My eyes shot to his, and for the first time, I wondered if Ginevra would be better off without the three of us attached to her. If she hadn’t come home, hadn’t involved herself with us, she’d be safe and whole right now.
I followed them through the hospital until the staff asked me to wait outside while they worked. When they wheeled her out, she was unconscious. I walked with them to the recovery room, where I sat and held her hand until she woke up.
When Ginevra’s eyes blinked open, she looked around, her gaze foggy with confusion. “Where—?”
“You’re at the hospital, love. Do you remember how you got here?”
She shuddered and turned her face away. “Yeah, I remember.”
“You’re safe now, love.”
“Am I?” she asked, removing her hand from mine and breaking my heart.
I refusedto leave Ginevra’s side when the nursing techs wheeled her into her own room and transferred her to the bed there. Whatever pain meds they’d given her were effective, because she barely blinked at the movement.
“I want to sleep,” she whispered to me, her voice still weak and strained. God, what had they put her through? I stroked her forehead as she nodded off, then pulled out my phone.
Rian: She’s asleep, finally.
Cormac: How’s she doing?
I didn’t know how to answer his question. She was a fucking mess, and I couldn’t help but think we’d set all of this in motion when we’d demanded Sofia’s hand in marriage as part of the deal to save Antonio.
Rian: She’s tough.
Liam: She shouldn’t have to be.
He was fucking right.
Antonio explained our unusual situation to the nursing station, and after an hour of discussion and argument, they finally agreed to let Cormac, Liam, and me stay with her at the same time. She was in a room large enough for the three of us to drag in chairs. We sprawled around her bed, each of us resisting the need to curl up and wrap our arms around her, as if we could protect her from the rest of the world.
Selfishly, I refused to abandon my place at her side. I held her hand as she slept, my heart breaking each time she twitched and cried out in her sleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night, Ginevra screamed, her eyes wide, the whites showing around her irises, terrified as she stared into the darkness.
“Fuck,” she swore as she swam out of the nightmare and back to reality. Her eyes focused as they swept around the room, taking in the three of us, the stark white walls of the room, and the IV that pumped her full of pain medication and kept her hydrated.
She pressed her hands to her eyes, as if to hold back tears, then scrubbed her face.
Liam pulled a handgun out from the waistband of his tactical pants, where he’d tucked it under his T-shirt to sneak it into the hospital. He flipped it around and handed it to her, holding onto the barrel so she could wrap her hands around the grip. “Do you want me to slide it under your pillow, baby?”
She nodded, her face forlorn, as she struggled to prop herself up on her elbows. He slid a hand under her back and lifted her, careful not to disturb any of her injuries, then slipped the gun under the hospital issue pillow.
“I’ll take it back in the morning, okay?”
She dipped her head in acknowledgment before closing her eyes again, not hiding the tears streaming down her face as she tried to go back to sleep.
“I’m here, baby girl,” Liam whispered, one hand wrapped around hers, the other gently stroking her temple. “Go back to sleep, okay?”
Fuck, what had we done?
35
GINEVRA
“Ginevra!” Sofia rushed toward me.
Liam snapped an arm around her waist, halting her forward motion. “Easy there, Sofia.” The hospital insisted on limiting the number of people in my room, and Liam was on guard dog duty.