Chapter Forty-Nine Lila
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
LILA
The first thing I saw when I woke up again was my husband, sitting next to me, his head hung between his massive shoulders.
He was staring at his folded fingers, looking comically giant on the flimsy plastic chair.
A rush of warmth spread across my chest.
He was here.
He survived.
… and so did I.
I reached to touch his hand to alert him that I was awake. His head snapped up. His eye was a pool of misery and concern. The sadness in it tore me to shreds worse than the accident did.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
I mustered a weak smile. “It was just a scratch. Me and the baby are okay.” Not that he wanted to hear about the baby. “Tell me you didn’t kill Alex, Tiernan.”
“Who cares—”
I put my palm up to stop him. “I do. I don’t want you to dwell on what happened to me, at least not yet. Distract me. Tell me what happened in Vegas.”
My husband never took orders from anyone. Let alone a hundred-and-six-pound teenager. Still, he humored me.
His jaw flexed, and he ran his tongue along his straight upper teeth. “He’s alive. We struck a deal with the Bratva. Achilles took a souvenir in the form of his brother, Jeremie. It’s all settled.”
I smiled, even though it hurt my face. “Good.”
“Are you in pain?”
“No,” I lied. The doctors prescribed me with the minimum dose of morphine, but I opted out of it, for the sake of the baby. Every breath made me feel dizzy with pain.
“Did you get hurt?”
“No.”
“Do you know who slammed into us?” I knew better than to believe it was an accident. Especially when the other vehicle managed to escape.
“Working on it.”
“Is Tierney okay?”
“She’s fine.” When he realized how snappy he sounded, he added, “Awake and pissed off, which means she’s back to normal.”
We stared at each other, the silence in my ears louder than ever before.
“What’s with you?” I cocked my head, frowning.
Did he want the baby to die? Was he disappointed that he pulled through?
“I have something to say.”
Oh, no. That didn’t sound good. I waited. When he said nothing, I nervously joked, “Are we waiting for each other’s permission to speak now? Because you know I’m defiant.”
Tiernan didn’t smile. He was very still, as usual. Sculpture-like. Ice ran in his veins. I looked down, following his line of vision.
His hands were trembling.
And then the man who never blinked, did, in fact, blink. A rare moment of letting himself go. Of forgetting his indestructible self-possession at the door.
“I love you.”
And for the first time in my life, I was crushed that I couldn’t hear. Because his words—these words—I wanted them in my ears, in my heart, in my veins.
“I love you with a force that could destroy planets and universes, Lila.” His face twisted in self-loathing.
My expression must’ve given my glee away, because he sighed.
“You shouldn’t bask in it, Gealach. You should be very, very afraid.
I have no red lines when it comes to you.
No logic. I will love this baby as my own, because anything born of you is bound to be perfection.
He will be mine. And I would kill for him.
Die for him.” The words rushed over my skin, heating it with pleasure even my orgasms couldn’t give me. Nourishing me back to life.
“But make no mistake,” Tiernan continued. “I will always love you more. Than him. Than me. Than this world. My love for you is not pretty, or flowery, or romantic. But it’s real, and it’s everlasting.”
My eyes filled with tears. I pressed my fist to my mouth, trying to control the sob that wrestled out of it.
“So you don’t want to send me away?”
“Darlin’, I barely even let you go to the restroom by yourself before we had sex.” He shook his head incredulously, leaning forward in his seat. “I want you next to me forever.”
“And my baby—”
He looped his fingers around my wrists, stopping me. “Our baby.”
“Our baby…how do you know you’ll love him?”
“Because he is a part of you, and I love all the parts that make you.”
“Surely, not all of me.” I pouted, knowing he would indulge me.
He always met me where I was. And he never made me feel less than because of my disability.
“All.” He took my hand, peppering kisses all over my palm so as not to touch the needle-poked side of it. “Even at your worst, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
A single tear slipped from his eye. He touched his cheek, startled, then squinted up at the ceiling, checking for leaks.
“I’m afraid you just cried your first tear, hubby.”
“Impossible.” He scowled. “My cum is probably leaking from other holes in my body, seeing as I haven’t been in you for over thirty-five hours.”
I barked out a delighted laugh, which I immediately regretted, seeing as my collarbone was shattered.
Yes, someone tried to kill me a few hours ago, and yes, my rapist was somewhere out there, still threatening me. Maybe the two things were connected. But we had each other, for real now, and that felt more powerful than any obstacle thrown in our way.
“Gealach.” Tiernan brought me back to reality. “Your mam is outside. She wants to speak to you. I told her to sod off in five different languages, but she is still there. With cannoli.”
“Really, five?” I elevated an eyebrow, impressed.
“English, Irish, Russian, Italian, Neapolitan,” he counted them. “I can add ASL into the mix, though.” He frowned, absentmindedly dropping more kisses over my palm. “Drive the point home.”
I grinned. “It’s fine. Let her in.”
“You sure?” He didn’t look too enthusiastic. “Stress is not good for you and the baby.”
The fact that he now cared about the baby made me feel like I was walking on clouds.
“I’m sure. You need to take care of that knee.”
I gestured toward his leg. His knee was the size of a football, and he was bleeding through his slacks.
“I can stay in the room.”
“I can handle her. This conversation is long overdue. Send her in.”
He placed my hand next to my body gently and stood up, but didn’t immediately leave.
“What?” I blinked up at him.
“Nothing.”
“Tiernan.”
“You didn’t tell me you love me back.”
I pressed my lips together, on the verge of giggling. I hadn’t felt this light and happy since the day I was born. I was positively drunk on it.
“I already told you I loved you.”
“After I gave you three orgasms. That doesn’t count.”
“I’m waiting for the perfect moment. Don’t rush me.”
He offered me one of his villainous expressions—cold, dead, unimpressed—but a hint of pink gathered at the top of his cheekbones. He was blushing. And if I wasn’t in so much pain, I’d kick my feet.
“Fine. I’m leaving. But I reserve the right to barge in here and give your mam a piece of my mind—and fist—if she misbehaves.”
“Wow. You got it bad for me.”
“Thought I made that clear three times a night for the past few months.”
Grinning, I signed, “Go. Don’t worry. We’ll figure everything out when I get discharged.”
“It’s you and me against the world.” He leaned to brush his lips over my forehead. “But I like our odds, darlin’.”
_______
A few moments later, the door to my hospital room slid open and Mama poked her head inside.
“Can I come in?”
I nodded, watching as she sashayed in, tossing the door shut with the back of her designer heel as she balanced a silver tray full of cannoli. She wasn’t wearing one of her prim dresses, and her hair wasn’t done for once.
She looked…worn out. Humbled. And twenty years older.
She slid the tray on the stand next to my hospital bed and took a seat next to me. Ran her palms up and down her thighs to get rid of the sweat.
She didn’t make eye contact with me when her lips moved.
“Tiernan told me that you and the baby are okay.”
“Yes.” I wasn’t going to make it easy for her.
“I’m so glad, bambina mia.”
I simply stared.
“Thank you for agreeing to give me the time of day. God knows I don’t deserve it.”
I didn’t have it in me to be compassionate to her. I shrugged.
“I’ve been a horrible mother to you, haven’t I? Not just through the length of your pregnancy. Since you were born.”
I licked my lips. I had nothing to say to that, since I wholeheartedly agreed. In retrospect, she robbed me of so much. And these past few months…
“You’re not Vello’s,” she blurted out.
I slammed my brows together, staring at her.
A sense of déjà vu washed over me. I couldn’t say I was surprised, exactly.
I had to be a perfect idiot not to see how different I looked from the rest of my family.
But growing up, my mother always insisted nothing was amiss.
That I took after a mysterious French great-grandmother who was very fair.
“I never wanted to marry your father.” She shook her head.
“Actually, that’s putting it mildly. Back in Secondigliano, my mother was married to the don.
They had no boys, just me, so it was up to me to marry someone to take over the business.
My father made me break up with my boyfriend to marry Vello. His right-hand man.”
She tore her gaze from me, staring at the floor.
“And your mama said nothing about it?” I asked.
My mother laughed humorlessly, eyes sparkling with tears.
“It was hard for her to fight him, seeing as she was dead.” There was a pause.
“My mother killed herself. Slashed her own wrists in her bed after years of my father’s abuse.
He hit her a lot. And when he didn’t hit her, he cheated on her.
She was still stupid enough to love him, anyway.
He broke her heart every single day. I was the one who found her. ”
I could see where this was going. My mother had never seen a Mafia marriage maturing into something other than a complete disaster, so she didn’t think the option existed.