Chapter 48
When I lost Noah, everything in my world hit pause before things began turning in the opposite direction.
Back then, I put it all on Renzo’s back.
He took my pain and suffering and gave me the outlet I needed to cope.
This time, he was there for me too. He fed me his strength as everything around us slowed to a crawl, my world teetering on the verge of earthquakes that would crumble it to dust. I didn’t think I could survive a loss like Noah’s again.
I flew with Lou to the hospital in the helicopter, never letting go of her hand in case she woke up.
She hadn’t, but it had been some comfort to feel her pulse in tandem with the beeps of the machine while the paramedics checked me for a concussion and cleaned my cuts.
Now we waited for her to get out of surgery. Seven hours and counting.
Renzo wiped tears I didn’t feel off my face. “She’s fighting and won’t give in easily. She’s going to make it.”
I nodded against the firm steadiness of his chest, zoning in on his strong heartbeat. Thump. She was alive. Thump. The latest update on her surgery was optimistic. Thump. It was going to be all right. Thump. There was no other option.
As we sat there, the police interviewed us.
I responded blandly, letting Renzo take the lead because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to watch my words.
With Lou being taped and tied up when the paramedics arrived, he’d gone with a kidnapping/ransom story that made my head spin.
What really hit home more than anything during that conversation was how easily he referred to me as his wife.
“I wasn’t going to leave my wife’s and her sister’s lives in the hands of the FBI…I had to save my wife…My wife is worth more to me than anything.”
I couldn’t even say I disliked the term.
It made me feel protected and cared for beyond what anyone else had ever given me.
He was my lighthouse on a stormy night and my best friend.
He said he loved me. He came for us and held me when I needed him most. When it really mattered, he didn’t let me down.
And I loved him too. So the term wife didn’t feel so wrong, but I wasn’t ready to accept it either, not after the rocky beginning and middle to our relationship.
As our wait for news in the surgical waiting room extended into the wee hours of the morning, Renzo’s body relaxed in his chair.
His head was tilted back, his mouth open, and soft snores escaped him.
A couple of stray cotton fibers still clung to his nostrils after the treatment for his nosebleed.
Aside from a little swelling and raccoon eyes that somehow didn’t look horrible on him, his nose was fine.
He’d been lucky. So had I, with not even a concussion.
A tired smile pulled at my lips, and I snuggled further into his chest. Even in his sleep, his arm tightened around me.
Tore made a groan of protest.
“Say what you have to say,” I whispered.
He sat hunched over opposite us in the waiting room.
Over the last few hours, he constantly cast leery glances our way, words seemingly on the tip of his tongue but never quite coming out.
Without his trusty lighters to play with, his hands tugged at his hair regularly.
Certain strands stood up on his head, the rest a disheveled mess.
Dark circles dragged his normally charming eyes down.
“If he’s forcing you into—”
“When have you ever known anyone to force me into anything?”
His huff was one of bone-deep exhaustion. “You should have told me about…this, before all…this.”
“Why would I, when he couldn’t even accept his own feelings?”
“It’s not about him.”
“It is. You would’ve confronted him—in prison or outside of it, doesn’t matter—and because he hadn’t accepted us yet, he would have denied it.
It would’ve been a lie. After that, you would’ve always questioned his earlier intentions with me, regardless of how we ended up. You never would’ve fully approved.”
“An omission is still a lie.”
“But you’ll forgive it and accept us because you know, deep down, you and him are the same.”
He reared back. “How do you figure that?”
“He was lying to himself about us, kind of the same way you’re doing with yourself and Bee.”
“W-what?” he sputtered. He lay back in his chair and crossed his arms, like a petulant child. “There’s nothing between that devil woman and me.”
“’Course there isn’t.” I chuckled. “How’s Ricco?”
“He’ll recover. Doc says it wasn’t serious.”
“Good.” I sighed against Renzo, my eyes heavy, my brain fogging, but I couldn’t let myself sleep yet. Not until I knew for sure that Lou survived.
“Anzy.” Tore rubbed his palms together. “If ever things don’t work out between…you…just let me know.”
I smiled sleepily. “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
The surgeon arrived shortly after. Lou had made it. There were a couple of complications during the reconstruction, but she was in recovery now. She was alive. She was well. Everything was going to be fine. My whole body loosened after he left, and exhaustion finally took me.
“You’re Lou Sheffield-D’Amico. You don’t give up.” I held Lou’s face in my hands as she cried silent tears.
“I can still barely feel my toes.”
While the physical therapist was proud of the way her leg was strengthening after a week in the hospital, he’d told Tore and me that she had a long road ahead of her before she would walk without crutches again.
“Doesn’t mean you can’t do it. It all depends on you, sparrow.” I booped her nose. “Do you want to wallow or get better?”
“But all my friends—”
“Didn’t get into a car accident, didn’t get one heck of a rocking, memorable scar Tore is already designing a tattoo for, and don’t have the most amazing family that treats you to an all-you-can-eat sweets buffet.
” For emphasis, I moved over an edible arrangement of her favorite fruits from a side table to her overbed table, as well as a bag of her favorite chocolate candies.
It was best not to get on the topic of friends.
Only two had visited in the last week, and it was dragging her down.
Someone knocked on the door, and it clicked open.
“Who’s ready to go home?” the day nurse asked, with Tore and Renzo following close behind her with a wheelchair.
Lou raised her hand tentatively.
“A little more excitement than that, girlie,” the nurse said. She cleaned Lou’s surgical scar and bandaged it up once more before declaring her ready for discharge. “Don’t be so sad to go. You’ll be back every day for your physical therapy sessions.”
Lou recoiled. “I’m definitely not sad.”
“Yeah, they rarely are,” the nurse said wistfully. “You’re all good to go.”
We wheeled Lou to the parking structure and over to Tore’s new van, which he purchased so Lou could comfortably lay her leg out.
“We’ll meet you guys back up at the house,” I said, once she was settled in her seat.
With a small smile of relief, she tilted her face up to meet the rays of sunlight through the open window. Hopefully, the change of scenery was exactly what she needed to recover.
Renzo and I waved them off. The moment the van turned down the next level, his arm snaked around me and tugged my back to his chest.
“I finally get you to myself,” he whispered, grinding his groin against my ass.
I gently slapped his arm. “Not here. Plus, we have things to discuss first.”
We had been running off our feet this past week.
My schedule alternated between constant runs and stays at the hospital with Lou whenever Tore wasn’t there, checking in on Ricco, who was better but recovering, and then preparing for the start of the new school year in less than a month.
Renzo had taken on part of Tore’s duties during Lou’s recovery while also dealing with the fallout from the double attack by Dimakos and Giambrone.
Needless to say, neither of us had much time for a proper sit-down conversation.
Every night I wasn’t sleeping at the hospital, we fell into bed in a mess of limbs and bedsheets until we were thoroughly wrecked and sated with enough orgasms to fall into a dreamless sleep.
“Oh?” he asked innocently, as if he didn’t know.
“You ever going to tell me how we supposedly got married?”
“There’s nothing supposedly about it.”
“Would it hold up in court?”
“Probably not.” He shrugged—shrugged—like it was no big deal.
I twisted in his arms and glared up at him. “That doesn’t bother you? I could go and get it annulled right now.”
With a wide smile, he pecked my lips.
“Don’t smile. It’s not funny.”
“You’re adorable.”
“Am not.”
“You are because that wasn’t threatening.”
“I could do it.”
His arm caressed down my back. “But you won’t,” he added tauntingly.
“Watch me.” I shoved my hands against his chest to get away. Not that it worked.
“So stubborn, mia piccola civetta.” In one swift move, he lifted me into his arms, and my legs instinctively wrapped around his waist. “You won’t, not because you can’t. Because you don’t want to.”
“I don’t?”
He shook his head. “You like when I call you wife. It gives you shivers down your back.” He stroked his fingers down my spine, and damn him, I quivered.
“It makes you smile even when you’re sad.
And I love saying it.” He nibbled on my bottom lip.
“My wife. My one and only. My forever. That’s you, civetta. You sure you don’t want it?”
A laugh stuck in my throat as my gaze anchored to the brightest pair of eyes I ever wanted to get lost in. “You sure?”
“You’ve practically moved into my home this last week. Why wouldn’t I be?”
I slipped my hands through the hair on the back of his head and around his nape to tug him closer. “Then we’re redoing it right. I want a white dress, a small ceremony, and my signature on that damn certificate.”
“Anything for you.”
“But,” I teased, pulling back just as he dipped in for a kiss, “not yet.”
He grunted. “Oh?”
“We have to officially move in together first.”
“Sure.”