Tori is sobbing uncontrollably. “Will she make it, Big Ricky?”
“Quiet!” Big Ricky shouts. “Let me focus.”
“I won’t survive losing you,” Adriano murmurs against my temple as he brushes his palm over my hair. “Please,amore mio. Open your eyes. I’m fucking begging you.”
Adriano
Taking in all the blood Laurie has lost, my fear becomes a living, breathing monster.
Her neck, collarbone, and clothes are soaked with blood.
I’m fucking soaked in her blood.
Cradling her head with my attention glued to her lashes, I keep seeing her break free from Marco and running toward me.
She used herself as a fucking shield to protect me.
Christ. What the fuck was she thinking?
I close my eyes and take a deep breath of her, but I can only smell the sweet metallic scent of blood. “Please,” I pray to whoever’s listening. “Don’t take her from me.”
“She’s tough, son,” Dad murmurs while patting my shoulder.
Big Ricky presses both hands against the wound, trying to slow the bleeding, then mutters, “Fuck, the bullet nicked an artery.”
Ice tears through my chest. Big Ricky was a medic in the army. He’s had years of experience patching up his own wounds and those of our men when they couldn’t get to the hospital in time.
If he’s worried, it’s fucking bad.
“No,” I groan, my eyes snapping back to my wife’s way too fucking pale face.
“Tiny!” Big Ricky snaps. “Get your O negative ass over here. Move Adriano. Make space for him.”
“Can you save her?” Mom asks, her voice trembling.
“Yeah.” He lets go of Laurie’s arm long enough to rip open a black medical bag and turns it over on the bed while Tiny lies down beside my wife. “But if I don’t close it now, she dies before we reach the hospital.”
Dies.
I stare at the clamps, sutures, gauze, and needles. The sight of the medical supplies turns my stomach because none of this should be happening in our fucking bedroom.
This shouldn’t be happening to my butterfly.
“Get me towels,” Big Ricky barks, while he jabs a needle into Tiny’s wrist with brutal efficiency before setting up another line into Laurie.
He grabs a flashlight and switches it on, then orders, “Son, come hold the light steady for me on the wound.”
Little Ricky moves and does as his father orders while I stand helpless and watch.
The room fills with wet sounds and metal clinking as Big Ricky begins to work on Laurie’s arm. He’s only covered the wound to her neck with a bandage, so I hope that means it’s nothing too serious.
Dad’s arm falls around my shoulders, and Mom begins to wipe Laurie’s blood from my hands and arms with a wet cloth.
I can’t move. I can’t talk.
I can only watch as Big Ricky breathes harder and harder with every passing second.
Then blood suddenly surges over his hands again, the sight making my heart all but stop dead in my chest.
