Amara felt her face flush as the doctor smiled. “It should be okay. Just be careful not to put any pressure on her stomach or be too wild.”
Dante stood up, still shirtless but completely clean, a bandage on his side, wearing scrub pants he’d taken from a male nurse. He’d drawn a line at donning a gown and the female nurse hadn’t minded too much, not with the way her eyes had been drinking in his torso. It had made Amara both laugh and sympathize with the woman. She knew how it felt.
“Oh my god, are you okay?!”
The feminine voice from the door had Amara turning to see Morana standing there, her hair in a loopy bun, wearing black leggings and a yellow billowy top, her rectangular glasses on her nose, her hazel eyes wide with concern, and a very rigid Tristan looming behind her.
Lips turning up in a smile at seeing two of her favorite people, she waved them in as the doctor left.
Morana rushed to perch herself on the space by her bed, her eyes going to Dante’s shirtless chest that he deliberately flexed because he knew it would rile Tristan up.
On cue, Tristan glared at him. “Don’t you have a shirt?”
Dante grinned. “Actually, no, I don’t Tristan.”
Tristan sighed, and Amara chuckled as Morana leaned forward to hug her.
“I’m here for anything you need, okay?” she whispered in Amara’s ear.
Amara squeezed her back, her heart full, glad every single day that she’d trusted this girl, both for her sake and Tristan’s.
Tristan leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek, something he had never done before, and focused his blue eyes on her. “Don’t disappear again like that.”
Those five words were enough to let her know that he’d been worried. Over the years, while he had never spoken much to her, he had been there for her time and time again, keeping that promise he’d made to her in the garage. Amara blinked back her tears, nodding.
“Did you find anything?” Dante’s voice broke their moment, his demeanor grave.
Morana pushed up her glasses and exchanged a look with Tristan.
“We did,” she answered. “I flagged two calls right after you left for Los Fortis. One was made by Vin, and one by Nerea.”
Dante tightened his fingers around Amara’s. “Did Vin check out?”
Morana hesitated. “I think so. I mean he was in Shadow Port at the time so I kept an eye on him. He didn’t do anything except make a call, but he’s been cagey. I don’t know.”
Amara felt her head begin to shake before Morana had stopped speaking. “I don’t care how cagey he’s being, Vinnie would never, and I mean never, do anything like that.”
“He was there, Amara,” Tristan spoke quietly from the side. “When you were taken, he was there.”
“And you didn’t see him fight to save me,” Amara countered, her voice straining. “It’s not him. He might be shady with other people but he would never, ever hurt me.”
“I believe that,” Dante supported her claim. “I’ve known him for a long time, especially with Amara. He would lay his life for her.”
Morana nodded. “I trust your judgments on this. And anyways, Nerea was being cagier than Vin.”
Amara felt her heart drop. While she wasn’t particularly close to Nerea, she was still her half-sister. Amara had come to care for the woman.
“What did she do?” Dante asked.
“What didn’t she do?” Morana scoffed, leaning back against Tristan’s thighs, and started counting off her fingers. “She made a shady call to an unknown number that I tried to track but it kept bouncing. Then, she left the compound and bought herself a ticket to Los Fortis, and had a meeting with a one-eyed man whom I had a hard time identifying because the missing eye, you know, but he’s-”
“Alpha,” Amara spoke, surprised.
“-Alessandro Villanova, also known as Alpha.”
Dante and Tristan exchanged a hard look at the name.
Dante focused his dark gaze on her, the heaviness in them not of her lover’s but the leader of the Outfit. “How do you know him?”