Page 92 of Heir of Darkness

“Why?” Blair asked, her eyes wide in worry.

“Because we’re going to take down Cesare Vitali and Reece Kingsley.”

THIRTY-FIVE

VALERIO

Valerio groaned.His entire body ached, and the slightest bit of movement sent a stab of pain throughout his body from his back. The lights were dimmed, and the constant beeping from the different machines was beginning to annoy him.

He was in the hospital. And he wasn’t dead.

There were voices coming from outside the room—a mix of feminine and masculine. Valerio tried to listen in, but the voices were far too muffled. He attempted to sit up, but the pain was unbearable once again. He found the IV connected to his arm, tracing his fingers up to find it was connected to an IV bag with morphine mixed inside of it. He turned the clamp, increasing the flow of the fluid to medicate him quicker.

The door opened, letting in only a sliver of the bright white hospital light before it was closed quickly once again. Valerio’s eyes snapped up, connecting with a familiar pair of green eyes he had come to fall in love with.

Her eyes widened and she stood in shock.

“Hi baby,” he said, his voice hardly more than a whisper. His heart swelled with happiness at the prospect of being reunited with her once again.

Luna walked closer to him, as if she was unsure if it was real or not. “You’re awake?” she asked. Her hand hovered over his arm, scared to touch him. Valerio reached for it, feeling the same sparks when his hand touched hers.

“I’m awake,” he said.

The sob that escaped her was unexpected. Luna grabbed his face, feeling the warmth of his skin under cold hands. She pressed messy kisses around his face.

“I thought I lost you,” she whispered, leaning her forehead against his.

“You will never lose me,” he promised her.

Maybe that was the only promise Luna needed to hear at the moment because she wasted no time in pressing their lips together.

He wiped the tears from under her eyes before pulling her onto the bed beside him. She refused, trying to get back up. “You’re hurt,” she told him. “I don’t want to make it worse.”

“Hush,” he muttered, making space for her to lay down. He held back the groan of pain that threatened to escape. “I need this and so do you.”

That seemed to muffle any of the fight from her as she finally settled in beside him. She brushed a piece of his wavy hair away, running her other hand against the stubble that had begun growing on his face.

“You don’t know how happy I feel right now,” she told him. “There was a time when I thought I wouldn’t have this moment.”

“Don’t say that. I told you I was strong, remember?” he asked, trying to lighten the mood.

She nodded with a small smile. “I do remember.”

He grabbed her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it. “How long was I out for?”

“Six days. They operated on you for almost nineteen hours. They assumed the comatose state was because of the traumayour body had gone through, but they weren’t sure when you’d wake up.” She sniffled, squeezing his hand. “But you did wake up.”

He tried to move his head for a kiss but wasn’t able to without his back killing him. “Give me a kiss,” Valerio said. “I need to show you that I’m never leaving you.”

She shook her head with a small laugh but still kissed him. “You have a lot of kisses to make up for, but I’ll excuse it for now.”

“I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for it,” he said. “What happened with everything? What’s been going on?”

Someone had tried to kill her, and kill him. As much as he wanted to lay in bed to recover, he couldn’t. There were lives that needed to be taken care of and he needed to get on it. The sooner he could find out he missed and begin working on everything, the sooner he could fucking annihilate everyone involved.

“Don’t think about any of that for now,” Luna told him. “Your body needs rest. And besides, I’ve been taking care of everything.”

His brows shot up his forehead. “What does that mean?”

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