I turned on my heel and stalked away, ignoring the woman who was urging me to go inside and get my own injuries checked more thoroughly. The burning pain on my arms was nothing compared to the ache in the center of my chest as I forced myself to leave the woman I loved.
CHAPTER 7
Allie
I told the doctor that I couldn’t recall what had happened before the fire. It made her more concerned about my head injury, but I would trade a few more hours in the hospital to avoid implicating Max in the violence. An investigation into his cousins would surely lead back to our relationship. To him. And as much as I loved him, I knew that he’d committed crimes in the past. He’d handled that knife at Niko’s throat as though it was a natural extension of his arm; that hadn’t been the first time he’d threatened someone like that.
I’ll be better for you. I can’t lose you.
I couldn’t undo Max’s past sins, but he’d promised to change his ways. For me. Underneath all that rage and pain, there was a good man. I chose to love that man, not the monster that lived on the surface of his skin.
Once I was discharged from the hospital, I would talk to him about what his cousins had done to me. Max had protected me so many times before. I knew he’d find a way to keep me safe from them. If that meant going to the police, it was a decision we would make together.
I would have to tell my dad even less than what the doctor knew; I’d already instructed her that I didn’t consent to having my medical records shared with him. I didn’t want him to find out that I’d been beaten before the fire started. I didn’t want him to know anything that was connected to Max. There was too much to untangle between all of us, and I didn’t trust my father. Not anymore.
“Allie,” he rasped, voice hoarse and eyes red-rimmed from tears. I cringed as he rushed to my bedside, finally admitted into my hospital room now that the doctor had finished her tests. His hands fluttered around me, anxious to touch me but afraid of jarring my injuries. He settled for gently holding my hand.
Automatically, I squeezed back, drawn to comfort him. Just as I’d been protecting him from the ugliness in my life for a decade.
His eyes searched my face, lines of age etched deep in his brow and around his mouth. They roved over my bruised jaw, where Paulie had delivered a vicious punch. It was a miracle that he hadn’t broken any of my bones.
“Sweetheart, what happened?”
I dropped my gaze from his to hide my lie. “I’m not sure. I think I fell and hit my head on the kitchen island. The stove might have been on. I don’t remember.”
He couldn’t see the bruise on my stomach where one of the twins had kicked me. The head wound that’d made me pass out was beneath my hairline, but the bruised jaw was harder to hide.
The arson report wouldn’t be complete yet. He wouldn’t know that I was lying until after I got out of the hospital and was safely back in Max’s arms. All I wanted was for him to leave me alone. His nearness made my stomach churn. For days, I’d been avoiding the inevitable: I had to accept that everything Max had said about him was true. The Bratva ties. Covering up my mother’s murder. All of it.
I pressed my lips together, holding in accusations. I wasn’t ready to confront him about the awful things he must’ve done.
