CHAPTERONE
Muffler
My entire body is numb.
The only thing that I have to remind me what we’re all going through right now isn’t a dream is the fact my nostrils burn every time I have to inhale that antiseptic cleaner the custodians use to clean the hallway.
How fucking clean can a hospital be?
Beretta has been out of it for weeks now, and just when we thought shit was getting better, we’re hit with another blow. They just started to wake her up from her coma, but things still aren’t right with her.
Hoodrat is beating himself up because he’s the one that told her to go in. I already told him to cut that shit out since everyone already knows that Beretta can’t be forced to do anything she doesn’t want to do. She went into Luigi’s townhouse, knowing full well what she was getting herself into.
She’d do anything for her brother, including putting herself at risk.
I’d spoken to her about this shit before, but it doesn’t look like it did her any good. The woman is still as hardheaded as hell.
A ghost of a smirk crosses my lips until the absolute agony settles in. Agony because I know Beretta’s still laid up in the hospital bed trying to fight her way back to us crashes down on me.
I can’t fucking lose her like this.
The doctor told us her prognosis was good, but he came to get Hoodrat a few minutes ago, and there were no damn smiles on his face. If my brother comes back here and tells me Berretta’s dead, I’m going to lose it.
I inhale again and force the harsh chemical smell up my nose.
“It’s going to be all right, Muffler. The doctor says so,” Giada says, but I can barely look at her. I’m tired of everyone telling me it’s going to be all good. Shit isn’t going to be all good until Beretta’s up and moving around.
The squeak of the doctor’s shoes alerts me to the fact he and Hoodrat are on their way back to the waiting room. When Hoodrat turns the corner, the expression on his face confuses me. He’s not crying, so I’m going with she’s not dead, but he’s not smiling either. The man looks fucking homicidal.
“Muffler, let me holla at you for a minute.”
My eyes open wide, and I turn to Giada, who looks exactly like I do.
“Me? Cool. What’s up?” As I make my way to him, I watch his face, trying to gauge what the actual problem is.
“The doctor needs to speak with you about Beretta,” Hoodrat informs me as I stop in front of the two of them.
“Why me?” I didn’t understand what I could possibly be needed for. I’m not real family. That’s only Hoodrat.
“Well, it turns out that Beretta is indeed coming in and out of her medically induced coma. She’s still a bit groggy, but one thing we’ve figured out so far is she’s suffering from what we would call an acute case of retrograde amnesia.”
Like a blow to the gut, all the air rushes out of my body. “Amnesia? Like she’s forgotten everyone?”
“Not precisely. She actually does remember everyone, but she believes she’s still in her twenties. She’s lost about eleven or twelve years, it seems. When she was lucid enough to answer our questions, all she knows is she hit her head, but she was asking for you. She believes the two of you are still in a relationship.” The doctor finishes, and I close my eyes because I don’t dare to look at Hoodrat right now.
Shit.
Now I know why he looks like he’s about to murder someone. It’s me. He’s going to fucking kill me.
Beretta and I never told him we were in a relationship. We ended things without anyone being the wiser. We always knew that Hoodrat was going to have some sort of problem with it. I would’ve told him if I needed to, but we never got that far.
Just as our relationship began to get deeper, the club needed me to handle an enemy of ours.
Light work, or at least that’s what I thought until they retaliated and beat Beretta to within an inch of her life. She had been pregnant at the time with our little girl, and the beating caused her to have a miscarriage. That trauma just wasn’t something I could ever get over, and I was sure she felt the same way. Instead of trying to help each other through it, we both decided that it was for the best that we just walked away from each other and put this entire mess behind us.
It was supposed to stay that way, but I wasn’t expecting this shit to happen to her.
When I open my eyes again, both the doctor and Hoodrat are glaring at me, both of them for different reasons.