And more than anything, I needed Molly to wake up.
34
Molly
Fire. I was on fire. Or it felt like that anyway. My shoulder, stomach, and thigh. All on fire. For that first moment, the pain of that fire was the only thing I was aware of. All I could concentrate on. But then I opened my eyes and found an angel next to me.
My dark angel.
Luca had settled his head next to my hip, his hand resting loosely in mine. His eyes were shut, and he looked utterly exhausted. Under those closed eyelids of his deep half circles shadowed his eyes, making him look thinner than usual. Almost gaunt. His scruff, usually kept trimmed and short, had thickened into a full beard now, and his curly hair appeared tousled as if he’d been shoving his hands through it.
God, even when totally worn out, he was beautiful.
I tightened my grip on his hand, so glad he was here, so glad for his touch. And then wonder of wonders, he opened those gorgeous eyes. He blinked as if not fully conscious, then bolted upward into a seated position.
“Molly? Are you really awake?” he asked me, doubt and hope mingling on his face.
“Yes,” I said, trying to sit up a little and having to repress a hiss of pain.
“No, don’t move,” he said, reaching for something just out of sight. I couldn’t see him anymore, and though it shouldn’t have, it scared me. I didn’t want him to leave. Not even for a second.
“Stay here,” I said, my breath catching. “Stay with me.”
“I’m not leaving, don’t worry. I may never leave your side again.” He said with a smile, coming back and cupping my cheek. I did the same to him, running my thumb under his eyes. They looked almost bruised. I don’t know why but something about the contact made his expression crumple. A single tear leaked from his eye to fall on my thumb. “I’m so sorry, Molly.”
But I didn’t want him to apologize. I didn’t even know why he thought he should.
“I lied to you, and now I regret it. I regret it so much.”
He’d lied to me? I stared at him, at the stark anguish on his face, and had a hard time digesting it. I couldn’t seem to concentrate on things or force them to make logical sense. And I was still on fire. What the hell was wrong with me?
“You told me you loved me, and I lied. I told you I didn’t feel the same. But I do. I did long before then.”
My vision went blurry with tears. “You love me?”
He nodded, his gaze intent. “Yes, I love you, Molly Greene. So much it hurts.” Speaking of hurt, the three points of fire on my body flared higher than ever. I watched as Luca pressed a button on a remote at the side of the bed. My hospital bed. Realizations fell into place like dominos. The nurse, I realized. He was calling for the nurse.
And I was in the hospital and in pain because I’d been shot. And oh, God.
I put a hand on my stomach. “The baby?”
“They aren’t sure about the baby yet.”
Feeling more and more coherent now, I remembered more. I’d gotten shot at a café, the restaurant where I’d been eating with…
“Tara?”
I could clearly read the answer on Luca’s features. “I’m sorry, Molly,” he whispered again.
I burst into sobs, everything coming back to me now. The shattering glass. The points of heat entering my body like molten icepicks. The blood. Tara’s sightless eyes staring at nothing beside me. It jostled my injuries to cry like this, but I couldn’t help it. The grief landed on me all at once, taking whatever it demanded. I had no control over it.
Luca held me to him, and I gripped on to him as tightly as I could, needing something to cling to.
The nurse arrived, but I continued to weep all over Luca, without regard for her. She adjusted a few settings on the monitors, checked my temperature, blood pressure, and so forth.
Then, she retrieved a syringe and plugged it into my IV. Whatever it was cut my pain significantly, my physical pain anyway. After the nurse had been gone for quite a while, my tears eventually slowed and came to an end.
“She was only twenty,” I told him, needing to talk about my sister, to keep her alive in whi