Chapter 36
Layla
The stench of surgical-strength antiseptic burned my nose. My lashes fluttered against fluorescent lights that turned the room around me to blinding white. I was at work; had I fallen asleep in my office with all the lights on?
Wouldn’t be the first time, I supposed.
I shifted to try and find a more comfortable position—and pain shot through my shoulder, hard enough I gasped out loud.
“What—”
My eyes snapped open to take in the room. Not my office. Not at all. It was a hospital room, and I was lying in the bed.
I was a patient at my own hospital.
It all came flooding back in a wave. Marco. The kidnapping. Aldo rushing in. The gunshot—Eli.
“Eli!” I tried to sit up, but a warm hand on my good shoulder held me down.
“Layla. Take it easy.” Aldo. I knew the voice before I turned my head to face him.
No, not Aldo. Vasco. The man seated beside my bed was so soft and human, worry etched into every one of the lines creasing his forehead and cheeks. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days; dark circles shadowed his eyes.
“Aldo,” I croaked, my throat dry. “Where is Eli …”
“He’s safe,” Aldo assured me quickly, giving me the barest hint of a smile. “He’s with your grandmother. He hasn’t stopped asking about you.”
I could barely hear his words past that smile. The way it softened his features, turned them from chiseled stone into radiant sunshine, I couldn’t process anything beyond the thought that my Vasco had returned to me.
Then, I moved my arm and pain shot through my shoulder.
And truth replaced illusion.
He was the reason I was here. Lying in this bed. Once again panicking about the safety of my son. I was too tired—and probably too drugged—for anger.
Faint annoyance might have been a better word for the emotion that struggled weakly to trickle through my veins. “This is all your fault.”
Aldo lifted a hand. “I know. I know it is. But right now, your only concern is resting. Healing. Let me deal with everything else—Eli, Marco, the families.”
There were so many things I wanted to ask, about all of the above. About Marco’s whereabouts, the truth of his involvement with the Moretti’s, what possible retribution Aldo and the Marcello’s had sought …
But the stern set of Aldo’s features told me I wouldn’t get more than he was willing to divulge. “You’re safe here. The Moretti’s have retreated for now. Just … rest. Let me take care of everything.”
Any protest I might have tried to prepare vanished as a sudden wave of exhaustion washed over me. Before I could open my mouth, a peaceful black oblivion stole my consciousness away.
When I opened my eyes again, it was to my favorite face in the entire world. “Mommy?”
“Eli!” I remembered this time not to move too much. Instead, I reached out to flutter my fingers through his hair, the soft blond strands convincing me of his realness.
He was here. He was safe.
“Mommy.” His blue eyes glinted in the bright overhead lighting, but he didn’t cry. No prior tears had left salty tracks down his cheeks. My boy was dry-eyed and serious.
Just, I couldn’t help but think, as his father had been.
I curled my hand around his. “How have you been? Has Nonna been taking care of you?”
He nodded, returned the squeeze of my fingers. “Yes. Nonna and Carlo.”
“Not Mr. Marcello?” That weakened annoyance-anger flitted through me again, still too far away to truly grasp. I let it go, this time. “Have you seen him?”
Eli hesitated before he answered.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“I haven’t seen Mr. Marcello.” Eli delivered the words without emotion. The next, however, softened to something that might have almost been a question. “Carlo says it’s because he’s always here with you.”
My stomach tightened to a cold, hard knot. My eyes slid past Eli, and for the first time, I noticed the vase of fresh flowers on the bedside table. A book lay beside it. Something that might have been … a DVD player?
Aldo certainly had been here, hadn’t he?
The third time I woke, it was to Aldo once again. Of course. He appeared in the doorway as my eyes fluttered open, a small bouquet of flowers clutched in his hand.
Daylilies.
Disgust uncurled in my stomach, but I watched silently as he set yet another vase on the windowsill. It was starting to look like a garden in here.
“Hi, Layla.” Aldo offered me a tight smile as he hovered by the window. “How are you feeling?”
I withheld the sigh that had built in my chest. “You don’t have to keep coming here.”
“But I want—”
“You feel guilty,” I corrected, my voice sharper than I’d intended. “But flowers and gifts won’t fix this.”
Aldo’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t look away. “I’m not trying to fix anything, Layla. I’m here because I care about you. About Eli.”
“Eli.” Wariness made the word come out almost as a question. “What does Eli have to do with anything?”
He looked away this time, and his silence said enough.
“What aren’t you telling me, Aldo?”
“Layla,” he began, his voice hoarse. He took a hesitant step towards the chair at my side. “I know the truth. About Eli. About that day.”
My heart stopped.
Right there in the cavern of my chest, my heart froze to solid ice. “What truth? What the hell are you talking about?”
Aldo’s eyes flicked sideways, and his tone turned apologetic. “I … Well, I needed to know what kind of care you needed … so, I looked into your medical history—”
“You had no right!” I spat, and the annoyance that had plagued me the past few days was gone. Finally, my wrath had returned. “That wasn’t your business—”
“I know he’s my son.” Aldo’s gaze never left mine, his words stopping mine dead in their tracks. “And I know … Layla, I’m so sorry.”
I closed my eyes against the sudden pressure pushing against them. Pulled them tight because there was no way I was going to let Aldo watch me relive the pain of that day.
I wouldn’t let him watch me cry.
“I hurt you,” he murmured, his voice a whisper behind the darkness of my lids. “I almost cost you everything. Because I was too blind to see what was right in front of me. And I can never take that back. I can never make it right.”
The sob built in my chest, but I choked it back down. I would not let him see me cry. “No, you can’t.”
“I’m so sorry, Layla—” He cut off suddenly, and I fluttered my eyes back open to watch him wrestle with his own emotions. His own sorrow and hurt. “I’m sorry for not being there when you needed me most. And I … I want to make it right. For you. For Eli.”
I turned away because if I watched Aldo fight back tears any longer, I might start to think of him as Vasco again. “It’s too late, Aldo. You can’t undo the past.”
“I know,” he said, his voice breaking. “But I can try to be there now. If you’ll let me.”
I refused to look at him. To answer that. To promise anything to the man who’d ruined my life—not once, but twice.
“There’s something else,” Aldo said, and he was Aldo this time. Calm and cool and calculated.
That’s how I knew it was something I wouldn't want to hear, something related to the godforsaken Mafia world I’d been so unceremoniously dumped into.
I stared him dead in the eye. “Tell me straight.”
“Marco escaped.” Aldo delivered the news from behind his emotionless mask. “And he told the Moretti family about Eli.”
My blood turned cold even as it buzzed hotly in my ears, drowning out the beeps and blurps of the machines around me. The world tunneled down to the man in front of me and the words he’d just spoken.
I didn’t need to ask what they meant, what they implied.
I knew.
The enemy knew Eli was Aldo’s son.
We’d never be safe. No matter how far we went, how far we ran. Where we hid or who we trusted—the Morettis would never stop hunting for Aldo’s heir.
We would never be free of this world.
I had no choice but to stay by Aldo’s side.
