43
Alessio
Minutes feel like hours, but we finally make it to the hospital.
Normally, I’d have a doctor brought to the house, but this was too fucking urgent to wait.
The second Kota stops the car, I’m out, with Liv in my arms, running up to the ER entrance like a man possessed.
The second the automatic doors open, two nurses and a gurney are already waiting for us.
I don’t want to let her go, but I force myself to lay her down, my hands lingering for half a second before I follow them into triage.
More doctors and nurses flood in, surrounding her, shouting orders that I barely register.
“Sir, can you please wait in the waiting room?” a nurse with short dark hair asks, stepping in front of me like she thinks she can stop me.
“No.”
“There’s no pulse,” someone says, and my stomach fucking drops .
“We need the room cleared,” the nurse insists, her voice grating like nails on a chalkboard, my last fucking nerve snapping with it as she tries to push me back.
“Then fucking clear it,” I snap.
“But I’m not leaving.”
“Relationship?” she presses.
“I’m her—she’s my—” Fucking hell, find your words, man.
“She’s my fiancée,” I finally blurt out.
It’s not exactly the status we left things in, but she doesn’t need to know that.
I’m covered in blood, damn near dripping it onto the floor, but I still don’t move from Liv’s side.
Another nurse, a guy this time, steps closer.
Maybe to make me leave.
Maybe to reason with me.
If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll back the fuck off.
“Sir, are you injured too?” he asks, pulling up my shirt before I can stop him.
My pain had been shoved to the back of my mind, but now that he mentions it, the wound at my side starts to throb like a bitch.
Still, I won’t take anyone away from helping Liv.
I can fucking wait.
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me,” I say, swatting his hand away.
“Sir, if you let me take a look at—”
“I’m fine. Focus on her.” I nod toward Liv, lying motionless on the bed.
My throat tightens, but I force the words out.
“She’s more important. When she’s okay, then you can help me.”
I’ll never fucking forgive myself if she doesn’t make it.
“She’s not responding,” someone calls out, and that sentence is nearly my undoing.
The same asshole keeps trying to lift my shirt, and my patience is non-fucking-existent right now.
I’m two seconds from ripping his face off when I hear it—that sound.
“Clear!” Thud.
Her body jerks, then nothing.
“Charge to 300. Clear!” Thud.
Again, her chest rises, then slams back down.
Suddenly…
Beep.
A sharp, steady fucking beep.
Then another…
and another.
“We got a pulse!” someone shouts.
Thank fuck.
But I still can’t move or speak.
Liv’s not moving, but she’s here.
She’s alive.
The nurse beside me exhales like he just avoided getting decked.
“Please, let me check your side. It looks deep. ”
“Nice try, fucker. I’m not fucking leaving her side.”
“That’s okay,” he backtracks fast.
“I can look at it here, but I need you to step back, just a bit. You’ll have eyes on her the whole time.”
He says the last part like he’s afraid, as he fucking should be.
The nurse tells me his name is Randy, and he’s one chatty fucker, asking way too many questions as he cuts up my shirt, exposing the gash across my waist.
It’s about two inches wide and not deep enough to kill me, but enough to be a fucking pain in the ass.
Randy starts stitching me up, but I don’t take my eyes off Liv the entire time.
I don’t answer any of his bullshit questions, either.
I know what he’s doing, trying to distract me from the needle jabbing into my skin or the fact that he’s playing seamstress, sewing me up like a ripped shirt.
It hurts, but I’ve had worse.
And nothing compares to the gash tearing through my chest as I watch Liv lay there so goddamn still.
Just before Randy finishes his last stitch, the gurney wheels unlock, and they start moving Liv.
“Where are you taking her?” I demand, stepping toward the tall doctor with salt-and-pepper hair who seems to be calling the shots.
I barely register Randy behind me, the needle still hanging out of my side, mid- stitch.
I push him away and move toward the door to block their path.
They better not think they’re taking her anywhere without giving me some damn answers.
“We’ve got her bleeding under control for now, but she needs a CT scan to make sure no organs were damaged,” the doctor says.
“Finish here, and I’ll notify you as soon as she’s done. But we need to move fast because she doesn’t have time to wait.”
I clench my jaw, my gut screaming at me to go with her, but I hear the urgency in his voice.
I know I’d just be in the way.
I force myself to step back, watching as they wheel her out of the room.
“Don’t fucking let anything happen to her,” I call out to him, barely holding it together, my fists clenched so tight my nails bite into my palms.
“We’ll take really good care of her,” the doctor assures me, and then they’re gone.
After Randy finishes stitching me up, I make a call and get the entire third floor blocked off in the hospital.
Money can buy a lot of things, and right now, I don’t give a shit what it costs.
I can’t take any more fucking chances.
Liv’s in surgery right now.
The CT showed the fucker sliced into her small intestine.
When she’s out of surgery, I don’t want anyone near her unless they’re a damn medical professional.
Now I’m sitting in one of the private rooms with Kota.
It’s been hours, at least it feels like hours, and my nerves are shot.
I hope Liv pulls through and can forgive me.
I was already keeping her safe from Antonio, but now her own family tried to kill her.
That’s another reason to marry her, to make sure no one can ever touch her again.