“Got it. We’ll be there.”
I hang up and immediately stand up from the bed.
“What’s going on?” Tommy asks, sitting up with a nervous look on his damaged face.
I run my fingers through my hair.
“Tiberi is at the hospital. He’s in a coma.”
“Did you get the room number?” I ask Tommy as I pace back and forth in the lobby of the hospital.
He nods. “Got it. He’s in the ICU. We take the elevators on the left,” he explains. I follow him through the lobby and down one hallway to the elevators.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” I ask him.
“The painkillers I took should hold for a few more hours,” he says. “Besides, I can get some better stuff here anyway.” He smirks.
I glare at him as we step into the elevator and he pushes the button for the correct floor.
I’ve never been to this hospital before, and suddenly the feeling of the elevator going up makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
The walls feel like they’re closing in on me. The whole place smells so sterile, and it reminds me of a day I’d rather not think about.
“You okay?” Tommy asks me.
I nod my head. “Just…haven’t been in a hospital since Felicia,” I admit.
His brow furrows. “You don’t have to come with me,” he says.
I shake my head. “No. I’m coming.” I take a deep breath and look up at the doors as they open in front of us. An elderly couple, one in a wheelchair, step in as we’re stepping out.
The lights are so bright in here. I try to ignore it as I follow Tommy through the corridor to Tiberi’s room. The whole gaggle of the Dresvannis are standing outside of his hospital room, save for Carmine.
“What’s going on?” Tommy asks them. Carmine steps halfway out of the room and motions both of us inside.
Alessio looks beyond angry as he stands beside the door, and he’s leaning against Damian who doesn’t look much different. They all look worried, angry, tired. All of us have some level of injury, and while Tommy is beat up pretty good, he’s not the one in a hospital bed.
“He has swelling on the brain and lost a lot of blood from a bullet wound to the chest,” Carmine explains. “The doctor put him in a medically induced coma to help reduce the swelling and inflammation, give his body time to heal.”
“Fuck,” Tommy says with a sigh. “How long does he have to be in it?” he asks.
“A few days, a couple weeks, they aren’t sure. It depends on how he recovers, but it’ll be a while,” Carmine says as he steps over to the bed where Tiberi is lying.
He’s hooked up to several machines that blink and pulse with technological life. His usually strong body is limp and weak in the hospital bed. His chest rises and falls with his breath in a steady forced fashion.
“Damn,” I mutter.
My throat starts to tighten as I look at the man in the bed. Flickers of memories start to come back to me. Felicia lying in bed hooked up to even more machines. Forcing her lungs and her heart to keep on going. A living corpse.
Tiberi isn’t in remotely the same condition as she was, but it’s similar enough that my pulse starts to race and I have to look away from him.
Tommy steps closer to me and I feel his fingers brush against mine.
“I’ll give you a couple minutes with him; I’ll take the guys down to the cafeteria. There’s nothing else we can do here. I’mgoing to put a couple guards on the door, though, just in case.” Carmine steps out of the room after Tommy nods in response.
“You alright?” Tommy asks me.
“It reminds me of her,” I tell him. “She was…already dead when they hooked her up to all these machines and tried to keep her going. But I knew she was not there.” I swallow hard. “I made them take her off, made them let her be dead. Her parents hated me for it.”
