She coughs again, her entire body shaking with the force of it. Fuck! She’s already taken in too much smoke. Picking her up, I navigate to the side window. Heat scorches my face. My eyebrows tug as if they’re curling from the heat, but I don’t stop.
“I’m putting you through this window feet first. You’re going to have to land on your feet. Candi?”
She’s coughing too hard. She’ll never make the drop.
Fuck.
But a broken leg is worth her life.
Flames rush toward the window, sucking the oxygen and growing fatter as I slide an old chair over to the window and, praying it holds, stand on it with her limp body in my arms.
“Candi. You have to go through. Okay?”
The inside of my throat is drying out and I can barely drum up enough saliva to speak. My words come out in broken, dehydrated bursts. She helps a little as I get her feet through. There’s just enough clearance for her to sit on the ledge, and then she jumps. Bracing myself for her scream of pain, I wonder that it doesn’t come and slide out after her.
Sweet, cool air hits my face and I drink it up in hungry, greedy gulps.
Beside me, Candi is crumpled against the brick wall, coughing onto the ground. She spits up blood and my stomach bottoms out. Quickly checking her body, I feel her legs for any sign that she’s broken them. She doesn’t wince or pull away from my touch and I don’t feel anything out of place. A good sign.
“Where’s…Juliana?” she rasps.
The heat radiating from the building is growing too severe. I can’t go back in there.
Gently scooping her up again, I hurry as fast as I can behind the cinderblock enclosure I used as a shield before.
“Juliana,” she chokes out haltingly, tears streaming down her soot-streaked face. “Did she…get out?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her.
She puts her head to my shoulder and sobs.
5
ARMANI
If the nursetells me to leave the room one more time, I’m going to do something he’ll regret.
Candi has barely moved since I rushed her to the emergency room. She coughed the entire way to the hospital, and her lips were a terrifying combination of sooty black and low-oxygen blue by the time we arrived. It looked like somebody had smacked her in the mouth.
She responded to me on the drive over, but she was listless and slow about it, as if she didn’t have the strength to speak. Part of me worried she might stop breathing. But there was no time to wait for an ambulance, and I couldn’t risk getting spotted by the Brunos or the Bratva at the scene. As far as I know, neither outfit was aware that I had shown up at the bakery fire.
Finding Candi inside that burning building was a ridiculous stroke of good luck. If I had been a few minutes later…but no. There’s no sense in dwelling on it. I made it to her in time and got her here right away. Everything is going to be okay. It has to be.
I’ve been in this all-too-familiar place before. Standing in a hospital room, listening to the monitors beep, not knowing what the numbers flashing across their screens mean. But this time is different.
Candi dozes as an IV line drips hydration into her veins. She’d had a cannula in her nose initially, but the doctor said her blood oxygen levels are looking better and took her off it. She’s breathing well on her own now, and the nurse just informed me that Candi’s lungs sound good. They’re keeping her here longer for observation, simply because they don’t know how much smoke she inhaled. We’re now into the early morning hours and I’m as restless as ever.
I texted Riggante a few times to inquire if our target was erased. The last I heard from him, he couldn’t confirm. A few of Bruno’s men had died in the explosion, but Orloff’s body hasn’t been found. With police and firefighters still swarming the scene of the crime, the status of the man we care the most about is yet to be determined. Will they find what remains of him in the charred wreckage of the bakery, or did Orloff escape? Only time will tell.
My brothers and their wives are on standby back at home, but I told them not to come to the hospital. I don’t have the heart to face them just yet. First, I want a concrete answer on whether Maxim Orloff is alive or dead.
I stop my pacing and drop into the chair by the bed, studying Candi’s prone form. I don’t like seeing her this way, but I can’t pinpoint exactly why it bothers me so much. It wasn’t long ago that I had no problem sacrificing her for the greater good. Not having her best interest at heart was a price to be paid if it meant getting information that I needed from her.
But something changed along the way.
Dante and Marco must be rubbing off on me. Thanks to their wives, they’ve become malleable, but I can’t afford to do the same. I don’t have the luxury of going soft when every single person in this family relies on me to keep them safe. I need to pull myself together.
Candi’s face is peaceful as she sleeps. The nurses helped her with a bath earlier so she could clean the soot from her skin. Without her hair and makeup done, she looks younger and more innocent somehow. The urge to protect her at all costs is overwhelming. How is it possible to see someone in such a different light simply because they’re lying in a hospital bed?
