Chapter Twenty
GINO
EVERY PART OF MY body felt broken. I was so drowsy and it was difficult to open my eyes.
What the fuck had happened to me? I was waiting for Gaby to come out of the clinic, smoking a cigarette and talking to Nico. Then I went to put the packet of cigarettes back in the car and then…nothing.
I lay there for a moment going over everything in my head over again. Then I suddenly remembered: Gaby.
I tried to shoot up but the pain that went through my body caused me to groan.
“Gino you’re awake.”
I could hear Nico’s voice, but I couldn’t focus on where he was. It wasn’t until I felt him take my hand that I knew which side of the bed he was on.
“Where is Gabriella? Is Tesoro safe? Please tell me that nothing happened to her. Is she pregnant?”
So many questions left my mouth as the panic started to set in. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her. I needed to get out of here, and I needed to do it quickly. I needed to see for myself that she was okay. Whether she was expecting a child by one of us. I needed to protect her.
The silence from Nico spoke volumes and made my anxiety rise as my heart started to beat faster in my chest and the incessant beeping of something next to me got faster, and then an alarm started to sound.
“Gino, you need to calm down. Please. You’re in the hospital. I’ll explain everything, but you need to calm down.”
There was a crash, and I assumed someone came into the room. I started to try to move again, desperate to get out of the bed and the pipes and wires that were holding me prisoner. As Nico desperately tried to calm me down, I saw a figure come next to me on the other side of the bed. From what I could make out, it was a woman – a nurse, I suspected.
“Mr. Russo, we need you to calm down or I will have to sedate you again. You have just had a very traumatic experience and were hurt badly.”
My heart was still beating in my chest, my breathing was on the point of hyperventilation, and the noise of the machine next to me was pounding through my head. However, the last thing I wanted was to be sedated again. I needed to know what had happened to Gaby. I felt Nico drawing circles on the back of my hand to try to calm me down, and it was starting to work.
I focused on my breathing, something that I had done for years when I meditated. I may have been a trained killer, but there were many times when meditation techniques had gotten me out of some very sticky situations. I slowed my breathing down as much as I could. I knew I could get my heart to almost flatline if I tried hard enough, but that wasn’t for today. I just needed to calm myself down enough for that fucking machine to shut up.
All at once, there was silence. My vision was coming back to me, and I looked over thinking that perhaps the nurse had turned the machine off, but it was still working and connected to me.
“Now, that’s better, Mr. Russo. Any more of that, and I will sedate you. You need to rest. You were nearly dead when Mr. Koslov’s men brought you in here. You're only alivebecause they got you here in time. Do you want their efforts to be in vain?”
I had wondered how I had gotten here. The memories of the day were starting to flood back to me. The blow to the back of the head and falling to the floor. The constant kicks and punches to my stomach and ribs before I passed out with the taste of blood in my mouth.
I was sure he had said something before I passed out. I had to remember. I knew it was important, but it wasn’t there. I couldn’t remember.
I closed my eyes, desperately trying to recreate the moment in my head. I must have winced in pain, because Nico spoke next to me.
“Gino, are you okay? Do you need something to ease the pain?”
I didn’t answer him, still trying to remember the moments before I passed out. I heard someone walk around the bed and felt a cold liquid start to flow though my veins. The pain started to ebb away very slowly, allowing me to concentrate.
I was lying on the ground. The attack had stopped. I heard someone speaking on the phone.
It’s Nicholas here .
No that wasn’t right. I needed my brain to remember.
Then, like a bolt of lightening, it came to me. Nikolai .
“Nickolai.” I almost shouted the name, causing someone to come running into the room.
I immediately recognized him. It was Ivan, Aleksandr’s younger brother. I had spoken to him many times in the past and considered him a friend.
“What did you say?”
I looked up at Ivan. “Just before I passed out, I heard the man who attacked me speaking on the phone. I didn’t catch who he was speaking to, but he said, ‘It’s Nikolai here.’ That was all I heard before I blacked out. What are you doing here anyway, Ivan?”
“I will let Nico here explain everything. I need to call my brother.”
With that, he quickly left the room. I saw him speaking to someone outside, who from this distance looked like Alexei. I turned to see Nico looking down at me, a relived look on his face. He lifted my hand and pressed his lips against it. I would never get used to feeling his lips against me. I had waited for it for so long that now, I just couldn’t get enough of it.
A tear started to roll down his cheek. “I thought I was going to lose you, Gino. You and Rosa. I wouldn’t have survived without you.”
I suddenly felt a relief. I hoped that speaking in the past tense meant that everything was okay with Gabriella.
“Is Gabriella here? When is she coming to see me?”
His face dropped immediately, which told me she wasn’t here, but also that she wasn’t safe.
“I guess I have to tell you the truth. When Aleksandr found you, Rosa had already been taken by Vincent. Viktor is currently tracing his whereabouts. I’m guessing that Nikolai is the traitor within Viktor’s ranks, which is why Ivan has headed outside so quickly. To call his brother and let him know.”
I lay there for a moment in silence.
Gabriella was gone, and it was all my fault.
I should have stayed with her, and then I might have been able to save her. I could feel my heart rate starting to rise again, and Nico must have noticed it too because he started to rub his finger across my hand again.
“Gino, remember what the nurse said. She will sedate you if that machine goes off again.”
I regulated my breathing again. That was the last thing that I wanted, and Nico was right. The nurse had said in no uncertain terms that she would come back.
“How long have I been here?”
“Two days. We were starting to get worried. The doc said your injuries were bad. They placed you in an induced coma to allow your body to start to heal, but they stopped the medication yesterday. He expected you to wake up yesterday afternoon at the latest and didn’t expect you to be out for this long.”
He paused for a second and looked down at our hands before looking back at me.
“There really wasn’t anything you could have done, Gino. If it had been me or Hudson there, the outcome would have probably been the same.”
I knew he was only trying to make me feel better, but it really wasn’t working. I knew it wouldn’t have happened if one of them had gone with Gabriella.
“It wouldn’t have happened, though, would it? You wouldn’t have left her alone in that clinic. You would have at least stayed in the waiting area or reception for her to come out. You wouldn’t have walked out of the clinic and gotten beaten to a pulp, leaving her unprotected. This was all my fault, Nico. I will never forgive myself if something happens to my tesoro.”
I could see that Nico was going to try convincing me again that it wasn’t my fault, but I knew it was. The tears started to fall from my face as I thought about what could have happened to her in two days with Vincent. There was one question I needed the answer to, even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
“Nico…was she pregnant? Was she carrying Hudson’s or your baby?”
I saw the pain in his face as a tear started to fall. He didn’t have to say a word; his demeanor told me everything.
He looked at me and nodded as he looked back down at our hands. “Yes.”
Just one word made my whole world fall apart. She was pregnant and with the man who had already taken three unborn lives from her. She wasn’t safe, and the baby wasn’t safe as long as she was with the devil known to everyone as Vincent Forbes-Stuart.
I had been the one to lead her into his hands. I was the one who had failed her. As far as I was concerned, the nurse might as well give me an overdose right now, because I didn’t want to live knowing I had been the one to cause her so much pain.
If I did live and by some miracle Gabriella and the baby were saved, then I would leave and let her, Nico, and Hudson live their life together. They didn’t need me. They had been perfectly happy together before I came into their relationship, and I was sure they would be again.
“Nico, when I get out of here, I am going to do everything I can to help you, Hudson, and Viktor find Gabriella. Once we have found her and I know she and the baby are safe…I will leave you to live your life without me. I can’t trust myself to protect them anymore. I failed at my first attempt. I don’t want to fail again.”
The tears were pouring down both our faces now. The pain I was feeling inside far outweighed the pain from my injuries. I knew that pain would leave me eventually, but the pain of losing Gabriella, Nico, and even Hudson would never go away. That would be a wound that would never heal.
That was what I wanted, though. I wanted that pain so I could remember how I failed her.
I couldn’t look at Nico. I didn’t want to see his heart breaking at the thought of losing me for real. We had all agreed, though, that if any of us weren’t happy with how the relationship was going, we would end it, and that was exactly what I would do, whether we found Gabriella or not. I would walk away knowing that I was doing the right thing for them.
I felt Nico squeeze my hand, I guessed in desperation for me to look at him, but I just closed my eyes and let the tears continue to fall.
“Gino, I can’t let you throw everything away when you have just felt happy for the first time in your life. How do you think that would affect Rosa? I don’t give a fuck about how it affects me and even Hudson, but what about her? Do you love her that little that you can just walk away from her?”
He was hitting below the belt, and he knew it. To drag Gabriella, my tesoro, into this to try to get me to change my mind.
I couldn’t hold back any longer. My eyes flew open and I turned to face him. He flinched back as soon as he saw the look in my eyes. The look I only used when I held a gun in my hand and was pointing it at the fucker I was about to kill.
It had been years since I’d had to do that, but the instinct had never left me. The thought of ending someone’s life – playing God and deciding whether someone lived or died – had always been in my veins. He knew that look because the first time I had met him was in that exact situation, with him as my target. I had let him live that night, something inside telling me he would be an important part of my life someday.
“You know I fucking love her. I love you as well. But. I. Failed. Why can’t you understand that? How can I trust myself to be around her and keep her safe like I promised when I know I have broken that promise and given her to that monster? It’s for the best. You know it, and I know it. There would have been a time when you would have had one of your own men killed for fucking up like I have.”
He couldn’t look me in the eyes because he knew it was true. I was done talking for the moment. He didn’t want to listen to what I had to say, and what he was saying to me made no sense. I needed to get everything straight in my head.
“I’m going to rest now. If you want to head home, I’m sure I will be okay with Ivan and Alexei here.”
I didn’t wait for him to answer. I just closed my eyes and allowed the thoughts to run around my head. All I knew for certain was if we did find Gabriella, I would spend one last night with her, Nico, and Hudson, and then I would walk away from them. Forever.