Chapter 27 Clay
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
clay
My little deer—unconscious.
My sons—out of reach.
My Butcher blood howls as I carry her through the double doors and into the emergency room at the District Hospital. I want to throw my fist against a wall. To lose complete control. My fingers twitch with the urge.
But I do not. Cannot. Will not allow myself such a selfish luxury as unhelpful emotional expression. That is not for me. I am controlled. So she can express. I am calm. So she can feel. But Christ, I want to roar.
To shatter glass. To crush bone. I've learned to tolerate emotions, to acknowledge vulnerability where once I despised its pull, but that doesn't mean I fucking like it.
Pain punches through my abdomen despite the new, somewhat rushed stitches.
Matthew didn't extract all the metal—a nice piece of shrapnel—but at least it's closed for now, the bleeding slowed.
In a masochistic way, I challenge the pain to hold meaning.
A lash, a punishment, for overlooking her needs. For putting a meeting above her…
Fuck.
I should have fucked her in the dressing room, like her sweet, innocent eyes pleaded for. I didn’t. If I had, if I’d taken my time reminding her how special she is, how I worship at her feet, perhaps we would have missed that fucking pile-up.
We’d be home.
My little deer—beneath me.
My sons—in their cots.
Two nurses rush towards me with a gurney. Reluctantly, I lay her on top, my hands lingering too long on her body. One nurse gives me a look, part concern, part fear, then darts her gaze away.
Did I growl at her?
Then they are on the move.
I follow the bed down the hallway, but double doors swing shut in my face. I look up, my lips curling into a snarl as I read: “No Public Access.”
Like Hell.
I shove the doors open and stride through.
A nurse steps directly into my path. "You can't—"
“Vaffanculo!” Fuck off. I sidestep her, my hands fisting.
Hospital personnel shout at me from every direction.
Part of me knows I should stop, should defer to their expertise.
My little deer, my brothers, and father have taught me to accept that a leader is not alone, but the head of a collective, a component in a system.
Doctors. Nurses. I am not the leader here.
I respect hospitals. I am not a doctor. But the other part—the part that roars irrationally inside my skull—can't bear to let my little deer out of my sight.
I am torn between the rational man and the man who will burn this fucking place to the ground if they try to keep me from her.
Fawn's bed veers left, disappearing into a room. I reach the doorway, hand on the frame, one step from bursting in—then halt, but my muscles burn to go inside.
Locking my jaw, I back away to the opposite wall, watching through the window as they check her over. My little deer. My fault. My responsibility. But I recognize my own limitations in this setting, and stand aside, letting the people in scrubs do their work.
Fuck, it’s not easy.
My eyes track the action inside the room as people swarm around her. I have killed with my bare hands, have watched the life drain out of men in alleyways and hotel suites and the back seat of my own damn car, have conquered a city, claimed the largest organised crime syndicate for myself—
This is harder.
Giving her to them.
Leaning against the wall, I stare at my little deer, feeling... feeling. So much. As I glare through the windowpane between her room and my corridor, the sound of the hospital dwindles, my mind going deadly quiet, the air around me freezing in time.
A nurse glances up, her gaze colliding with mine. She flinches, and I see the ripple of tension move through the room as the staff register my presence. They go about their work with the kind of exaggerated professionalism reserved for the families of injured wives or notorious criminals.
And I’m both.
She is safe.
I feel the cold, familiar mask of apathy slide over my face as I straighten my spine against the wall, my mind defaulting to order, to run measures I hadn't considered.
Was this an accident?
Or planned?
I am the Don of Cosa Nostra—coincidences don't happen to men like me.
Someone is to blame. I need someone to punish.
That's what I need. But what if... what if there's no one?
What if it were simply chance? Just fucking wrong place and time?
The thought makes me angry. I can control intent.
I can punish intent. But an accident? A fucking accident means I control nothing.
Nothing at all. And I can't—I need—I don't know how to— I need control.
She is safe, I remind myself.
She is safe.
I repeat the words in my mind until I have enough resolve to push off the wall and stride back down the corridor—buttoning my suit jacket to conceal the obvious blood and dirt on my shirt—towards the reception to locate the paediatric ward. To find my sons.