Page 75 of Crown Of Blood
"Bella," he breathes, his voice ragged, broken, dropping instantly to his knees beside me. His hands cup my face, shaking violently, his gaze frantic as he tries to assess the damage. "God, Bella, look at me. Talk to me."
I try. I want to tell him I'm fine, that I stopped Danny, that I love him. But the world keeps tilting. His face swims in and out of focus—I see the blood, the shadows of the room, and the overwhelming, beautiful depth of love and relief in his expression.
"Stay with me," he begs, voice raw, pulling me closer against his chest, heedless of the sharp plastic digging into my wrists. "Stay awake. You hear me?"
His thumb brushes the blood from my cheek, a dark smear against his own skin. He doesn't even notice.
I can hear Alessandro's voice somewhere behind him, sharp and professional, barking orders to the men storming the hallway, calling for a medic. The sound fades in and out like a broken radio, unimportant.
All I can see is Dante. The anchor. The safe place.
All I can feel is the warmth of his huge hands, the solid, unyielding strength of his body, the terrifying tremor in his voice.
I try to smile, but it's weak, a failure. "I knew you'd find me," I whisper, my voice barely a thread.
His eyes close, a deep, shuddering sound breaking out of him that's somewhere between a prayer and a curse. He presses his forehead against mine, his dark hair brushing my temple.
"Always," he says, voice cracking with a promise that obliterates the last two days of fear. "I'll always find you."
The world gives one last, slow tilt. The buzz of the broken light fixture, the ringing in my ears, the sound of Alessandro's orders—all of it fades to silence. The darkness is slow, thick, and surprisingly soft.
The last thing I feel is the absolute certainty of his hand still holding mine—refusing to let go.
Chapter 26
The house is silent again.
But this time, it isn't the terrifying, heavy silence of loss or the suffocating quiet of a siege.
It's the silence that comes after the storm—when everything's been leveled, but nothing will ever be the same. It's the sound of survival.
She's in my bed. My massive bed, which suddenly feels too large and too empty, even with her frail weight upon it. She is pale against the crisp, white sheets. One side of her face is a mottled landscape of blue and purple where Danny hit her, and a thin, sterile bandage trails neatly from her hairline to her cheekbone—the only sign of the concussion.
The doctor came and went hours ago, a precise, silent man I trust implicitly. But I didn't let him stay long. I stood sentinel over the examination, my gaze burning holes through his scrubs, andI wouldn't let anyone else touch her for more than a necessary moment. Not Rafe, not Nicole, not even Alessandro. The urge to shield her from the outside world, to hide her away where no one could ever breathe on her again, was overwhelming.
Now it's just us. The guards are outside the suite door, silent, immovable.
I sit on the edge of the mattress, the springs yielding softly beneath my weight. I dip a clean cloth into a bowl of warm water and wring it out until it's barely damp. My hands are steady for the first time in days, unnaturally calm, but inside, I'm utterly wrecked—a collapsed building of guilt and terror.
I bring the cloth to her face, performing the task with agonizing slowness. Every line of her body, every faint tremor of pain, is an accusation and a monument. I traced the edge of the dark, swollen skin near her jaw.My fault.
"Easy," I murmur, the word tasting like ash when she stirs. I wipe away the faint trace of dried blood that still clings stubbornly to her temple, near the edge of the bandage. "You're safe now. I have you."
Her lashes flutter, like a wounded butterfly. A faint, low hum escapes her throat. She stirs, her head turning slowly toward the warmth of my hand. For a heartbeat, she looks disoriented, lost in the drug-induced haze, then her gaze finds mine, and the world snaps back into focus.
"Hey," she whispers, her voice hoarse, scraped raw from the fear and the screaming.
I exhale a sound that's half relief, half prayer, a sound I didn't know I'd been holding for forty-eight hours. "Hey, Bella."
She tries to sit up, a flicker of that fierce, defiant energy returning, and I press a hand gently, carefully, to her shoulder, holding her down. "Don't move. You hit your head hard. Let the medicine work."
"You found me."
Her voice breaks on the last word, brittle with gratitude and exhausted fear. It undoes me all over again.
I nod, brushing my thumb along the curve of her jaw, feeling the slight puffiness of the bruise. "I told you I would. I swore it to Sofia."
Her eyes glisten with fresh tears. "Danny—"
