Now I wasn’t even sure we could recover or if I would even see him alive again.
There was a knock on the door, and we all watched as the doctor walked in, followed by the nurse. “Ms. D’Agostino,” he said, giving me a small nod. “I’m Dr. Lopez. How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been hit by a truck then backed up over,” I admitted as he put his stethoscope in his ears, placing it on my chest.
“You sound good,” he stated, throwing the stethoscope around his neck and taking a glance at the monitor. “Vitals look good.”
“What happened to me?” I asked.
He crossed his arms. “You were in a serious car accident. A piece of metal gave you a nasty gash on your side, and you lost a good amount of blood. We replaced most of it, but as you can see, we are still on the last bag.”
I hadn’t realized that it was hanging over my bed, steadily dripping into the IV in my hand.
“I will give you some antibiotics through your IV to ward off infection,” he continued. “And you will need to rest here a day or two until we are sure you are okay.”
“All right,” Nico answered for me. “What else?”
“Everything else is superficial,” he answered, giving me a small smile. “You look like you won the round in the ring, Ms. D’Agostino, but you will be fine. I don’t anticipate any long-term effects from this.”
I let out a breath. “Thank you.” I was lucky then.
“I’ll come around tomorrow and check you out,” he stated as he walked to the door. “Oh, and the OB on call will be seeing you as soon as he can. He’s delivering twins today so he’s busy. I’m no expert, but everything looks okay right now. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. You and the baby are both okay.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, surprised. Baby? What the heck was he talking about?
The doctor halted at the door, surprise filtering into his expression. “You’re aware that you’re pregnant, right?”
“What?”
I felt the blood drain from my face while fuzzy warmth pooled in my stomach. A moment later, it was replaced by a cold slice of dread.
Pregnant?
I glanced at my brother, and he looked like he could spit nails. “Do not tell me it’s his,” he seethed, raking a hand through his hair.
“Calm down, Nico,” Rory stated firmly. “That’s none of your business.”
“The fuck it is,” Nico growled. “He knocked up my fucking sister!”
A bubble of laughter escaped me before the tears came in earnest, and I covered my face, sobbing into my hands.
I was pregnant with Lucas’s child—pregnant by a man who had tried to get rid of me.
Who might have died to defend me.
How could this get any worse?
Epilogue
Carmine
I pushed the woman off me, and she slumped to the bed. Post coital clarity settled on me like a cold splash of water. “Get out.”
She was no older than twenty but smart enough to know that I meant it, wasting no time grabbing her dress and hurrying out the door naked. I waited until the door was closed before I climbed out of bed myself, stopping a moment so that I wouldn’t get dizzy standing up so quickly.
Fucking old age. There was a time that I would have fucked her for hours on end, dozens of them to be exact, but ever since I had crossed into my sixties, my body had decided to go on the fritz. My personal physician had warned me to stay away from everything I fucking liked. He had told me that any stress might give me another stroke.
I had laughed in his face. If anyone was under stress, it was me.