Chapter 51
ZEKE
Manhattan, New York
The stethoscope burns cold against my bare skin.
“Take another deep breath for me,” a redheaded nurse says, her freckles blurring in and out of focus under the harsh fluorescent lights.
I rake in a breath that feels like sandpaper.
“Good.” She nods, adjusting the scope. “One more for me, Zeke.”
I try again. The air barely makes it halfway into my lungs before a hacking cough tears free. My entire body folds around the pain as another follows, then another. Beside the bed, the monitor erupts in angry beeps.
“Easy now.” The nurse’s voice cuts through the alarms as her steady hand presses firmly against my shoulder. “Don’t fight it.”
“Hard not to,” I choke out. One deep, rattling cough echoes in my chest before my breath finally decides to even the fuck out into a shallow but shaky rhythm.
“There,” she murmurs. “That’s better.”
“Zeke!”
My name is a sob and a scream all at once as she bursts in. Before the nurse can even pull the stethoscope away from my chest, Bella launches herself across the bed and throws her weight onto me.
“Excuse you!” the nurse yells, reaching out to yank my sister off me.
“It’s fine, Samantha. She’s family,” Sabine’s voice cuts through the panic. She rests a warm hand on the nurse’s arm. “And you should know by now that the heart heals faster than the lungs.”
Samantha nods reluctantly. “I’ll be back in a few hours to check your vitals,” she says, stepping away from the bed.
“Are you alright?” Bella sobs. She pulls back, her shaking hands gripping at my cheeks to yank my focus to her.
“I’m fine, Bells,” I say. “Sabine identified whatever Ivan jabbed me with in time for the doc to flush it out.”
Bella glances up at Sabine with tears in her eyes. “Thank you,” she cries, reaching out to grab Sabine’s hand. “You saved him.”
“Honey, you all are my family. I wasn’t about to let anything bad happen to him. I’ll leave the two of you to talk.” Sabine leans down, presses a kiss to Bella’s forehead, and squeezes my hand once.
“Thanks.” I nod, smiling up at her.
Sabine pauses briefly to glance back at us as she nears the doorway. “I’ll be right outside if you need anything.”
Bella doesn’t wait for the door to close before she’s wrapping me up tighter. “You scared me half to death,” she cries into my chest.
“I’m all good,” I say as another cough breaks loose.
She pulls back, her steel-gray eyes squinting as they narrow on me. “You sure?”
“I will be once we get out of this damn hospital,” I grit out.
She lets out a soft, broken chuckle. “We will.”
“So,” I press. “What happened?”
“Zeke, I think we should wait until you’re fully healed before we get into all of that.”
“No!” The word tears out of my throat in a jagged roar, making Bella flinch. I lean forward, ignoring the pull of the wires. “Tell me what happened while I was shoved in that fucking basement. Where is he? Where are they?”
“Luca’s dead,” she blurts out. Her chin raises but her eyes stay cold. “Lex killed him.”
For a moment, I just stare at her. The words refusing to compute as they hit my ears.
Luca is dead.
The man who owned my heartbeat for over nine hundred days and whose footsteps I could track through solid floorboards. The one whose touch could flip from a soft caress to a chokehold in a single breath.
Gone.
A strange tightness settles over my ribs. It’s heavy, suffocating, and terrifyingly close to grief. I hate myself for it instantly. Because for one split-second, news of the death of that monster doesn’t bring me joy or peace.
It brings me sadness.
No. Remember who you are.
Ezekiel Malik Blackwood.
Bella’s fingers tighten around mine, her eyes widening as they search my face. “Zeke?”
“I’m fine,” I lie, dragging a hand over my mouth.
Part of me feels lighter than I have in years. Like I can finally take a full breath without wondering what he’ll do next. But another part keeps expecting the door handle to rattle and his shadow to fall across the threshold.
“Ivan?” I choke out. “What about Ivan?”
“After he poisoned you, he ran,” Bella admits, her expression grim. “Tex and the guys searched everywhere but no sign of him.”
My stomach twists into a hard, sick knot. “Damn.”
Knock. Knock.
Bella’s head snaps to the door.
“It’s open,” I call out.
Marisol strides into the room in black leather pants that look like they were stitched onto her perfect long legs. A pink lacy crop peeks out underneath her signature leather Los Cuervos jacket. Her black and pink waves are curled to perfection in a flawless, high ponytail.
She looks just as radiant as the last time we spoke. And judging by the way my heart just kicked into overdrive and a sudden, desperate heat rushed through me despite this stupid hospital gown, I am so not over her.
Bella was right.
Fuck. Me.
Bella lets out an aggressive groan. “What are you doing here, Mar?”
“Bells,” I snap, trying to find my voice. “It’s fine, she can—”
“The hell she can!”
“Nice to see you too, B.”
Her voice. Jesus Christ that smooth as honey, sultry voice of hers hits me like a fucking wave. Memories of the brief and intense life we shared come flooding to the surface. Her dark eyes shift from Bella to me, softening instantly.
“Are you okay?”
“He’s fine,” Bella answers for me, her snarky defense mechanism locked and loaded. “What do you want?”
Marisol ignores her and walks to the side of my mattress. “I just…” She hesitates, that tough Vega exterior her father drilled into her cracking for a moment as she rests a hand on my forearm. “I just wanted to talk.”
“Well talk then,” Bella snaps, crossing her arms.
Marisol sighs. She looks between the two of us. “Look, I know I’m not either of your favorite people right now.”
Bella scoffs loudly. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“Bells,” I warn, giving her a pointed look.
“Fine.” Bella’s posture stays rigid, but she drops the hostility in her voice. A little. “What do you want to talk about?”
“For starters,” Marisol says, reaching into her back pocket. “I brought you something.”
Bella gasps. Her hand flies to her mouth and tears flood her eyes as Marisol dangles her mother’s golden heart-shaped locket from her fingers.
“How?” Bella breathes, her voice trembling as she reaches out. “Where did you get it?”
“Tex,” Marisol says plainly, letting the locket slide into Bella’s palm. “They were pulling in when I was walking up the steps outside. Said he grabbed it from that house and told me to give it to you.”
Marisol’s gaze drops back down to me. “And he found this too.”
I suck in a deep breath as she places the little red swan in my hand. “Thank you,” I whisper, clutching the smooth glass tighter. “You have no idea what this means to me.”
Bella’s hand finds mine. “To us,” she corrects gently, offering a tearful smile before looking across the bed. “Thank you, Mar.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Marisol’s smile falters. “Well,” she says quietly, glancing toward the door. “I should probably go.”
She takes a step back and my chest clenches. For some reason, the thought of her walking out of this room feels worse than anything I endured in Eden.
My hand reaches out for her before I can stop it. “Wait.”
Bella’s eyes immediately narrow. “Oh no.”
“Bells.”
“What?”
“Just give us a minute,” I plead to my sister.
Bella looks between us one last time, her expression a mix of fierce protectiveness and reluctant surrender. “Ugh, fine.”
A heavy and thick silence settles between us as the door clicks shut behind Bella.
“I’m surprised you came,” I finally admit.
“Me too.” Her eyes drop to the linoleum floor. “I just…” She swallows hard. “I just needed to see for myself that you were okay.”
My fingers tighten around the swan. “I’m okay.”
“Good.” A fragile smile touches her lips, though her eyes never leave the ground. “I’m glad.”
“Mar,” I mutter, my voice rough. “What is it?”
The cardiac monitor beeps a steady rhythm, echoing off the walls in the quiet room.
“It’s just…” Marisol drags in a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Z. For everything that’s—”
“Don’t,” I cough, the movement jarring my ribs as I force myself to sit upright. I lean over to the bedside table and set down the swan. “Don’t do that to yourself.”
She lets out a harsh laugh, tears brimming over her long lashes. “Why not? I’m the reason everything is so fucked up. Everything’s so… so broken between us.”
“I still love you.” The words fly out of my mouth without a fucking ounce of regret.
Marisol freezes. Her dark eyes widen as they snap to mine, absorbing the weight of the confession. “What?”
“You heard me,” I whisper, keeping my gaze locked on hers. “I never stopped. Trust me. I tried. Hell, Bella tried plenty of times for the both of us.”
A soft, tearful chuckle escapes her. She reaches up to wipe a stray drop from her cheek. “I bet.”
“Come here,” I whisper, patting the edge of the stiff mattress. “Sit down.”
She hesitates for a moment, then slowly sinks onto the bed.
“When I was in that house,” I start, my chest tightening as I try to steady my voice. “A lot of shit happened to me. A lot I can’t talk about. Not yet anyway.”
Marisol nods, her hand hovering the space between us. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”
I shake my head. “No. I-I want to, it’s just…”
Flash-bulb memories of Luca slam into my head. The suffocating weight of that house. His hands on my body and his voice in my ear. His lashes on bare skin. A wave of heat rushes through my veins. I shake out of it, sucking in a deep breath.
“It’s just I don’t really know how to… well—fuck!”
“Hey.” She reaches out, her warm finger sliding between mine. “It’s only me.”
“I’m not the same person you left,” I admit, glancing down at our joined hands. “Not anymore.”
“We’ve both grown up since then, Z.”
I shake my head. “No. I mean yeah, we have, but that’s not what I meant.” A deep sigh escapes my mouth. “He broke me, Mar. And I’ve tried to be strong for Bells but he’s in my head and I can’t—”
“You can’t what?” Marisol presses gently. “Just talk to me.”
I try to fight the burn in my eyes but it’s a losing battle. One tear slips free. Then another. “I can’t get him out.”
The words barely leave my lips before my gaze drifts toward the window. My stomach drops the second I see him. Luca, standing there in a dark suit. His emerald eyes blaring into mine. He rests one hand against the glass and strides toward the bed.
The monitor next to me explodes into a frantic beeping as he inches closer.
I blink hard, forcing my eyes shut before snapping them back open. The figure vanishes, leaving nothing but the cold glare of Manhattan staring back at me.
My mind knows the room is empty, but my pulse doesn’t give a shit. It keeps hammering against my ribs like a trapped animal, matching the frantic beeping of the machine.
“Zeke?” Marisol’s voice sounds far away.
I shake my head, sucking in a deep breath as I force myself to look at her.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“What just happened?” Marisol asks, panic in her voice.
“Nothing,” I lie. “It’s nothing.”
She pinches her brow. “Bullshit,” she says, giving my hand a firm squeeze. “But I’ll wait until you’re ready to talk about it.”
Nodding my head, I force out a quick, “Thanks.”
Marisol slaps my thigh with the back of her hand. “Scoot over.”
I do as much as the IV lines and plastic monitoring wires will allow.
She lies down next to me, sliding her leg over mine and resting her hand on my chest over my racing heart. “I thought I lost you,” she whispers, her voice slightly muffled against the rough cotton of my hospital gown.
Wrapping my arm around her shoulder, I pull her in tight and bury my face in her hair. The sterile smell of the hospital fades, replaced entirely by her.
“Never,” I whisper, leaning down slightly to press a kiss to the top of her head. “In all honesty, I should probably be thanking you.”
She stills against my chest. “What?”
“Every time I was about to give up in there, I would see you,” I admit, the truth pouring out of me. “I’d hear your voice, Mar. Telling me not to give in. To be strong. To find you again.”
She sniffles, pulling back just enough to look up at me with wet eyes. “My voice?”
I nod, tightening my grip around her to shut out the rest of the world.
“Your voice.”