Page 66 of Luck of the Draw

He slapped his palm on Brennan’s cheek again. “I’m a generous man. I’m an understanding man. So I’m gonna let you go ahead and leave without incident, and I’m gonna give you that extension. I got some business to attend to in New York, and I’ll be there until shortly after Easter. That gives you more than two months to sort this out and get me my money. Like I said, I can see you’re upset. And you owe me a lot of money, which I need more than I want your head on a platter, so we’re gonna let bygones be bygones so you can focus on the bottom line. And you’re gonna settle that bottom line when I get back. If you don’t, there’s gonna be hell to pay, not only for making me wait, but also for this shit you just pulled. You hear me, sonny?”

Brennan pushed away from the table and stood, towering his full six-foot-two stature over Angelo as he trained his gaze on Angelo’s face. “If I find out you went behind his back and did this to her, you’ll be deader than Frank almost was.”

Angelo laughed in his face. “Riley, nobody gives a shit about that girl. Not even you. None of us would waste our energy on her. But it was fun getting a rise outta you like this.”

Brennan clenched and released his jaw. Fuck both of these assholes because they wereassholes. He wasn’t stupid. As much as he hated to admit his assumption and instinct had been wrong, he knew the assholes were telling the truth.

“Get me that money, Brennan.” Vito slid his shades back on. “Or I’m gonna hit you where it hurts.”

Brennan lifted his palms dismissively. “Fortunately for me, Mr. Moreci, there’s not a single damn pain point in my life.”

“You say that now that you’ve still got two working legs and a mouthful of teeth,” Vito mumbled through cheeks full of ziti. He swallowed and waved his hand. “We’ll be in touch.”

Brennan turned to leave.

In the privacy of his car, Brennan punched the steering wheel and then clutched the sides of his head as he racked his brain. There was no feasible way in the world to pay Vito without tapping into the family money. And if Brennan didn’t pay up, Vito was going to put him in the hospital just like Skye was now. And if Brennan was laid up in the hospital like that, there would be nobody to look after her.

There was no getting out of this without the family money. That meant getting on his dad’s good side somehow.

Fat fucking chance.

The time on the dash read eight p.m., and it was Saturday, and Brennan was all tied up with nothing to do but drown in his thoughts.

Shifting the car into drive, he tore out of the parking lot. Thirty minutes later, he quietly crept through the green hall of the trauma unit, offering a wave to the nurses he’d become familiar with during the time he’d spent visiting.

He paused before entering the room as hope and expectation filled his chest like it did every time he arrived.

Would she be awake now?

Would this be the moment when he could finally apologize and see with his own two eyes that she was going to be okay?

He always hoped that same feeble hope that he’d find her awake and okay. Entering the room, it was clear that hope was as futile as the hope that somehow his money problem would just disappear.

Skye was still quiet and motionless like she always was. Two days of lying in the bed hooked up to all manner of tubes seemed to have done little for her, but she was slowly looking better as her superficial injuries continued to heal. The swelling in her face was going down, and the cuts and scrapes were reduced to scabs and fading bruises. She still wore a neck brace, still had a splinted arm and leg, but now the ventilator had been replaced by a thin tube that stretched across her face, connecting at her nose.

She looked a little thinner than when he first met her, a little smaller, and he wondered if that was simply a result of being reduced to such a state. Strip away all pretense and costumed external appearance and behavior, and you were left with just the physical form of a person in their most vulnerable state. And Skye’s was slight, petite, small, and helpless.

He pulled the chair back next to the bed and placed his hand on her upper thigh to give it a gentle rub as he sat. “Hey, Skye.”

And of course, there wasn’t a response.

He inhaled and exhaled a deep, long sigh. “Baby, I am up shit creek right now. And I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”

He paused, rubbing his mouth, then rested his chin in his palm as he stroked her fingers absently. “I went to go see these guys tonight. I was sure they were responsible for doing this to you, but I was wrong. I was already in trouble with them, and now I really don’t know what to do.”

He glanced at the door and then back at her face as he lowered his voice. “I owe them a lot of money. For stupid reasons. And those reasons were nowhere near worth what I got out of getting involved with them. And all of this is making me question what the hell I’m doing with my life.”

Brennan shifted the chair closer to her. “And I’d never admit this, but I think my dad was right. We shouldn’t have been out there at that hour. I shouldn’t have been doing a lot of the stuff I’ve been doing for years because all of it has landed me in this pile of shit. And the fact that he’s right and I’m wrong is almost as bad as being in the hole with these assholes. Sometimes I really do wonder if I’m just fucking stupid, Skye.”

He rubbed his forehead and gave a self-deprecating laugh, as if they were shooting the breeze over coffee. As if they were casually conversing over brunch like they did that week, or at the casino when they were having a grand old time, or the night he met her in the bar, or that first night after making love and before she slipped into a deep sleep.

A deep sleep that had looked a lot like this one, but wasnothinglike this one because nobody knew if she’d ever wake up.

Something inside him began to hurt. It seemed, despite falling in love twice and being permanently injured from it, Brennan still wasn’t impervious to emotional attachment. These undeniable feelings proved it.

The sad irony of his life was thatof courseit had happened with Skye.Of coursehe’d developed feelings for someone who was running from a bad situation and was now on the brink ofdeath. Of course.

Crippling despair the likes of which he’d never felt infused his veins and weighed down his shoulders.

---