Page 139 of The Crowned Garza
Or maybe that’s my blood.
Tripp breaks the silence. “Do you care who he supposedly is?”
“Nope,” Trent answers.
“Me neither.”
Bone-shattering pain ricochets along my side.
And along with the pain, comeshervoice…
“You let me go because you don’t think you deserve pleasure, or happiness, or sweetness in your life. You just allow yourself to be this capable vessel that everyone uses for their own benefit. You punish yourself on purpose. Deny yourself on purpose. You’ve been constructing your own flaming purgatory.”
I’m sorry,piccola regina.
Mi dispiace.
~
DECORATIVE CEILING TILESare above me, streaked with sunlight.
There’s a comfortable mattress beneath me, pillows under my head, something beeping next to my right ear.
My arms are adorned with bruises, bandages, and IV drips. I try to reach up to rub my parched throat, but my arm just flops like a seal.
I’m inconveniently disoriented, like waking abruptly from a too-long nap in the middle of the day.
“You’re awake.” A brunette in scrubs appears in my line of sight. “Hi, I’m Ana, your personal nurse.” She sidles up to the bed, checking this and that. “How are you feeling?”
“Where—” I clear my throat. “Where am I?”
The answer comes from the right of me, from an all too familiar voice. “At my house. In my special guest suite.”
With effort, I turn my head in that direction to see Stefano Castello leaning casually against the wide doorframe.
“Why?” It hurts to speak. “Where are the Garzas?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“You mean aside from being beaten half to death?” I ask. “That’s it. That’s what I remember.”
“That was roughly a week ago.”
A week—what? “How long have I been here?”
“About five days.”
Fuck, shit. She’s going to think I’m ghosting her again.
I try to sit up, but my ribs aren’t having it. “I have to…” I rip the drip out of my arm. “I have to get out of here. I have to—”
“Mr. Luciani, you can’t—”
“Where are they?” I demand. “Did anything happen to them?”
Stefano sighs. “Detained. The O won’t release them until you’re awake and it is determined you are of sound mind.”
“I don’t understand. What happened?”
