He nods.
“Bones?” I hear Haven call out, but I ignore her. She’s not going to change my mind.
“Now.” She can’t be here. What if Mr. Bianchi arrives? Her life is in danger, and I made a promise to my best friend, who may lose his life. I’m going to fucking keep it. “I want her on the jet and ready to go in an hour.” I’ll send her to Alaska even if I have to buy property there to keep her.
“Bones?” Haven orders.
“What?” I snap, turning to face her.
“Something’s wrong,” Haven cries while holding Mia.
My eyes go to her, and she’s breathing heavily, her hand pressed into her side. “Mia?” I step up to her, and she looks up at me. Her pretty eyes meet mine before they roll into the back of her head, and her knees start to buckle. My arms go out, catching her before she can hit the floor.
CHAPTER NINE
MIA
I OPEN MY heavy eyes, my vision a little blurry. Reaching up, I rub my eyes and open them again. This time, I see I’m no longer in the waiting room but lying in a hospital bed. I sit up, and the room spins. “What?” My hand goes to my pounding head. “What happened?” I ask myself.
“You passed out,” a voice announces from my right.
Looking over, I see the back of Bones standing at the window that I hadn’t noticed. Lying back into the bed, I sigh, running a hand through my hair. “Why am I in a bed? Dear Lord, did they admit me?” Please, no. I need to be with Luca. Not here in a bed of my own.
He slowly turns to face me, hands in the front pockets of his jeans. His eyes drill into mine as if I did something wrong. He knows. “Not yet.” He finally speaks, breaking the tense silence.
“Yet?” I shriek. “I can’t—”
“They wanted to run some tests first,” he adds, leaning back casually against the windowsill and crossing one ankle over the other.
I look up at the ceiling, unable to meet his intimidating stare right now. Once again, I’m vulnerable. I don’t have time for this, and neither does Luca. I knew going three days and nights without sleep would catch up with me. “Luca?” I manage to get out even though my chest tightens. I’ve done this. Haven will never forgive me. I’ll never forgive myself. I should have run the moment he left me in California. But I have nothing to my name. Not my real name. Dillan tried to give me everything that I needed, but I’ve never been fully on my own. I wasn’t sure what to do or where to go. No job experience. No life skills that any adult would need to survive. I was raised to depend on someone else for survival.
“Still in surgery,” he answers.
“How long has it been?” I swallow the knot in my throat.
“Almost six hours.”
I bury my face in my hands, trying to calm my racing heart. Six hours? I know nothing about surgeries, but that seems like a long time. “This is all my fault.”
“Why are you here, Mia?”
I open my eyes to see he has moved to stand at the foot of my bed. His dark blue eyes glare at me.
“I … Luca—” My heart pounds in my chest at my betrayal. At what I’ve done. I can never take it back. I should have taken my brother’s promise as what it was—a threat. I just never thought they’d go after Luca. But now it makes sense. He’s been the one on my side. Why not take out my only ally?
He crosses his tatted arms over his chest at my lingering silence. “I’m going to ask you one more time. Why are you here?”
I fist my hands. “I told you. My brother was shot.”
He tilts his head to the side. “Let’s try this again. You show up with bruises in multiple places, a busted lip, and a concussion, and you expect me to believe you came back for Luca?” Shaking his head, he adds, “For the last time—why are you here?”
“What?” I breathe. I press my hand to my sore side and close my eyes. Run tests. They know. I hadn’t thought about what I looked like when I ran to Las Vegas to be with my brother and sister-in-law. I haven’t looked at myself in days, knowing it isn’t a pretty sight.
“Mia.” He snaps my name at my silence.
I bow my head and whisper, “I didn’t tell them anything.” He has to know I was never going to do it. That’s why Luca is in surgery in the first place.
“Who?” he demands.
I want to laugh that he hasn’t put it together yet, but why would he? He doesn’t know my father’s plan for me. For him. He’s just as in the dark as Luca was.