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The next time I woke, it was to raised voices.
“No offense, Mrs. Passero, but I’m sitting beside my husband. Why don’t you go back to the hotel and rest?”
Mamma made a rude noise. “What, so you can finish the job? Kill him for his money? American women…. I’ve seen the late-night shows.”
A sigh reverberated around the room. “Mamma, please. There’s a difference between murder documentaries and real life. Come back to the hotel with me so we can rest.” Rafa sounded exhausted.
I blinked my eyes open to see Tally, her face battered and bruised, standing toe-to-toe with my mother. Actually, Mamma was a full four inches shorter than Tally, but she made up for it in… personality.
“Tally,” I mumbled, and every face in the room snapped toward me.
Tally dodged my mother and was at my bedside in an instant. “Rocco.” She leaned forward and kissed me softly. “I was so fucking worried,” she swore softly, probably so my mother couldn’t hear. “Your mom scares the shit out of me.”
I chuckled, because if I was honest, Mamma scared the shit out of me too. “You’re really okay? Hayes?”
She nodded, her eyes wet with tears. “We’re all fine.”
I tried to lift my hand to cup her cheek, but winced. That’s when I remembered how fucked I was. “But not perfect?”
This time, she did cry. She laid her head on my chest and just wept.
“Stellina, my love, don’t cry. It’ll be okay. I’ll heal.”
Rafa, who was a sucker for women’s tears too—maybe it was hereditary—rubbed her back while Mamma huffed. “He’ll be fine. We got the best surgeon in to repair his hands and wrist. His leg is pinned, and with a little rehab, it’ll be fine too.”
Well, that’s good to know. I breathed a sigh of relief that my career wasn’t over, though when I’d woken up and Tally hadn’t been in the room, my career had been the last thing on my mind.
She shook her head, not lifting her face from my chest. “You don’t understand. It’s my fault.”
I looked up at Rafa, who shrugged. “What do you mean, Tally?”
She met my gaze, guilt sitting in heavy, dark circles under her eyes. “The cops, they said that the truck had been stolen earlier in the day from around our area. That the truck followed down the motorway behind us. That it had rammed us onto the train tracks, in front of a train, on purpose.”
My mind whirled about what she was saying. Was it a deranged stalker? An angry fan? A jilted ex? Who would do such a thing?
And even as I thought it, as I took in Tally’s devastated face, I knew. “No. He wouldn’t.”
I didn’t know the man, not like Tally and Hayes did, but I knew his reputation. He was a shark, and he liked to color a little outside of the lines, but to resort to murder? Unlikely.
She was nodding, as she pulled back to stand up. “The detectives are fairly certain he did. The detective told me he believed Brick Willtot hired some kid, promised him a seat in NASCAR and more money than this kid had ever seen, and told him all he’d have to do was ram us into a wall, or off a bridge, or into traffic or something. An accident—that’s what he wanted. The kid ad-libbed a little when he saw the train, and panicked, rear-ending a car at the back, causing a chain reaction that led to us on the tracks.”
She swallowed hard. “That’s what the kid told the police after they picked him up. Brick is categorically denying ever meeting the guy, or knowing him at all.”
I shook my head, feeling like I’d woken up in the twilight zone. My brain was sluggish, and my heart was thundering so fast, it felt like it would fly right out of my chest. She was backing away now, back toward the door.
“Stellina, come back here,” I ordered, as my chest got tight. But she continued backwards.
She shook her head. “No. Until Brick is behind bars, I’m going to tell the world that we’re getting a divorce. He won’t have a reason to come after you then.” She licked her lips. “I’m going to take Bobbi-June away for a little while, until the cops figure everything out.”
“Tally, no.”
“Not forever, I promise. We aren’t really breaking up. I love you.” She choked out the words on a sob. “But you almost died, Rocco. You almost died because of me, Hayes almost died because of me, and this time, Brick would be right—it would be all my fault.” She let out a pained gasp. “As soon as the detectives tell me they have enough to arrest him, I’ll come back, I promise.”
She ducked out of the room, and I threw a helpless look at Rafa. “Go after her. Talk some sense into her or something!”
My brother gave me a curt nod and disappeared into the hallway behind my wife. She wouldn’t be my ex-wife ever.
“Maybe this is for the best, Tesoro Mio.”
