13. ~Emilio~
13
~Emilio~
He’d almost fucking died.
That psychopath had been so fucking focused on breaking Julian that he hadn’t noticed the symptoms. He should have at least registered the progression of them.
The doctor had said that any longer and the damage would have been fatal.
Julian had been suffering from internal bleeding caused by a ruptured spleen. Trauma he’d sustained from the crash. The deep scrapes on his legs had been infected as well. He’d even suffered damage from Angelo’s repeated sexual assault.
The good news was it would all heal.
He would be okay.
At least physically.
Caterina had hacked into the surveillance system she’d found there and shown Nico and me the footage of what precisely had happened, what that sick fucker had done to Julian, and to say it had been horrific didn’t cover it.
It had made me sick to my stomach.
He’d already survived that sort of thing in his life before. For so many years. And now it had happened all over again. He’d been subjected to that disgusting torment yet again.
The urge to put every ounce of my focus and strength into hunting down that motherfucker and ripping him to shreds was a living, breathing thing inside me.
But I couldn’t… I couldn’t leave my Sunshine’s side.
He needed me more than I needed to avenge him right now.
That wasn’t to say that nothing was being done about it.
Caterina and Nico were using their specific skills to hunt the fuck.
They’d find him.
And then we’d destroy him.
The fact he’d slipped from our fingers had been nagging at me since the moment I’d watched the hospital staff rush Julian away into emergency surgery.
He’d been right fucking there! Right there!
I’d lost control. It was how he’d been able to escape. I’d been caught up in the violence, dealing out punishment on those who’d been complicit and about to hurt Caterina when I’d walked into that dungeon.
I’d expected Caterina to lose it. Nico had basically sanctioned it, because he believed that was when she was her strongest and the best combatant she could be.
But I was different. I wasn’t supposed to lose control. I was control.
Steadfast.
Rational.
Dependable.
But the moment I’d seen Julian lying there like that… dammit, I’d snapped.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I looked away from staring at Julian unconscious in the hospital bed as I pulled it out and took in a text message from Nico.
He and Caterina had stayed until Julian had been brought in here after surgery, and then Nico had led her off to get her seen to by a doctor as well.
Nico: She’s being seen right now.
Milo: Good. It will give us all peace of mind there.
Nico: She kicked me out, making me wait outside the exam room. Should I go in any way?
The corner of my mouth turned up. The fact that he was asking me and being so unusually vulnerable about it really showed how much he wanted to do what was right for her now, not just what felt right to him from his obsession standpoint when it came to her.
Her and Julian being taken had shifted something in him.
Hell, it had shifted something in all of us.
Milo: Give her the space she’s asking for. But you can text her after another few minutes just to check in.
Nico: Sounds good. Is J awake yet?
I was about to text back a no, but then I saw his fingers twitch.
Milo: Waking up now.
I pocketed my phone and watched carefully as Julian’s striking hazel eyes locked onto me, a little glazed, as he tiredly tried to make sense of what was going on.
“You’re okay. You’re at the hospital and you’re going to be absolutely fine,” I told him quickly.
I grasped his hand in a gesture of comfort, but he flinched and an awful cry escaped him.
I released him instantly. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
Tears welled in his eyes and he squeezed them shut, pain blanketing his features.
It was absolutely brutal to witness.
His agony was so acute, so distressing.
What he’d been through… I couldn’t… I just couldn’t.
But I had to.
I had to handle it.
For his sake.
“You’re safe here with us now, Sunshine,” I told him softly. “It’s over. It’s all over.”
He trembled as he brought his hand to his face, trying to get a handle on his emotion.
“You don’t need to hide it. I’m here.”
“I… I don’t want to… feel it,” he told me through his sobs.
“I know. I know you don’t.”
Several moments passed where he held his hand to his face, crying, his whole body trembling with it.
The urge to reach out to comfort him was overwhelming and so ingrained in me that I had to dig my nails into the seat of the chair to prevent myself from doing it. He’d already shown that he couldn’t stand to be touched right now. I wouldn’t fuck up again where that was concerned.
He brought his hand down onto the covers, revealing his blotchy face and red eyes from crying. “Is—I mean—am I… damaged? Physically?”
“No. No, you’ll be sore for a while, but you’ll heal perfectly well there,” I told him, knowing what he was getting at.
“Everywhere?”
“Yes, I promise. Is it causing you pain right now?”
“A little.”
“If you let me, I can shift you so you’re not pressing down where it hurts. But we need to be careful because you just had surgery for a ruptured spleen.”
“Jesus.” He looked out at me and swallowed hard. “Okay,” he murmured. “Can you… move me?”
“Of course.” I rose to my feet and his eyes widened. Dammit. Before I reached out, I told him, “Look at me. Keep focusing on my face, don’t look away.”
“Okay,” he murmured again.
I carefully grabbed hold of him, feeling him shuddering as I did, and I managed to shift him into what would be a more comfortable position. As soon as I was done, I released him immediately and sat back down. “How’s that?”
“Better. Thanks.”
“No worries.”
His eyes darted around for a bit as he took everything in. And then he asked me, “Is Cat okay? I thought I saw him hurt her? Strangling her?”
“That was part of what happened, but she overpowered him afterward. Then I showed up. You actually helped and took out some of his guys.”
He stared at me blankly. “Really? I don’t remember doing that.”
“To be expected, it was right before you passed out.”
“So, he’s… he’s dead?”
“He will be.”
“He got away?”
I nodded. “I’m sorry. But you don’t need to worry. You’re safe with us now. We’ll find him. You can count on that.”
As I reassured him, he didn’t actually seem that concerned about it, nor scared that the man who’d hurt him so much was still alive and out there somewhere.
What was happening?
Maybe it was because he wanted to be the one to end Angelo? Was he relieved that he wasn’t dead so that he could exact vengeance on him? Like he had with his father all those years ago?
I knew one thing. Now really wasn’t the time to ask any of that.
I heard a commotion outside in the corridor, and Nico’s deep voice carried to me.
I smiled at Julian, not wanting to alarm him or bring any negativity to him. “I’ll be right back. Just a couple of seconds, okay?”
“Okay,” he murmured in a very worn down way again.
I grimaced internally, then opened the door and stepped out.
It didn’t take me more than a few seconds to locate the source of the commotion just a little way down the corridor.
There Nico and Caterina were arguing back and forth.
She slammed her fist into the wall as she yelled at him, “Will you just let it the fuck go? For once , you stubborn, over-the-top, suffocating bastard!”
Whoa.
“Suffocating?” he bit back at her.
“Is that the only thing you heard?”
“I heard it all. That was the concerning aspect.”
“What?” she asked exasperatedly.
“Is that how you really feel? That I’m suffocating you?”
“Right now, yes. Obviously.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, cutting into their argument. “I could hear you from inside Julian’s room.”
“Sorry,” Caterina offered right away. “Nico just set me off.”
“Me? You were the one who burst out of the exam room before the doctor even took your blood and finished your exam.”
“You texted me that Julian is awake. I wanted to see him.”
“You could have waited a little longer. Milo was with him, he wasn’t alone, and he never will be again.”
“You say such heart-melting things like that, yet you can also be such an infuriating fucker,” she told him. “Talk about a walking contradiction.”
Nico fisted his hands down at his sides. “Fuck, wife, you’re really pushing my buttons.” His eyes flashed at her. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
“I just want you to back off. The doctor said I was dehydrated, that I needed to eat, and that I needed some more sleep. Simple as that. I’m fine. So, please, for the love of crap, let it go now.” She flashed her eyes right back at him. “ Husband.”
Oh fuck.
He stepped into her and pushed her against the wall with his hips. Looming over her, he growled, “Careful, I’m seconds away from fucking you into submission right against this corridor in full view of everybody. Do you want them all to see you spread open at my mercy as I fill your glorious cunt with my big dick and punish the fuck out of you?”
She stared up at him, meeting his challenge head on. “Please, you won’t allow anybody outside of our foursome to see me in that sexual state. And you also don’t like my submission.” She grinned at him. “Not one little bit.”
He snarled, then kissed her forehead and drew back. “Well played.”
She smirked. “I thought so.”
“Go see Julian. But once he’s settled back at the house, you will let my doctor come to see you at home and run the tests you missed here. Make me that deal and I’ll let it go.”
“That’s not exactly letting it go.”
“It’s the best you’re gonna get,” I warned her.
She rolled her eyes, but told him, “Deal.”
“Now that’s sorted, I need you both to tone it down majorly before you go in there. And do not, under any circumstances, touch him. Not even holding his hand,” I told them.
“Okay,” Caterina murmured, pain playing on her features.
Nico scrubbed his hand over his face, then gave a nod.
We headed back into the room, Nico and Caterina following after me to find Julian scanning the room intensely.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My phone. I need my phone.”
“It was crushed during the crash,” Nico told him. “We’ll get you another one by tomorrow morning.”
“No. I need—I can’t be without it. Lying here in this bed, in this room, nothing to focus on except—I can’t… I fucking can’t!” He grabbed the IV about to pull it out, but Caterina called out, “Stop, it’s okay! Here, sweetheart.” She walked to him then and pulled a phone out of the inner pocket of her turquoise leather jacket, telling him, “I cloned your old one. Everything is on here as you like it. It’s not the same snazzy cobalt-blue glittering case, but that can easily be remedied.” Off our startled looks, she explained, “He told me how it is with him and his social media stuff, so I figured once we found him, he’d need it.”
Julian beamed out at her. “Thank you, Cat. Thank you so much.”
She smiled at him. “This is what it means to be mine.”
Nico and I exchanged a look at her uttering a version of our words to her. Our promise, in essence, to be good to her and take care of her as one of us.
She put the phone down on the covers within his reach, keeping well to the no-touching rule I’d laid down outside. She also pulled out a charger and plugged it in, then draped the cable carefully over the small cupboard beside his bed.
Julian turned on the phone, then looked up at her. “What’s the password?”
“Carver Babes.”
He chuckled.
Actually laughed in spite of everything.
Because of her.
Last time he’d suffered through something like this, we hadn’t had Caterina with us. But now that we did, it had me realizing that it could be different, that it could be easier to pull him through it. She added a different energy to our dynamic and that could be exactly what was needed to help him.
He scrolled on his phone for a few moments, before telling her, “This is perfect, everything just how I remember it.” He held it to him protectively as he looked out at us and said, “Thank you to all of you for getting me out of there. I know it can’t have been easy. Was there a price I need to be aware of?”
His gaze went to Nico as he asked that last part, who was leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. “Not to worry. Everything is as it should be.”
“N, when you get cryptic, it’s rarely a good thing.”
“There was opportunity to be found in the challenge that the takedown tonight posed.”
“Yeah, that’s not really veering away from the whole ominous nature of it all.”
“How about if I told you that I made lemonade from lemons?”
Julian shook his head. “Not at all. Nico, if there’s—”
“It’s fine. Everything will be fine. What I need is for you to concentrate on getting better. Physically first, then the rest afterward. Okay? I really need that from you.”
“Nico,” I spoke, not liking him pushing Julian. It was too early for that.
It had me tensing majorly when Julian squeezed his eyes shut again and tried to bite back emotion that was rising up once again.
But then some of that was alleviated when he uttered on a pained rasp, “I know. Can you reach out to Roslynn for me?”
“Doctor Williams? Yeah, of course.”
As much as it killed me that it had come to that, it was actually a really good sign.
“You’ll need to stay here in the hospital tonight,” Nico informed him. “But tomorrow I can move you. This room will be well guarded, so you don’t need to concern yourself with that.”
“ I’m also not going anywhere,” I spoke up.
“Yeah,” he said, taking everything in. “Thank you.” He shifted his weight in the bed. “If you get a lead on Angelo, you’ll tell me, yes?”
“Are you sure that’s what you want, what you need, J?” Nico asked worriedly.
“Yes. I’m sure,” Julian answered.
So he could obsess about it and be stuck in the nightmare of it all? I went to protest, but Caterina pulled a Nico Marchetti and held up her hand. Then she said, “Information is also comfort, right?”
Dammit. Her words to me the other night.
They sure packed an emotional punch.
Especially given the subject matter in question.
“Yeah, okay.”
Julian smiled out at her.
Then he placed his new phone down on the covers and sank back against the pillows, clearly tiring.
“We’re gonna head out,” Nico said, noticing. “Let you get some rest, all right?”
“You need anything, you text us, or let Milo know, okay?” Caterina told him.
He smiled weakly. “Yes, and yes. Thanks.”
Nico gave my shoulder a squeeze as he passed on by, and told me quietly, “Rocco will be arriving in moments. He’ll supervise security on Julian throughout the night.”
“Got it. I’ll liaise with him.”
“No need. I’ll take care of it. You just worry about Julian. And try to get some sleep when he sleeps.”
I nodded, and he walked to the door, holding it open for Caterina.
She threw her arms around me and held me tightly to her. “Do you want us to bring you anything? We’ll be bringing a change of clothes for Julian by tomorrow, but anything else?”
“Nah, all good,” I said, stroking her back. “And now he’s got his phone, he’s good to go on his end. I want you to get some rest and eat properly, though. Do you hear me? Don’t make me pull a Nico.”
She chuckled. “You don’t need to.”
“Good. I’ll text you and keep you posted on Julian.”
Satisfied with that, the two of them headed out, closing the door quietly behind them.
“I’m sorry,” Julian uttered, sleepily.
“Sorry?” I asked as I walked to the chair beside his bed and sat down. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for, Sunshine.”
“That I couldn’t… that when you grabbed my hand, I reacted… the way I did.”
“It’s all okay. I didn’t take it personally and I won’t. There’s no need to rush it, to rush yourself, and certainly don’t feel bad about it.”
“I love you, you know that?” he uttered, his eyes drooping.
“As I love you, brother. Fucking always.”
A smile graced his lips before he then closed his eyes and fell back to sleep.
Good. He needed rest. And a lot of it.
But it would be a miracle if he actually managed to sleep through the night.
If last time was anything to go by, he’d be waking up screaming every couple of hours.
Pained and tormented.
Exhausted and wrecked.
I wished I could take it all away for him.
I wished there were words or a gesture I could make that would do that.
Hell, I wished I could undo it entirely.
But wishful thinking wouldn’t accomplish anything.
All we could do right now was to be here for him, listen to his needs, and keep a close eye on him in every way until we were certain that he was back on stable ground again.
He was surrounded by love, understanding, and safety in each of us.
He’d be okay.
He’d get through this.
We’d get him through this.
Angelo hadn’t broken him, he’d just shaken him.
That was all.
That was fucking all.