CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Tierney
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
The steady rhythm thunked against my skull.
Pain.
I was in so much pain.
And cold.
All the way down to my bones.
The air was dry. Static. Still.
I tried to pry my eyes open, but my eyelids were too heavy.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Where was I? Was I safe? Was I home? Did it even matter?
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
I slipped back into unconsciousness, letting the darkness swallow me whole.
Sometimes I heard voices even though my eyes were closed.
They always sounded like they were coming from above and I was underwater.
I didn’t trust my own ears, especially when, one night, I heard the door to my room creaking open.
I felt a shift in the atmosphere, the temperature dropping, like a nocturnal animal just entered my domain.
Then a brush of cold, callused knuckles over my jawline and a voice I’d recognize anytime, anywhere, under water or dirt. Dead or alive. A voice I had known since before it even spoke to me—of a beautiful monster who did very ugly things.
“You have to stay alive, Piccola Fiamma, so you can kill me like you promised.” The words were spoken softly, unhurriedly. “I’m holding you to that. Don’t let me down, Little Flame. I’m waiting on the other end.”
This was a lie.
A coping mechanism.
My heart trying to piece itself back together.
It was the morphine. The drugs. My temporary insanity.
I forced myself back to sleep.
Hours, or maybe days, later, I woke up again.
This time, I managed to open my eyes. Everything still hurt like a bitch but in an abstract, indescribable way. They’d probably pumped me full of enough painkillers to kill an elephant.
Peering around, I registered a generic hospital room painted in soft blues.
Lifting my head was a big no-no. I wasn’t even going to attempt such foolishness.
My skull was weighed down by a headache and about ten pounds’ worth of bandages.
I slanted my gaze until my pupils hurt, searching for signs, to see whether they were in English or Italian.
The last thing I remembered was being in a motel room in Italy with Achilles. He said he’d let me go.
He lied.
I mean, clearly, or I wouldn’t be here, would I?
I didn’t know why the pain from his lying was greater than the pain in my body, but it somehow was. Maybe because no matter how far we’d fallen, we’d never lied to each other before.
Other than that time Luca threatened to kill you.
My eyes finally landed on a sign under the mounted TV, but it was too far for me to make out the words. I thought it was English, but that didn’t make any sense. Whatever happened to me happened in Italy. So why would I be anywhere else?
The door whined open, but my now-giant head with the big-ass bandage pressing onto my jaw and forehead was still nailed to the pillow and I couldn’t see who it was.
Please don’t let it be him…
Lila’s Barbie-doll face came into view, peering down at me worriedly. Her blond brows zipped together at the sight of me awake.
“Tier!” She rushed to the edge of my bed, placing a comforting hand on my arm through the blanket. I guess she had swaddled me like she did Gennaro, like I was a human burrito. Now that I was noticing more things, I also had compression socks on, and my face felt like it’d been scrubbed clean.
“Hi,”’ I croaked, sounding about a thousand years old.
“Sweetheart, you’re awake.” She couldn’t stop stroking my face gently, so much warmth radiating from her eyes. “How are you feeling?”
“Like hell,” I groaned. “Where am I?”
“In the hospital.”
“Yeah, but…where?” I asked. “Europe? America?”
“New York,” she said, dragging a chair by the door and plopping next to me. “You’ve been out for two weeks.”
I groaned. “What happened to me?”
“A bullet to the head.”
Trust Lila not to mince words. She was new to making conversations and often said things bluntly without regard for social etiquette. Came with the territory of finally stepping out of her mother’s shadow and living life like a normal person after being sheltered for so many years by her parents.
“Okay, can you…” I winced, the headache mounting behind my eyelids. “Can you give me the rundown of what happened to me?”
“You got shot in Europe. The killer aimed for your head, but it turned out the bullet only fractured the back of your skull. It didn’t touch your brain.
You spent two days in a medically induced coma while they ran some tests.
Tiernan arranged for you to be flown into New York so we could take care of you here.
Are you feeling disoriented? Have poor eyesight? Confused?”
“I don’t think so.” I frowned. The simple action hurt like my forehead was about to split in half. “When did they take me out of the medically induced coma?”
“Two days ago. You took your time, but I guess you’ve had a very long few weeks.” Lila rubbed my arm affectionately, but I couldn’t feel much of it. “They’re still worried about brain damage and hemorrhages. Do you remember anything?”
“I remember Achilles came after me. He was assigned to kill me.”
Lila nodded but said nothing. My brows bunched together as something occurred to me. “Hey, how come your father let me come back to the United States? I thought I was banished.”
Lila’s eyes flared dramatically. “Oh, of course. You don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“He won’t be bothering you anymore,” she started to say, but before I could hear more, my body collapsed and I fell into slumber again.