Chapter 55
Chapter
Fifty-Five
WREN
A steady beeping noise is slowly getting louder and louder, breaking through my foggy brain.
I jolt when I feel a cold hand lightly grab mine. “It’s okay. You’re in the hospital. This machine was just letting me know your bag is empty,” a soft female voice says. “I’m going to go tell the doctor you’re starting to wake up.”
I blink a few times as my eyes continue to adjust to the bright fluorescent lighting. The heaviness on my bottom has me slowly bringing my gaze downward. A black cast covers my foot up to my mid-calf. My arm is in a sling. My whole entire body feels like a truck ran over it, backed up, only to run over it again. I never thought it would hurt to move a finger, but here we are.
I let out a long sigh.
I don’t need a mirror to tell me that I’m a hot fucking mess.
My eyes move around the room until they land on the side with the large window. The side where the most uncomfortable chairs that convert into a bed for guests are. My heart breaks a little at seeing them empty.
I thought I remembered Matteo being there toward the end, but I was in so much pain that I knew I was borderline delirious. It was probably just a fever dream. Either way, I know a man with his connections would have been able to track me here if he was looking.
It hurts.
It fucking kills to know that he isn’t looking for me.
“Knock, Knock,” an older man in a white lab coat says, smiling as he enters the room.
“Wren Barlowe, you are quite the lucky girl.” He takes a pen out of his pocket and clicks the ballpoint down. “I’m Dr. Smith.”
I barely nod my head, giving him the smallest smile that my broken heart can muster. “Hi.” My voice sounds like my throat has been rubbed with sandpaper. The nurse hands me a styrofoam cup with a straw that's filled with ice water. I take a few little sips, enjoying the way the ice-cold liquid smoothly coats my raw throat.
“Well, you have quite a few serious injuries. A broken ankle, broken collar bone, two broken ribs, and a bunch of cuts. Your cuts aren't deep enough to need stitches. They just bleed a lot because that’s what head wounds do. Same with the tongue. They’ll heal over time on their own.” He flips a page over in my chart before continuing. “You got lucky with your ribs. Yes, they’re broken, but they didn’t puncture anything, and there isn’t any internal bleeding. You’re going to be very sore for a while, but I’ll give you something to take the edge off.” He winks like that’s supposed to be a joke. “Everything else is going to take time. I’d like to see you back in six weeks to see if we can take your cast off.”
My brain is on information overload with everything he just threw at me, so I just nod along. I hate hospitals. Everything is so bright and sterile that it gives me anxiety. Being admitted makes me feel like I’m trapped in a room and not allowed to ever leave—like my own personal prison.
I want Matteo.
“Am I free to go?”
“I’d like to keep you overnight just as a precaution, but if everything goes like I think it will go, I’ll tell the nurses to discharge you in the morning.”
“Thank you.” I’m slightly relieved that I’m not being discharged. Even though I hate being here, I don’t know where I’m going to go.
“Are you in pain at all? It’s time for your next dose of pain meds if you want them,” the nurse says as the doctor leaves.
“Yeah, I’m pretty uncomfortable.” I’ll never admit out loud that I want them to dull the ache in my heart and not my body.
“You’ll feel it soon. This is the good stuff.” She winks as she tucks in the blanket around me.
It isn’t long before my eyelids feel heavy, and everything turns black.
I hate the drowsy feeling you get with pain meds. It’s like this giant fog of sleepiness that you can’t shake. Coming down isn’t a walk in the park either. It’s a permanent state of nausea.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” someone rushes out from the side of the room.
Looking over, I freeze as my eyes settle on a very disgruntled-looking Matteo. He’s in the same suit as last night. His shirt is untucked and wrinkled. The top three buttons and his sleeves are undone. His jacket is thrown with zero care in the world on the chair next to him. His thick, black, finger- length hair is sticking out in a million different directions like he hasn’t stopped running his hands through it.
Matteo drags his chair next to my bed, lightly grabbing my hand and placing a kiss on top before he moves in and kisses my forehead.
“I thought I lost you,” he whispers, his voice strangled from the emotion running through it.
“I’m still here.” My voice still sounds rough, and his wince confirms it. Matteo hands the water up, bringing the straw to my mouth himself.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” he says as I take a few sips.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t kidnap me and try to kill me.” You just left me alone in the hospital after everything that happened.
“This only happened because you stopped to help me. He never originally wanted you. He wanted me. I’ll never forgive myself for this.”
“Matteo,” I say softly as I squeeze his hand. “Please listen to me and believe me when I say it’s not your fault. Desperate people do crazy shit all the time. You never know what’s going to push someone over the edge. Stuff like that is out of your control. So, please don’t blame yourself because even if I knew then what would happen now, I would still stop and help you.”
His breathing turns ragged as he stares at me. “Never do it again,” he rasps out. “I can’t lose you.”
“I’m not going to not stop and help you. You’re my friend.” I roll my eyes as I try to lighten the mood even though I’m dying inside.
I knew this day was coming. I just didn’t realize how deep my heart was in it. I should have spent a little more time guarding it instead of flaying it wide open.
The silence that settles between us is unsettling. I’m looking everywhere but at Matteo when he finally breaks it.
“I know you don’t want to be with someone who can’t protect you, but if you just give me the chance to prove that I can, I promise you won’t regret it,” He says it so quietly that if I hadn’t known he was the only other person in the room, I wouldn’t have thought those words came from him.
My face feels tight as I furrow my eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”
“I almost got you killed, Wren. Stop making me say it out loud.” As fucked up as this sounds, the pain in his voice is mending my broken heart. The raw emotion from what he thinks he caused is pouring through. All I want to do is wrap him up and tell him that everything is going to be okay.
“Matteo,” I say softly as I wait for him to look up into my eyes. “I want you to listen to me when I say this. Yeah, a lot of fucked up shit has happened since you and I met, but every single time something bad has happened, you have been there to pick up the pieces. And tonight, when I had a gun pointed at my face, what did you do? I don’t remember the specifics, but I know now that one of the voices I heard was yours.”
Matteo holds my gaze, his deep brown eyes showing every emotion he’s feeling right now. “I shot him in the head.”
“Exactly.” I smile as best I can. “So the next time you think you can’t protect me, I want you to think back on the time you killed someone for me.”
“Jesus, tesoro .” A laugh bursts out of Matteo. “That is fucked up.”
“It was hotter than you stabbing that guy at the front desk of the motel in the hand.”
“Does this mean you forgive me?” he asks, his voice laced with hope.
“There was nothing to forgive other than you not being here when I woke up the first time.” Now probably isn’t the time, but he needs to know how much that fucking sucked .
“I had to go take care of…something, and when I came back, I didn’t feel worthy of you,” Matteo admits. “I thought Alessio was going to beat the shit out of me in the waiting room.” My eyes widened in disbelief because Alessio, of all people? Gio, yeah. But Alessio? No. No way. “Yeah, that’s when I knew I needed to pull my head out of my ass.”
“I’m glad it’s out. I don’t want you to ruin a perfectly good view. So Rob is gone then?”
“He’s gone. You won’t get specifics because I don’t want that on your conscience, but I had my fun, and Gio got his.”
“I’m sure he was scared to see you two coming.” An unhinged Matteo and a feral Gio would scare the shit out of anyone.
“Jesus, I love you.” Matteo smiles, and it lights up his whole face. A rare sighting that I hope I can see more of. My heart is so full that it hurts my chest.
What a foreign feeling.
“I love you, too,” I admit, feeling a weight being lifted at finally getting it off my chest. I had been denying how deep my feelings ran for him for too long.
I’m more than content knowing that if another shitstorm blows our way, he will go into it knowing he has my heart and I have his.