Chapter 30
Cook
The world was white and sterile, but something seared me from the inside out. The pain throbbed in my side and down my body before it turned to a cool numbness. A siren swam in the depths, calling my name. I tried to claw through the haze until I opened my eyes. The bright white burned my eyes, and I blinked. Dots danced in my vision before they faded away, a woman appearing through it all.
“Cook?” asked Maddie, staring at me with wet eyes.
A groan escaped my hoarse throat. I had fucked up. How many more times was I going to do that?
I tried to sit up but then hissed. Pain stabbed me again, and I glanced down. I wasn’t even wearing a hospital gown, revealing the bandages on my gut. My muscles were taut, skin red. Sweat beaded across my tattoos.
“Cook,” repeated Maddie, holding my hand.
I pulled my gaze up to her, trying to focus. With all the beeping and slurping of the machines, I could barely hear her over the chaos and pain. Where the fuck was the morphine or something? Anything! I needed something to take the pressure off my gunshot wound.
Memories fluttered back to me. I honestly thought my daddy had risen from the dead just to beat me again, but then I remembered the Mafia shoot out. Massimo, Enzo, all their fucking capos. I craned my neck around the hospital room for my brothers.
“Only me?” I rasped.
“What?” asked Maddie.
“Anyone else . . . shot?”
“No,” she answered.
“Mom? Where’s—”
“Shhh, Cook,” said Maddie. “Vivi’s here, just eating now. You need to rest. Heal.”
I finally looked at her again, listening to the high-pitched machines. Fuck, it was annoying. This whole place was annoying. I wanted to get out. I reached for a needle hooked into my arm, but Maddie slapped her hand down on my hand, locking me in place.
“Maddie, let go,” I said over the air bursting into my nostrils. That tube was the next thing to go.
Her maple eyes and the set of her jaw gave away the turmoil inside her, but there was strength staring back at me too. She wanted to obey, but something held her back.
“No, Cook, you need these things.” She flashed her eyes around the room like we were being watched.
We were alone. “Where are my brothers?”
“Outside. Everyone’s here.”
“How’d you—” I gasped as my side pulled again.
“I came with Bou and Mel and Roni. You need to worry about healing now,” she said, then added in a quieter tone, “Daddy. Promise me you won’t try to pull that out.”
“Promise,” I rasped, a little stronger now.
Withdrawing her hand, she trembled, curling slowly in on herself. I grabbed her hand before she completely withdrew.
“Get on my bed,” I ordered.
“Cook,” she murmured, looking away.
“Are you disobeying me, baby girl?”
She glanced up, hiding under her long dark eyelashes. Her eyes were wet, cheeks swollen. Her face was red tinged. How long had she been crying because of me? She gnawed on her bulging bottom lip, and if I wasn’t tied up in all these tubes, I would lunge at her and kiss her deeply. Instead, I was locked down, like a weak and sick man.
“No, Daddy,” murmured Maddie, and she crawled off the seat beside my bed and curled up on my good side.
She was careful, but the smallest movement on the bed hurt my body. It was like my nerve endings had been set on fire. I fought off a groan as she shifted. Finally, like a nesting dog, she slumped into the bed beside me. Her head rested on my good shoulder.
“Is this all right?” she whispered.
“Yes, baby girl,” I said, ignoring the pain. Where the fuck were the pain killers?
But as quick as the pain blazed through me, it cooled with Maddie beside me. She was a salve, leeching away my pain. I could’ve died right here and now with her in my arms and been a complete man.
After a moment of just us, Maddie said, “The others are outside. If you want to see them.”
“Eventually,” I said, tightening my hold on her shoulder.
“And your mom.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s good now. Roni is making sure her meds are balanced.”
I dragged my hand down her body, feeling the ridges of her ribs and hardened edge of her hipbone. I cupped her ass. She leaned in on me, her thigh resting on the top of my leg.
“What is it, nizhóní?”
“We were all so worried . . .”
“But?”
“But I learned something about you today.” Her voice was soft, her breath lilting against my skin. “And your mom. Or maybe I learned it a long time ago at her house in Phoenix. But I didn’t realize it.”
I fought the tension that crept into my spine. Moving would make the pain so much worse. “What did you learn, baby girl?”
She mumbled something, but I wasn’t sure I heard her right.
“Say that again. Louder.”
“I understand why you got upset when I called you Daddy.”
I went rigid then until the pain bit me hard. “Ow, fuck!”
“I’m sorry,” she said immediately and tried to slip away.
I held on tighter. “Not...your... fault.” I took a couple of deep breaths until I could speak again. “Tell me more about that.”
“It’s just that your mom.” Her eyes flitted up to mine.
“Go on.”
“She’s been hurt, right?”
“Yeah,” I wheezed.
“And you too.”
I bit down and ground out, “Yeah.”
“By your father,” she said in a barely there voice.
“How did you—”
She placed her finger across my lips, lifted her head, and gave me a sweet kiss on the lips. “Later. Your mom wants to see you.”
“Okay,” I said. “Go get her.”
Maddie slipped off the bed. We fit together so well, and I missed her immediately.
“After I see Mom, you can let the MC in too.”
She froze and without turning, said, “Wasn’t being shot enough?”
In my line of business, it was to be expected at some point. “What’s wrong, baby girl?” I asked, sensing it was more than my health.
“Nothing, now. Never mind,” she murmured. “Wilde said he’d discuss whatever happened at church.” More acid seeped into her words, and dread pooled in me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, my voice heavier this time. Darker. Thicker.
“Nothing,” she repeated.
I pinched her side. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Daddy,” she pleaded, squirming where she stood. After a second, she squared off with me. “I can’t lose you, but I can’t...” She gasped before clamping her teeth shut. She was hiding something from me.
“Tell me what happened,” I demanded.
She started to cry. Pain and anguish ripped from her lungs, and her body quaked.
“Baby girl, tell me,” I said, my voice strained with the pain flaring through my torso.
“I can’t do this, Daddy,” she said through her sobs. “I can’t lose you, and I can’t be involved with the Mafia. Not again. Not after everything—” Her voice cracked, and she ducked her head.
“You won’t be involved with the Mafia,” I said, unsure if it was a lie. “We’ll figure out a way to keep it all separate, like church and state shit. We will have assurance now that human trafficking won’t happen again. You’ll never be hurt again, baby girl. And no one else will either.”
Maddie didn’t move. Didn’t agree. She curled in on herself but pulled away ever so slightly.
“The partnership with the Mafia means peace,” I said.
Peace for the MC and the old ladies.
Peace for Maddie.
I would force one of my brothers into the fucking arranged marriage at gunpoint if it meant keeping Maddie safe and at my side.
Maddie
I nibbled on the inside of my cheek. His words were meant to bring me some sort of serenity, but after I had seen him in this hospital bed and after what I had seen throughout my whole life, his words meant nothing. They crawled across my skin and twisted my stomach.
“No,” I said.
“No?” Cook jerked back his head as if I had just slapped him. “Maddie, it’s—”
That was right: Maddie. Not baby girl. And he wasn’t my daddy.
He tried to come off the bed.
“Keep your ass there,” I ordered this time. I didn’t want to see Cook in pain, or angry, but I couldn’t do this. Not if he was going to get injured again.
Not if I was going to be hurt again. I wasn’t sure I would survive it, not even with Cook at my side. And there was a chance he wouldn’t be. I had almost lost him once. I needed to turn away now before I lost him forever. At least I would know he was alive. That much would keep me going.
“Maddie, come here,” said Cook, laying back in bed and holding his side. He breathed heavily as the machines beeped quickly.
It wasn’t enough to drag the doctors and nurses back into his room like they had done before. He wasn’t that close to dying anymore, but I couldn’t wash my mind of what I’d seen. He was covered in blood. He was pale. Limp. Lifeless. It hadn’t been the man I loved.
“Maddie,” he ordered, jabbing his finger at the bed beside him. “Don’t make me punish you.”
He couldn’t punish me in his condition. It would only hurt him and me more. The world twisted around me, like the earth had fallen off its axis. My knees trembled as I reached toward the door.
“Maddie, where do you think you’re going?” asked Cook.
The machines were almost screaming now.
“Don’t leave me,” he said. “Not after everything.”
I held the door handle and murmured, “I don’t want to leave you.” I doubted he heard me.
“You’ll be safe,” said Cook. “I’ll make sure you’re safe. You don’t need to worry.”
But I worried so much. The day I had just lived through was torture worse than any I’d known before. I had lived through too much pain, but this was the first time that I had ever been worried about another. My heart had been erratic to the point I couldn’t breathe. I had been a zombie, a comatose patient stuck in a hospital where I wasn’t the one in the bed. I was tired and sweaty and cold, and I could barely survive. I didn’t think I would.
“I’ll secure the house,” continued Cook. “We’ll build a fence. Security cameras. Get a dog. Whatever you want to make sure you feel safe—you will be safe.”
I whipped around. “Will I?”
Red covered his cheeks. “Yes. I swear it.”
As much as I wanted to believe him—the words bubbling up that I believed him fully that he would protect me—I shook my head.
“Maddie,” said Cook, voice coming out more as a whine. “Tell me what you want. I don’t know.” He sucked in a deep breath, holding the side of his body. “I know I’m supposed to know. I’m supposed to be the Dom, but I’m floundering here. I don’t know what to say and I’m stuck in this bed, and I’m so fucking sorry for hurting you, and for getting shot. If I could, I would hold you close to me and never allow you to leave. You wouldn’t have gotten out of my arms. You wouldn’t—” He gritted his teeth. “Maddie, tell me. I’ll do anything.”
Anything? I didn’t know if it was enough.
“You’re a good Dom,” I said in a small voice. “You’ve always been so good.”
“Not good enough.” He shook his head. “Not after what I did to you at Serenity—”
“That wasn’t your fault,” I said.
“I should have seen what it was doing to you.” His voice was like gravel, so low and deadly. It rumbled the room like we were caught in an earthquake. “And then there was Massimo. That fucking—”
“You said there would be peace with the Mafia?” I asked, forcing the words forward. They hurt.
“Yes, but it won’t stop me from protecting you.”
“Protecting me means you’re not going to get shot. That you’ll always be there for me. That I don’t have to be scared every time you leave me alone. I thought it was all okay, but now...”
Alarm flashed into Cook’s eyes. “Maddie, I want to give you the world, but I cannot go against my brothers. You haven’t been here for all of it, but the MC bonds are sealed with blood. It’s all I know. War or not, they’re family.”
“I’m not talking about war,” I said, stepping toward him on the bed.
He raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to continue.
“The club,” I said, searching for an explanation. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted.
“Serenity?” he asked, his brows drawn together. “We don’t have to go back there. I’ll burn it down if you want. Maddie, you’ll never have to—”
I shook my head. He wasn’t understanding, but I wasn’t explaining. It was like when he saved me and brought me home, and I didn’t know how to say how I wanted him to hold me and fuck me and spank me. It was how I wanted him to hold me down. He gave me back my power after everything had been stolen from me. He had understood before I could ever speak.
“I liked Serenity.” I peeked up at him through my lashes. “What it offered. I liked what we did there. Who we were.”
Slowly, realization dawned on him. “You want to go back if it’s not owned by the Mafia?”
I nodded. This was how I could reclaim my life.
“I’ll make sure the Mafia sells both,” continued Cook with a huff. “Or I’ll buy them.”
I didn’t know how he had the money, but I imagined the MC had some from what they were running across the border. MC, Mafia, and cartels—the same, but not.
“Does this mean you’ll stay?” asked Cook.
I pursed my lips. “Are you asking me to stay with you?”
He dragged his gaze across from me. “You are staying with me, baby girl. It’s the MC I’m curious about.”
That was the Dom I knew. And needed. “I’ll stay with you. It’s the only answer I can give for now.”
“And you’ll see Doctor Ava?”
“Yes.” I needed more help, and the last time I met her, it wasn’t so bad.
“And you’ll testify against the Gambinos?”
“Of course.” I nearly laughed. “I won’t let them get away with what they did to me.” Or so many others.
“Good.” He dropped his head back.
I reached for the door. “I’ll send in your mom.”