Gino pulls the Range Rover into the hangar and I carry Cora over.
“I can walk, you know,” she said, but I can see the effort it takes her just to say the words.
“I know,” I agree, “but I need to carry you.” She carefully drapes her arm over her left side and leans against me, and I only wish that I had been the one to blow that motherfucker’s head off his body.
After Dr. Longo checked Cora out, she slipped outside our room to talk to me. “She won’t suffer any permanent damage,” the doctor said, rubbing her eyes. She’s already treated my two men and their gunshot wounds. “It looks like someone worked her over pretty roughly; she’s got a black eye, and the swelling should go down tomorrow. Fortunately, there’s no damage to the orbital socket. Her wrists are pretty cut up from the zip ties, and there’s bruising around her neck, but those will heal quickly. Whoever this was, they punched her extremely hard in the stomach. I did a quick scan, the cartilage is bruised on a couple of ribs, but no fractures. There’s…” she hesitated.
“What?” I prompted, anxious to see my wife.
“There’s no chance you two could be pregnant?”
“I…” We’ve only been together for six days. Just six. But suddenly, the thought of Cora swollen with my child is the most erotic thing I can imagine. “She has a birth control implant,” I said - which I knew from her extensive medical history curated for me by our investigator. “Any other injuries I should be aware of?”
Dr. Longo looked back at the closed bedroom door. “Based on the information you gave me; I would anticipate this experience will bring up that past trauma. This might trigger nightmares, depression- if she stops eating or drinking, notify me right away.”
I rub my forehead, “Of course. Is there anything else I can do?”
“Does she have much of a support system?” she asked.
Certainly not her fucking parents,I think bitterly. “She has her family,” I said firmly, “me, my brother, and her sisters-in-law. We’ll take care of her.”
For the first time, Dr. Longo smiles. “I know you will, Mr. Toscano. Goodnight.”
My wife is huddled under the silk blankets when I enter the room, lying on her right side with a pillow against her stomach. “Hey,Bellissima,”I said gently, “what can I get you?” I’m not a gentle person. I never have been. I’m the bull tearing through the china shop, so I’m surprised at how easy it is to be this way with her.
“I’m okay,” she mumbled, looking at me with her good eye. “You came for me.”
“I promised I would keep you safe,” I said, choking up a bit in self-disgust. “I didn’t think we’d put it to the test this early.”
Cora struggles, trying to sit up and I help her settle against the headboard, tucking a pillow behind her back. “But you did save me from Santos.” Her lips tremble before she tightened them. “Is Davide dead? Did they kill him?”
“NoBellissima,” I carefully push back her hair, “He’s alive, he’ll recover.”
“Oh, I am so glad…” she said.
I grin, I can’t help it. “One of the guys we captured said you were trash talking Santos? That you asked how much he had to pay women to fuck him and did he use farm animals?”
“Do you know what the nuclear option is in hostage situations?” Cora draws her legs close to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
“I’m usually the one taking them,” I admitted, watching her closely in concern. The way she’s curling in on herself… this is going to be a tough conversation for her.
“Michael, my bodyguard taught me,” she said. “The nuclear option is, if you have tried everything, I mean everything, the next step is to try to make them so angry that they’ll lose control and kill you.”
“Oh,mia leonessa, my lioness,” I said sadly, “I will always come for you. You didn’t give up in Schmidt’s basement, what made this different?”
She frowned, her poor, bruised face intent. “With Schmidt, I just… hated him so much that I wanted to live to make sure I killed him - thatsomeonekilled him, anyway. He was evil, but Santos is evil in a way that has destroyed countless lives with unimaginable suffering."
"I always believed I could survive Schmit. He thought he’d formed this pathetic bond with me, he called me his soul mate. He sat with me for hours, yapping about how important he was and his creepy connection with his mother. He would talk incessantly about how he was her favorite.” She shook her head in disgust. “Can you imagine growing up inthathousehold?”
Schmidt must have been charmed and infuriated by her contempt. “The doc gave me pain pills for you. Can you take a couple?”
Wincing as she changed position, she took the water bottle from me, downing the meds. “But with Santos, he would have done…” she shuddered. “Even if I could live through the rape and torture and whatever else he planned for me, what if he did get me pregnant?” Her pale green eyes shimmered with tears. “I couldn’t let that happen. There’s no way I could let a child suffer a life with him.”
Lifting her carefully onto my lap, I arranged her arms and legs and leaned back against the headboard, kissing an unbruised spot on her poor face. “Don’t ever give up, Cora. I will do everything in my power to end every threat to you, and now that Santos is gone, that will act as one hell of a deterrent to any other asshole thinking you’re a target. But I will always find you. Always.”
“Thank you,” she whispers. I can tell her pain and exhaustion are making the meds work faster. “Dario?”
“Hmm?”
