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My arm hair stands up, I’m about to pull my gun out, when a bike screeches in front of me. I see the gun being pointed at me. I see my men pulling theirs. I look at my shirt. I didn’t wear my bulletproof vest. That was the first rule we agreed on. We never leave without one. I jerk back as bullets fly, and everything turns black.
It’s her image I take with me, and I fucking smile.
Chapter 37
A pain rips through my chest and instantly, my eyes well up. Panic seizes my lungs and I try to calm down, but there’s an ominous feeling constricting my air supply. I’ve never felt loss so prominent, shaking my core, snapping my heart in two. I try to calm down, to tell myself it’s nothing, patting my pounding heart.
Cato.
I whisper his name when the door to our bedroom opens and the guard looks at me, his shirt soaked with blood, and I know.
Pain ripples through me, and I place my hand on my chest, where my heart yelps.
“Where is my husband?”
“I’m sorry . . . the boss . . . He . . .”
I stumble from the bed, on my knees. He rushes to me, but I pull myself up. My heart broken, my legs wobbly.
“Bring me to him.”
We get in the car, and when we reach the hospital, I have an out-of-body experience. He’s going to survive. He must. I can’t . . . My vision blurs with the tears that won’t stop streaming down my face.
A nurse brings me to a secluded area in the VIP section, telling me he’s getting great care. He’s in surgery, with three bullets in his chest and stomach. Three . . .
Kieran, Aurora, Cameron, and Hayden burst out of the elevator. Aurora hugs me, but I’m cold, shivering uncontrollably in the waiting room.
Kieran threatens the nurses, the doctors, losing his composure as he promises heaven and earth if they save Cato. My husband could die. My monster I believe to be above death could die.
Aurora holds my hand, squeezing it. My mind is not here anymore. I’m back in our bed, telling him that no one has ever loved me like him— even my own family sent me away because I was too much. I didn’t get to tell him I love him with all of me and I feel blessed to have caught his interest. I’m sorry it took me so long to fall in love with him when he knew right away that we were meant to be.
Cameron is on his phone, looking for the best surgeon in the USA, the world. Six hours of pure torture, Alessandra and a team of doctors coming to inform us that they’re doing all they can, but he lost a lot of blood. His heart flattened twice. I pray, I pray like I’ve never prayed before, for a miracle, for a second chance. God can’t take away the man he made for me. That doesn’t seem right, that is an abomination in creation and God is perfect, right? He can’t have a flawed plan.
When the doctor comes out, my breath stutters. He’s somber and I shake my head, hugging myself as the girls embrace me. It’s deathly silent. My ears ring, and I barely make out what he says, but I get spleen rupture, internal bleeding, coma, his body is weak. He’s not out of danger, critical seventy-two hours, but he’s alive. He’s fighting because he’s a fighter. His heart is tethered to mine. And I know he wouldn’t allow it to be separated from mine. We’re entwined on an atomic level. Hearts, lives, souls.
“Can I see my husband?” I don’t recognize my groggy voice.
“He’s in the intensive care unit. Follow me.”
They all follow.
“Just family.”
“We are all fucking family,” Kieran snarls.
Inside, Cato’s hooked up to machines and an IV. I stumble to his bed and start praying again. I caress his hand, his pale face, murmuring, “Don’t leave me. I’m here. Please come back to me.” I drop into the chair, gripping his hand. I’ll never let go.
His parents, my family, our friends are all here, coming and going. I hold his hand, still praying. I’m in a trance.
I’m not alive, my soul is too busy finding his, showing him the way back.
One day, two days, three days.
When he can breathe on his own, they unhook him from the ventilator. But he’s still in a coma. Like my heart, my body.
“Go home and rest.”
I don’t know who says that. I don’t care either. It’s all I have heard and everything I ignore. Cato needs me. I know he feels me.
