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He presses another kiss to my hair. “I’m sorry, Tesoro.”
“She was so scared. She kept crying,” I whisper. “After they captured me again, we were given drugs. I had this crazy high where I saw Mandy, my mother, lying in front of me. We were face-to-face. When she started choking, it looked like the bubbles were floating.”
My throat strains as all the harrowing shit I was subjected to overwhelms me. Letting out a sob, my voice is strained as I admit, “I did nothing while Milania died right in front of me because I thought she was Mandy.”
“Shhh, Tesoro,” he murmurs as he tightens his arms around me. “You were drugged. There was nothing you could do.”
As my tears start to flow, there’s no stopping them. Needing the release after the insane two days I’ve just been through, I cry my heart out against Dario’s neck.
After a while, my emotions settle enough for me to stop crying, and feeling exhausted, I just lie still in his arms, hoping I’ll fall asleep soon.
A nurse comes in to check on me, and when she asks how I’m feeling, I mutter, “Tired.”
“Do you have a headache?”
“It’s not as bad,” I answer honestly.
She takes my vitals, then says, “Try to get some sleep.”
I plan on doing just that.
Not wanting to think about everything that’s happened, I focus on how good Dario smells and how amazing it feels to be in his arms.
This feeling is something I’ll never take for granted.
I shift my head, resting my cheek on his chest again, and my eyes fall on the two guns.
Only then do I think to ask, “What kind of hospital is this that the nurse didn’t say anything about the guns?”
“It’s a clinic that belongs to the Cosa Nostra,” he informs me.
“Oh.” Remembering something, I ask, “Is everyone I met at the show in the mafia?”
“Yes.” He starts to trail his fingers up and down my arm that’s wrapped around his waist. “Renzo, Franco, Angelo, and Damiano are the other four heads of the Cosa Nostra.”
“And the women?”
“No, they’re not involved in the organization.”
When he brushes over the needle marks, my eyes latch onto them. The sight is disturbing, and it has me tensing.
Dario immediately notices and asks, “What’s wrong?”
“I hate drugs.” I swallow hard on the destructive feelings. “My mother is a drug addict, and I’ve seen what it’s done to her. I’ve lived with it every day.”
Shaking my head, I try to breathe through the tears that are threatening to fall.
My voice is strained as I whisper, “Now I have the same marks on my arm.”
Dario’s fingers wrap around the faded abrasions left by the cable ties on my wrist, and lifting my arm, he presses a kiss to each of the needle marks.
“They’ll fade, Tesoro,” he assures me.
“Yeah.”
Silence falls between us, and I try not to think about the shit I’ve been through. I’ll deal with everything tomorrow, but right now, I just want to sleep.
I move my head a little until I’m able to hear the steady beat of Dario’s heart, and closing my eyes, I focus on the sound until I manage to drift off.
