Chapter Twenty
Jane
I struggled to wake yet again as beeping machinery infiltrated my consciousness and nightmares fused with reality in a never-ending chorus. Sometimes I was coherent enough to hear the voices around me and wished my scream would actually claw its way out of my throat.
Did Alessandro realize I heard his many questions even while the doctors’ replies stayed elusive?
“How much longer before she wakes?”
“Is she getting any better?”
“Why isn’t she responding?”
“I want the best doctor money can buy.”
“I need answers.”
I slipped back to sleep between the questions, too exhausted to hear anymore conversations, too fragile to understand what had happened...until the knot tying all the memories in my head unraveled and I remembered everything.
I woke with a gasp, my eyelashes fluttering as my vision blurred and finally focused. Alessandro was sitting half-asleep beside my bed in a chair.
“Alessandro,” I said, my voice cracking.
He jerked awake, then lurched to his feet before taking hold of my hand. “You’re awake,” he said hoarsely.
I licked my dry lips. “Water.”
“Of course.” He grabbed a plastic cup already filled with water, then stuck a straw in and placed it between my lips. I took a sip, my dry throat rejoicing at the wetness sliding down.
“Thank you,” I managed, aware the small effort had been enough to exhaust me. I was already sliding back into oblivion when Alessandro called for a nurse.
The next time I half-woke Alessandro was holding my hand. His stare held mine as he said, “Tony won’t get away with what he’s done to you. No matter the protection he has around him, I’ll hunt him down and isolate him, then I’ll make him suffer for what he’s done to you.”
It took everything I had just to squeeze his hand, but going by his sharp inhalation and his intense stare he knew I understood what he had to do.
“Wait for me little sparrow. When I come back, Tony will be nothing but a painful memory.”
I wished I had the strength and willpower to tell him not to kill on my account. But a part of me was aware Tony had chosen his fate from the moment he’d left me to die.
The next time I woke, Alessandro wasn’t there. I bit back overwhelming fear. Was he safe? Had going after Tony made him vulnerable to attack? My breath caught in my throat, then my lashes fluttered closed and nothing else registered.
When I next woke, I didn’t lapse straight back to sleep, I took some time to look around, taking note of the beeping machine, the cannula going into the vein on the back of my hand, the catheter tube that snaked from me to under the bed into a large plastic container.
A nurse walked in, her serious expression belied by the warmth in her dark brown eyes. “Ah, good. You’re awake sleepyhead.”
She put a blood pressure cuff around my arm and watched it expand and tighten before she read the results and noted them down.
I cleared my throat. “Can you tell me how I am? Is it—is it bad?”
The nurse pushed back a wisp of dark hair that had dared to escape her tight bun, her eyebrows lowering. “You’re very lucky to be alive, my dear. But I’m sure the doctor will want to tell you everything you need to know.”
“Please,” I said, my voice rasping with lack of use. “I’ll more than likely be asleep again when the doctors make their rounds.”
She sighed softly, relenting. “You’ve suffered serious concussion as well as lacerations to your head and body. Your shoulder was dislocated but healing well.”
Being careful not to move my sore shoulder, I lifted my other arm and touched my head. How hadn’t I noticed all the dressings covering my skull? I bit my bottom lip. “Do you have a mirror I can look into?”
The nurse frowned, her eyes assessing. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I need to know—to see for myself.”
She nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I was fighting to stay awake a few minutes later when she returned, holding a little hand mirror. “Here you go,” she said brusquely.
I took it from her and lifted it, my eyes going round and my mouth falling open. It was me staring back, and yet it wasn’t.
My eyes were sunken, my face covered in motley purple and yellow bruises while dressings covered whatever cuts and lacerations I’d suffered, with much of my hair shaved. I gulped, then asked, “Will I fully heal and recover?”
The nurse smiled. “I’d say it’s very likely, that man of yours is making sure you’re getting the best of care.”
I blinked at my reflection, a little horrified knowing Alessandro’s blood money was paying for my welfare. “Will I have scars?” I asked, my voice scratchy.
The nurse gently took the mirror from out of my hands. “Any scarring will be superficial and fade with time. Not that you should be worrying over a few scars. Your boyfriend isn’t going anywhere.”
Whatever else she said washed over me like a frigid river. It seemed Karma had had the last joke. I’d changed my appearance to test Alessandro’s loyalty to me. Now I was half-bald and my face so mottled and scarred I’d be testing his devotion to the very limits.
I subsided against my stack of pillows. Did I even want to test him? No doubt he’d stubbornly stay with me just to prove my looks didn’t matter, when realistically how I’d looked had been all he’d cared about right from the start.
“Thank you,” I muttered listlessly. “I-I’d like to sleep now.”
“Good idea,” the nurse said brightly. “Just you wait and see, everything will be much better after you wake.”
I didn’t bother reminding her that sleeping was pretty much all I’d done since I’d been here.
How long had I been in this room?
I turned to ask the nurse, but she was already hurrying off to her next patient. Leaving me alone and amplifying so many doubts I was hurled into a dark place I couldn’t escape.
Curling into myself, I allowed the dam to burst inside of me.