64. Ana
64
ANA
I woke in the dark, surrounded by the faint glow of machines, terrified and unable to discern where I was. Had I dreamed killing Tchérnov? Had he survived and captured me?
My heart hammered, and I tried to sit, only for pain to wrack my body as I pushed up from where I lay on my stomach. The machine beside me beeped in time with my heart, and the door opened, allowing the glow from fluorescent lighting into the room as nurses in blue scrubs ran in.
A hospital. I was in a hospital. No. No! I was supposed to have found Enzo in the confusion the explosion caused. A car would have been waiting for me, stocked with a disguise, a bag of cash, and stolen plates—my ticket to freedom.
Flashes of memory returned to me. Boris taunting me, cutting off my escape route. The explosion. The pain . A quiet Russian accent in my ear. “Russo better fucking pay me back for this.” Moaning, unable to protest. Dmitri Lebedev dumping me in the trunk of his car. And then it went black, that’s all I remembered.
I collapsed back onto the bed, bitter disappointment coating the back of my throat.
“She’s awake!” someone called, and they flicked the light to my room on.
I moaned when pain stabbed me in the eyes.
“Where am I?” I croaked, trying and failing to push myself to sitting, shrieking in surprise at the agony in my shoulder.
A young female nurse squeezed my good shoulder. “Yorkfield General Hospital. I’m going to help you move to sitting, but it’s going to hurt.”
I nodded.
Every muscle in my body screamed in protest as she rolled me to my side. She tried to move me to my back, but I stopped her, the pain too great, as if I were being flayed alive. “That’s enough,” I gasped, and remained on my side. “No more.”
The nurse helped me back to my stomach, where I lay panting, trying to recover from the pain. “Let me take your vitals, and I’ll call the doctor.”
She shined a flashlight in my eyes, took my temperature and my blood pressure. “He’ll be able to prescribe more painkillers. Your back must be killing you,” she said before stepping away from me.
“You should know that there’s a man in the waiting room who gave me ten thousand dollars cash to tell him when you woke up. I won’t do it unless you tell me it’s okay.”
“Who?” I asked, barely able to form the word, I hurt so fucking bad.
“Me.” Valentin’s rich voice washed over me like a tide on the sand. I twisted awkwardly, every movement a deep agony as I strained to see him where he stood in the doorway. “And she’s not the only nurse I bribed.”
I turned my face away, the softening of his expression as he watched me too painful. I couldn’t bear a future where I dropped to my knees for this man, day after day after day, my heart aching for the faintest bit of praise, when he didn’t love me back.
“May I go get Angelo?” he asked.
“No,” I said softly. “Get out.”
“ Princesse —Ana, please.”
The nurse walked away from me, and I heard the door shut firmly. “You have a lot of people desperate to see you, my dear.”
I scoffed. “A lot of people desperate for my fortune,” I sneered. “I need to get out of here. I won’t stay alive for long without protection.”
The nurse raised an eyebrow. “I hear you blew up a church.”
My laugh sent pain shooting through my body.
“I figure you’ve got a little bit of time before the mob comes to get you,” she continued. “You’re fuckin’ fierce. I love it.”
That was the problem, wasn’t it? I didn’t care about whether I was fierce or not. I never had. I wanted to choose my own path, to marry whomever I wanted, and to build the future of my dreams. I wanted the white picket fence, kids shrieking with joy as we pushed them on swings, surrounded by—my heart stopped and broke again.
Surrounded by three men who only saw me as a pawn.
When I didn’t answer, the nurse tutted over me, adjusting the pillows under my arms and face. “You’re in bad shape,” she murmured. “The doc’ll be in shortly.”
I nodded and closed my eyes, allowing my brain to disassociate from the intense pain of my injuries.
The firm snick of a door brought me back to the present, and a doctor with skin the color of bronze in the sunshine moved into my field of vision with a warm smile. “My name is Dr. Moyo,” he said. “You have a lot of people who care about you, young lady. There are some men outside who’ve thrown a lot of money to be allowed in, including a promise to dedicate a wing of the hospital to you.”
“I don’t want to see them,” I said quietly.
He raised an eyebrow. “Then we need to move you to a more secure location. We’re not equipped to stand up to the mafia.”
Of course they weren’t. My presence put every person in this building in danger. All it would take was one man to decide that the Costa empire was worth laying waste to the hospital, and all of this would be for naught.
“Right,” I agreed. Too bad I didn’t have an army of my own, or any property at all. I didn’t even know how I was going to pay my medical bills. “I’ll figure it out,” I said with an exhausted sigh, then immediately regretted the movement. “What’s the diagnosis?”
“Nothing time won’t heal,” he said gently. “We’ve sewn up the wounds on your back and legs. Your left ankle is swollen but not broken. You have what appears to be a mild concussion from the blast, and some scrapes. We’ll put you in touch with psychological services as well, given what you’ve been through.”
“How do you know what I’ve been through?” I asked, tilting my head.
“You’re Ana Costa,” he murmured. “The whole city knows what you did to that interloper.”
My eyes widened.
He stepped closer to my bed. “There are two men desperate for entry into this room—are they responsible for your injuries as well?”
I scoffed. “Only to my heart.”
The doctor nodded firmly. “We don’t have the resources to keep the mafia out, but an absolutely terrifying Italian man has physically planted himself in front of the door to stop them. I imagine he’ll do so for as long as you like.”
My stomach dropped through the floor at the thought of not seeing my men again. I’d thought I wanted my freedom, but I was so fucking wrong. I wanted them . I loved them.
“There’s something else you should know,” he continued. “I’d tell you to sit down but?—”
I laughed at his gentle joke and the kind way his eyes crinkled in response reassured me.
“You’re pregnant.”
“No, I can’t be,” I said, startled at my sadness at the thought. “I’m on birth control.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What kind?”
“An IUD,” I answered.
“You definitely do not have an IUD right now. Are you sure you’re safe with those men?”
I laughed quietly to myself. Those fuckers. It had to have been Angelo who’d taken it out. And if I’d known…what? What would I have done differently? Absolutely fucking nothing. And if they knew I was carrying their baby? They’d stay with me for that, and not because they loved me.
Tears pricked behind my eyes. “Don’t tell them,” I said quietly. “Please.”
Dr. Moyo sighed and scratched the back of his neck, as if embarrassed. “Your men have spent a fortune bribing my hospital staff to try to get into this room. I’d like to promise that your records will stay confidential but …”
He trailed off.
A sharp knock on the door drew both of our attention. A nurse wheeled in a cart covered in a rainbow of flowers, followed by several other nurses. Soon the room was full of them, bright spots of cheer among the bland white and chrome of the hospital equipment.
One of the nurses held a card in front of my face with a roll of her eyes. “They don’t pay me enough for this shit.”
“We don’t pay you at all for this shit,” Dr. Moyo murmured, his lips curving up with amusement. “But I’m going to pretend that I don’t know you accepted a bribe to deliver these.”
The nurse grinned. They’d obviously played this game before with other patients. Fuckin’ Yorkfield.
“I gotta wait until she gives me an answer,” she said.
Carefully, I opened the card—elegant and expensive. Valentin. The rough scrawl inside wasn’t his handwriting though.
Angel,
Let us in. Please.
Angelo
And the flowers? I inhaled. Luca knew I loved the bright colors to hide the corporate blandness of our hotel rooms and that the hospital would be no different.
A tear streaked down my cheek, and I clutched the card to my heart. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t love . And after a week of Boris’s cruelty, I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my life with men who didn’t love me with all their hearts as I loved them.
“I don’t have anything to say to them,” I said to the nurse, embarrassed at how wobbly my voice was.
“They insisted on an answer,” she said, her hands on her hips, as if I owed her a goddamned thing.
“That is my answer,” I said and closed my eyes, feigning sleep. Flowers weren’t the solution. “Wait—I need my phone.”
The nurse tilted her head. “You weren’t brought in with one.”
“I need to make a call,” I whispered.
She indicated the phone beside my bed. “It’ll be charged to your room.”
One more thing I didn’t know how I’d pay for.
The moment the room emptied, I reached for the phone, crying out at the pain in my ribs when I did so. Fuck, that hurt. I dragged the cart to me, and then picked up the headset and dialed Enzo, praying he answered the unknown number.
“Accardi,” he snapped.
“It’s Ana,” I said, then asked, “Why the fuck am I still in Yorkfield?”
The line lay silent for a long moment, too long.
“I’m sorry,” he said, finally. “Dmitri Lebedev got to you before I did and brought you to the hospital. And then your men set up their vigil.”
“I need to get out of here. Without a ring on my finger, I’m still in danger, and more importantly, I’m putting everyone else here in danger.”
Enzo’s bark of laughter surprised me. “You’re a fool, Ana. Your men have that place locked down tighter than Fort Knox. They’re not going to let anyone get to you. Hey!”
“ Princesse ?” Valentin’s voice, raspy and low, came through the phone.
I hung up. I couldn’t speak to him yet, not until I’d steeled my heart for the conversation that would have to follow, when I told him I never wanted to see him again.
It was a lie.
Shouts rang out in the hallway, and I heard the scuffle of bodies, only for my door to slam open.
“She said she doesn’t want you in there,” a man with an Italian accent snarled. I couldn’t see the door from where I lay on my stomach and moving hurt too much. “You don’t want to light the match for another war over a woman,” the man sneered. Dante—it had to be Dante.
“Angel,” Angelo whispered from somewhere behind me, and my heart ached for him. I needed him, and his care, and his ability to sweep my worries away with a simple command. “The only reason I haven’t killed you for blocking my path is because it’d upset Ana,” I heard him say.
I blinked. Angelo was reining in his impulses. For me? Fear had me twisting around despite the screaming pain. I forced the word out of my throat. “Stop!”
I needn’t have worried. Valentin’s fingers wrapped around Angelo’s, and he gently drew the gun down. He peered over Dante, his gaze uncharacteristically frantic until he found me watching them over my shoulder, terrified of the powder keg the two Sicilians were about to explode around our heads.
“She said stop,” Valentin murmured. He caught my eye. “We’re here, sweet princess, when you’re ready.”
“I’m leaving,” I rasped.
Valentin’s lips turned up in a sad smile. “We’ll still be here. You’re safe. And so is everyone else here. I promise.”