28. Elio #2
More shouts erupted around me. I was no longer paying attention. I didn’t fucking care that there were other members of the MC around us, already pulling out their guns and getting ready to fight.
Romeo covered me as I ran to my girl.
By the time I got to Isa, her face was pale, and her eyes were barely open. I held her in my arms.
“Hey, baby.”
She opened her eyes and looked at me, smiling a bit. “I knew you would come for me,” she said weakly. “I just knew it.”
I nodded, my eyes stinging. “Of course. Don’t you fucking know already? I will always come for you. Always.”
Valentino came up to us, his eyes solemn as he took in his sister’s broken body.
“Is she okay?”
I unclipped the satellite phone and threw it at him. “Call for help. Tell Massimo I need an airlift to the nearest hospital, now.”
He nodded and did as I asked while I turned back to my girl.
Her eyes had fluttered shut.
“Baby, I need you to wake up.”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” she mumbled. “Just resting my eyes for a bit. I’m just so tired, Elio.”
“I know. But I still need you to stay awake for me. Can you do that for me?”
She let out a small sigh. “I’d do anything for you.”
She was breaking my heart.
“Such a good girl for me,” I said.
She smiled a little before wincing. “Elio… I hurt.”
“I know, baby. Stay with me. I’m right here.”
She shook her head. “I…”
Her words trailed off into incoherent sentences that I didn’t know how to make sense of.
Valentino came back. “Help is on the way.”
I didn’t look away from Isa. She was drifting away from me. I could sense it, and I didn’t know how to stop that from happening.
I shook her.
No response.
“Isa, wake up. Wake up, baby.”
Tears stung my eyes as I got nothing from her.
Fuck. No. This can’t be happening.
We were just getting started. We had so much more to look forward to. So much fucking more.
“Please. Just wake up.”
She didn’t answer me.
Fuck. What was I supposed to do now?
It had been over a week, and Isa still wasn’t awake.
It was the gunshot injury, along with her other injuries inflicted by both Joseph and Waylen, that stopped her from waking up to me.
I stayed by her hospital bed, the continuous beep, beep, beep of her monitor my constant companion.
Well, not my only companion.
I looked over to the corner of the room, where Valentino was trying and failing to get some sleep.
We hadn’t left Isa’s side since we transported her to the small hospital near Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, but the hospital didn’t have enough resources. We got her stable enough before transferring her back to Las Vegas, where she has stayed since and hasn’t woken up yet.
Fuck, but why hadn’t she woken up yet?
I grabbed her hand in mine, holding onto it tightly, before bringing it up to my lips and kissing her wrist.
“Please come back to me,” I whispered against her skin.
I didn’t know what more I could do. I was just feeling so fucking wired.
And had I been able to bear the thought of leaving Isa here for even a second, I would have driven myself up to the abandoned factory in the worst part of Vegas, where Massimo was holding most of the Devil’s Wings MC bastards we had managed to capture.
Waylen Thompson was dead.
He got the easy way out. I would have liked to have prolonged his death a little longer.
And shit hadn’t gone as planned. Walter Thompson managed to escape. The fucker was probably rebuilding somewhere, and I was sure he would be a problem for us in the distant future.
Joseph Gambino escaped. Like the fucking coward that he was, he ran as soon as he saw us coming.
And the girl, Nova… I didn’t know where she went off to. Did she leave with her father? I didn’t think so, but how had she managed to escape us?
I shook my head, moving my focus back to Isa.
It was no use trying to think about something I couldn’t change or control.
I kept my eyes on Isa’s face. She looked so fucking vulnerable and small lying in that hospital bed. There was just something so fucking wrong about the sight, but I didn’t know how to fix it.
“You love her,” Valentino said from across the room.
I didn’t turn around to look at him. I kept my eyes on Isa, as if by doing so, I might help her recover faster.
Fuck, I didn’t even know anymore.
“I’m going to marry her. Once she’s better. I’m going to marry her and make her my wife. I’ll do it with or without your blessing, but I know Isa would want it, so whatever fucking hang-up you have about me being with your sister, you need to get over it, and fast.”
Valentino didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he let out a soft chuckle. “Alright, fine. I’ll try to get over it soon.”
Movement from the doorway caught my attention. A woman in her forties was hovering about. I didn’t like the expression on her face, so I signaled Valentino. It didn’t take him long to catch on.
Slowly, he stood up from his spot on the couch and moved toward the door. He reached out and pulled the woman into the room with us, shutting the door behind him before she could think to cry out for help.
“Who are you, and what are you doing standing outside this room?” I asked. I had seen her a few times before. I had put it off as nothing, but now, I wasn’t so sure.
The woman surprised me when she turned to look at Valentino and me, her eyes filled with pure hatred. It wasn’t unusual for me to be on the receiving end of that look, but it was when it came from someone I had never met before.
Valentino and I shared a look.
“Which one of you did it?” she asked, her voice steady.
“Did what?” I asked, turning away from Isa to take the woman in fully. She was in a nurse’s uniform, with a name tag hanging from her breast pocket.
Jane.
She looked from Valentino to me before settling on Isa. “Hurt her.”
Valentino seemed taken aback by her words. He was about to say something when I held out my hand, stopping him. “Why do you think that?”
Her eyes hardened. “I’m not stupid. Isa does not come here often, but when she does, you know it’s because the injury is too much to ignore.”
Valentino and I shared a look. My skin crawled, and I had a bad feeling about what was to come. “Isa came here before? To treat her injuries?”
She shook her head. “I don’t ask questions.
I didn’t want to scare her away from getting help when she needed it, but I am done being complicit by staying quiet.
I’m going to the police with a report. All her injuries so far speak of being abused, and I’m sure I won’t be the only one to see that. And now you bring her in like this?”
Her lowered lip trembled.
And I didn’t say anything to that, still trying to process what she had said.
Abuse?
There was only one reason she would have come in like that before.
I looked at Valentino. His face was pale as he looked at his sister, the horrible realization setting in.
Joseph had hurt her… many times before he broke into Valentino’s apartment.
Enough that she needed to go to the hospital to get checked out.
He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it.
“How could I not know?” he whispered, terrified.
Jane looked at him with confusion in her eyes. “It wasn’t…”
She trailed off. I no longer cared what she had to say. If she wanted to call the cops, we could easily make the report disappear. I didn’t fucking care about that either.
I couldn’t.
Not when images flashed in my head of Isa being hurt, and I had no fucking clue.
How many nights had I spent with her in my arms?
How many times had it felt like there was something she wasn’t telling me, and I didn’t push?
Or when she went spiraling, and I just thought it was her acting out because she wanted more freedom.
I turned back to my girl and grabbed her hand.
Water droplets landed on her skin, and it took me a moment before I realized I was crying.
Oh, baby. Why didn’t you tell me?