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A second later Riker found himself in a headlock, Prosper’s voice was a low rasp in his ear. “Calm the fuck down. You wanna put a hole through that wall? Wind up banned from the hospital while your woman needs you? While your son needs you?”
“This is my fault. I should have been here to take care of her.” Riker struggled to break free. “I had one fucking job to do. I made one damn promise to her, and I blew it.”
Prosper tightened the hold he had around Riker’s neck until he stopped struggling.
“Now you listen to me, you stubborn sonofabitch. If anyone is to blame it’s me. This never should have happened on my watch, in my club.” Prosper growled back. “But this blame game you’re playing with yourself? This kind of thinking is self-indulgent bullshit and it’s gonna have to wait. Someone is gonna pay for this, but it ain’t gonna be you and it ain’t gonna be her, and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be that baby of yours.”
Just then a nurse walked into the room, stopped just inside the door and looked at the two men locked in combat. “Do we have a problem here, gentlemen?”
“No ma ‘am.” Prosper released Riker.
The nurse, who had steel gray hair, a robust figure, and an absolute no-nonsense attitude raised a questioning eyebrow at Riker.
“No. No problem.”
“Good, because I would hate to have to throw you out.” Then she looked imperiously down her nose at them. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t hesitate to give you a good boot if you two forget where you are.”
Forget where I am? Pretty fucking unlikely
He moved to the window to try and catch his breath. From Riker’s vantage point, the rows upon rows of cars parked in the lot below made him think of caskets all lined up and ready to go.
He turned away.
Medically induced coma.
What. The. Hell?
Medically induced prison, medically induced purgatory, medically induced where the hell are you, Gia?
“Maybe I’m a simple guy, but to me you are either dead or you ain’t.” Riker said to the nurse. “Can she hear? Can she feel? Should I talk to her, should I touch her?” He rubbed a hard hand through his hair. “I have no idea what the hell to do to help her.”
“We’re helping her. I’m sure they told you how those machines are helping to quiet her brain by limiting the work it has to do while it heals.” The nurse told him. “And you’re helping her by just being here. Every case is different, but research shows that out of all of the senses hearing is the…” Here she hesitated and looked chagrined.
“It’s the last to go. Hearing is the last to go. That’s what you were going to say.”
“That’s right, that’s what Iwasgoing to say.” The stern nurse whose name tag ironically saidNightingaleadmitted with a sigh. “But it’s not what Imeantto say. What Imeantto say is hearing is the….” Nurse Nightingale seemed to search for words she couldn’t find. She had the grace to look abashed.
“What Imeantto say is… talk to her, touch her, hold your wife’s hand, let her know you’re here. Let us do the rest. And Mr. Devlin? We have every reason to be optimistic. I need to have a few minutes with her, why don’t you go get yourself something to eat?”
“I’ll eat when she eats.” He told her. With that Nurse Nightingale looked at Riker and muttered something that sounded a lot likestubborn exhausted fool,then she pulled the curtain around Gia and went about the business of keeping Gia clean and comfortable.
Riker leaned forward in the chair. His hands on his thighs. Out of all the places he thought he and Gia would end up, this wasn’t one of them. Prison, yeah. That was bound to happen sooner or fucking later. When he beat that charge, Riker thought he was the luckiest sonofabitch on the planet. But if this was the cost? He would do five life sentences to give Gia back just that one moment in time before the accident.
The person in the other vehicle had died. Riker had heard them talking at the nurse’s station. He had been just a kid, a seventeen- year- old boy who had taken his dad’s truck out for the first time. There was only one witness to the accident and that was an eighty-two year old woman who was out walking her dog. She reported to the authorities that a man on a motorcycle ran a stop sign. When the young fella in the truck swerved to avoid him, he plowed right through Gia’s car and went on to hit a large oak tree head on.
The woman could not identify anything about the motorcycle or its driver.
Prosper let Riker know that he had taken care of notifying Gianni and that Gianni had taken care of notifying the rest of the family. Valentina and Hal were on the way from the airport and Gianni’s flight was due in the next evening. Audrina and Pauli were traveling by train through Eastern Europe and no one had been able to reach them as of yet.
That’s what Riker thought he had heard anyway.
Everything was a blur. He had lost track of time and conscious thought. Riker had no idea when the last time he had showered, changed his clothes or eaten was. He quit smoking cold turkey because he didn’t want to leave her to step outside. Riker existed solely on black coffee, and adrenalin. He didn’t talk, he didn’t sleep, he barely breathed. His whole focus was on Gia. He just stayed in the room with her and watched her breathe.
“Riker?”
“Hey, Valentina.” He stood up to greet her and to his surprise Valentina wrapped her arms tight around him. Then, because he felt he had to say something, he asked. “How was your flight? How’s Hal doing?”
“Hal’s good, the flight was good. We’re just glad to be here.” Valentina felt a strong surge of compassion for Riker. “How are you holding up?”
