Keeping his bride

Luca

I

WAKE UP slowly and in stages. First, I wiggle my toes… and then my fingers…and then I carefully open my eyes, which feel swollen, for some reason. It takes my brain a little while to process where I am and what I’m seeing right now.

I stare up at the familiar tiled ceiling and groan. I know I’m in the doctor’s basement. Fuck, I think at one point I counted every single tile in this room from total boredom as I recovered from numerous gun and knife wounds.

My left arm feels heavy, and when I try to move it, a sharp pain has me hissing through my teeth.

“You were shot,” Benito’s voice comes from across the room.

“It’s all coming back to me now,” I say with a grimace. I remember the cabin in the middle of the lake. And I remember that bastard, Dante, trying to kill Verona. It was a split-second decision that I made in that moment to take a bullet for her. One that I would make a thousand times over again. I never want Verona to h ve to suffer through pain.

And the thought of possibly losing her…well, it would completely and utterly gut me. I wouldn’t want to live in a world without Verona in it.

“Is he dead?” I ask Benito.

“Yes,” he assures me. “Bullet between the eyes. And then I knocked over the kerosene lamps for good measure before we left.”

I relax back on the pillows behind me. “I wish I could have seen that place burn with his corpse inside,” I spit out. I would have rather tortured the bastard for what he did to our mothers and what he did to Verona, but I’m glad he’s dead. The fucker didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her, and he sure as hell didn’t deserve to live another day here on this earth. I hope he’s rotting away in hell where he belongs.

I glance around the room, searching for the one person whom I need the most right now. My eyes finally settle on the chair beside the bed, and my heart skips a beat as I see Verona’s petite frame curled up, sleeping softly.

“She finally fell asleep about a half hour ago,” Benito says. “She fought it for so long. And I know she’s gonna be pissed that she missed you waking up.”

I chuckle at the thought of her trying to stay awake for so long. “Let her sleep. She needs to rest.” I stare at her, searing her beautiful face into my brain. Fuck, she’s gorgeous. Like some kind of ethereal creature. She doesn’t even seem real to me right now, but she’s my wife, and she’s mine.

“When do you want to move out?” Benito asks, breaking me out of my thoughts.

“As soon as possible,” I tell him. Then, I glance over to Verona. “But let’s let her sleep for a little while.”

“All right,” he agrees, and I can hear the hesitation in his voice. But Benito knows better than to argue with me. I watch as he walks over to the sink and fills up a cup of water before bringing it back to me. “Thirsty?”

“Fuck, yes,” I tell him before gratefully taking the water with my good arm. I gulp down the cool liquid, and it feels like heaven on my sore, dry throat. “Tell the doctor we’re leaving soon and to pack me what I need.”Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

“Of course,” Benito says before walking up the stairs to the main house.

Reaching over, I grasp Verona’s hand in mine. She stirs, but doesn’t wake, and I hold my breath until she falls back into a deep sleep. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you,” I promise her. And I intend to keep that promise until my last dying breath.

Verona

W

HEN I OPEN my eyes, I see Luca standing a few feet away from me. He’s dressed in a black suit with his back turned towards me. I blink rapidly, trying to get rid of the hallucination, but he stays there. And when he turns to look at me, I realize he’s real and not a figment of my imagination at all.

“Verona,” he says my name, his voice gruff and strained.

A sob rips out of me as I jump up from the chair and run towards him. That’s when I notice that the one sleeve of his jacket is merely draped over his shoulder, and that there’s a sling, holding his injured arm to his side. “What are you doing out of bed?” I ask, confusion and panic setting in all at once.

“We’re going home.”

“But the doctor said you needed some time to recuperate,” I argue.

He reaches out with his good hand, and I take it without hesitation. He pulls me to him, holding me tight and

breathing in my scent. “I’m okay. I promise. I’ve t ken bullets before and spent less time than this in bed.”

I hate that he’s been hurt in the past, and I hate that he finds it necessary to always be so strong when he doesn’t need to be. Not with me.

“Let’s go home,” he tells me before kissing my crown.

Benito opens the basement door, and tells me as we walk through it, “Don’t worry. We have a nurse on staff at the estate. She’ll keep an eye on him.”

That makes me feel better, but only slightly. I don’t think I’ll be able to fully relax until Luca is one hundred percent recovered. And even then, I’ll still continue to worry about him. We live in a dangerous world, and Luca has many enemies. But at least one of them is dead now.