Clenching her jaw, she fought back the cry that threatened to come out as she rolled onto her side, the needle in her arm pulling when she reached toward Carmine. She hesitated an inch from his face, not wanting to disturb him, before running her fingertips along the bridge of his nose. There was a small bump that hadn’t existed before, and she knew firsthand where something like that came from.
Carmine stirred, grumbling incoherently before his eyes drifted open. He jumped, nearly falling off the bed as she quickly pulled her hand away.
“Shit, you’re awake!” he said. A smile spread across her face at the sound of his voice. She fought back her emotion, but it was too much to handle. Tears flowed down her cheeks, and he wiped them away. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Wait, of course you’re hurt!”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” he said. “You’re hurt, tesoro. Do you know how much you scared me? I thought I was gonna lose you! When I woke up in that car and you were gone, I thought my life was over. But I swore I’d never give up, and I didn’t. I couldn’t think about going on if you were dead.”
“I’m not dead,” she said through her tears.
“Yes, but—”
“No buts,” she interrupted. “I thought I was going to lose you, too. I begged them to leave you alone in the car.”
“You begged them?”
“They were going to kill you.” Her voice cracked as the memory resurfaced. “I told them I’d go with them, that I wouldn’t fight as long as they let you live. I would’ve given up anything.”
“You would’ve sacrificed yourself for me?” he asked, his expression serious. “You’d throw your life away if it meant I’d keep mine?”
“Yes. Wouldn’t you do the same?”
“You know I would.”
He tried to pull her into a hug, but it wasn’t easy maneuvering around their injuries. They both groaned and cringed from pain, his bandaged arm making the embrace awkward. “Your arm,” she said, nuzzling into his chest.
“The bone fractured when I was shot, so they had to splint it.”
She tensed. “You were shot?”
“Yeah. It’s not that serious, though.”
“Not serious? Someone shot you!”
“Yeah, Nunzio did.”
She gasped. “Oh God, where is he?”
“He’s dead,” Carmine said. “Him and the rest of them.”
“They’re dead?” He nodded. “All of them?” Another nod. “And you aren’t?”
He cracked a smile at her question. “Last time I checked,” he said, reaching for her hand and pressing it against his chest, over his heart. “I think it’s still beating.”
“It is.” She stared into his eyes—eyes she worried she would never see again. “I missed you.”
“Mi sei mancata,” he said. “I’m glad you’re awake now.”
“Where were you earlier?”
He didn’t respond right away. “I had an appointment.”
“What kind of appointment?”
“That doesn’t matter right now.”
“That’s the same thing your father said.”
“Yeah, well, there you go. We should probably listen to him.”
“You’re a rebel,” she said. “Since when do you listen?”
“I never did before and look where that got us. I figure it’s time to start, since he seems to know what the hell he’s talking about.” He paused. “Sometimes, anyway. Other times I still think he’s full of shit.”
She laughed at his response. They both lay quietly, holding on to each other as she tried to clear the fog that settled in her brain. Her memory was sketchy, an odd tension mounting in the room as a result. “Is everything okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I was worried . . .”
“Well, stop worrying.” His voice was firm. “You need to focus on getting better.”
“You sound like your father again,” she said, his evasive answer doing nothing to calm her fears.
“Apparently I’m more like him than we thought.”
“You’re nothing like him,” she said. “You’ll never be like him.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
She wondered what he meant when there was a knock on the door. Dr. DeMarco walked in, and Carmine groaned at his father’s arrival. “We talked him up.”
Dr. DeMarco raised his eyebrows. “It’s not nice to talk about people.”
“It’s nothing I wouldn’t say to your face.”
“True, son. You’ve never been one to hold your tongue.”
“Isn’t that part of my charm?”
“I wouldn’t call it charm,” Dr. DeMarco said. “Your mouth gets you into trouble as often as it gets you out of it.”
“Haven’s never had any complaints about my mouth,” Carmine said playfully. She blushed and jabbed him in the ribs. Even though her touch was light, Carmine clenched his teeth to muffle a cry.
“He has a fractured rib,” Dr. DeMarco explained when she eyed Carmine peculiarly. “It would be fine by now if he’d learn to take it easy.”
She felt guilty for hurting him. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” Carmine turned his attention to his father. “Is there something you needed?”
“I got back from the hospital and wanted to check on her.” He grabbed Haven’s wrist to check her pulse before feeling her forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Still mixed up, but I feel better than I did.”
“You will be for a while as your body heals,” he said. “I want you to try to eat something. Carmine can bring you some chicken broth.”
“I can get my own,” Haven said.
“Nonsense, child. You’re far too weak for that right now,” he said, shaking his head. “Anyway, I’m sure the two of you have a lot to talk about, but get some rest today. Carmine can also get you something for the pain. I know he knows where the narcotics are, considering he’s been popping them like candy for weeks.”
Haven stared at the door when Dr. DeMarco left. “He seems strange.”
“I’ve noticed,” Carmine muttered. “He’s resolved, like he has some grand plan to save us all.”
“Do we need to be saved?”
“Don’t we always?”
Rhetorical question. Of course they did. “Is he working at the hospital here now?”
“No, he was just seeing about something.”
“What?”
He sighed. “Christ, you’re full of questions. It’s not something you need to worry about.”
“But I can’t lie around, wondering what happened. I’ll worry myself sick and never get better.”
“Fine,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to tell you yet, but I’m not gonna fight about it.”
She listened as Carmine recounted waking up in the car. He explained what had happened in Durante, tears flowing from her eyes when he broke the news that Nicholas hadn’t survived. Her mind drifted through scenarios, and she got lost in her thoughts, Carmine’s words drifting into the background until he said something that caught her off guard. “Arrested?”
He sighed and stood, running his left hand awkwardly through his uncombed hair. It obviously hadn’t been cut in more than a month, strands covering his neck and spilling over his forehead. There was a slight curl to it at that long length. “Yes, and for bullshit reasons. The feds raided with warrants for my father and Corrado, and some egotistical agent named Cerone threw me in jail along with them.”
“I can’t believe you went to jail,” she said. “How did you find me? My chip?”
“I wish,” he said. “It wouldn’t work, and they were in jail, tesoro. I knew it would be at least another week until they got out, and I didn’t know if you had that long. I had to do something.”
“What did you do?” she asked, suspicious of his cryptic words. “Whatever it is, I’ll understand.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Why do you keep saying things don’t matter?”
“Because there are some things you shouldn’t know right now.”
“You can’t mean that,” she said. “You said we’d tell each other everything.”
“I know, but things change. There are some things I can’t tell you . . . some things I won’t be able to tell you. It’s shit you won’t wanna know anyway, Haven.”
“What do you think you can’t tell me?”
He started to respond, but the ringing of his phone silenced him. Groaning, he pulled it from his pocket and shot her a nervous look as he answered. “Yes, sir?” His tone was even, his demeanor instantly shifting. “But I don’t . . . Yes, fine. I get it. I’ll be there.”
He sighed as he hung up and sat beside her. He took her hand, lightly placing a kiss on the back of it. “Nothing’s more important to me than you, tesoro. I’d give my life for you.”
“You’re scaring me, Carmine.”
“Don’t be scared,” he said. “I was desperate, baby. I needed to know you were alive, and now that you’re safe, I can’t regret it.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said, letting go of her hand. “I have to go.”
“Go?”
“Yeah, but I shouldn’t be long. We’ll talk when I get back, but I can’t be late.”
“You can’t be late for what? Tell me what you did, Carmine!”
“I went to Sal, okay? Is that what you fucking wanna know? I asked him to help me, so now I owe him in return.”
She stared at him, fighting back her panic. “Owe him what?”
“My loyalty.”
She sat up, grimacing from her sudden movement. “Take it back!”
“I can’t,” he said. “It’s too late.”
“But you can’t do that! You can’t be like them! You can’t do those things they do. We talked about this before!”
“Do you think I wanna be that person? That I wanna do those things? Of course I don’t!”
“Then why’d you do it? How could you agree to that?”
“I didn’t have a choice. I get it if you’re upset, but it’s done.”
He stared at her imploringly, begging her to understand, but she couldn’t in the moment. She averted her gaze when he reached over to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “We always have a choice.”
His touch was gentle and should have been comforting, but it wasn’t enough to extinguish her fears.
“Look, it’s gonna be okay,” he said. “Nothing’s changed.”
Her heart ached to believe his words, but she wasn’t naïve. Not anymore. It was a life of crime, a world of violence where danger constantly forced its way in. It was a world that turned men cold and cynical as they did unspeakable things she couldn’t fathom. It was a world that had taken both of their mamas and had nearly killed them, too. It was a world they had tried to escape, but one that sucked them in, anyway.
