Page 20 of Revenge Vows

“Do we need to hold her down?” Bunny asks.

Donatello shakes his head. “I don’t think there will be any need for that,” he says.

He’s right. She is so lifeless-looking that she doesn’t look like she would resist even if a gun was placed against her head. Something in my heart twists at the sight of her in this state. I realize I feel a little sick.

The doctor fills up the syringe with the drug and walks up to her. He looks at her hands and then aims the needle at the vein above her elbow. I watch while holding my breath.

Just as the needle is about to break into her skin, her eyes roll back in her head, and she tips out of the chair to sprawl on the ground. The doctor raises the syringe to show that he hasn’t injected her yet.

I look down at her, feeling a whirl of emotions, the uppermost of which is the desire to protect her from harm.

Donatello sighs impatiently. “Can’t we just inject her with it anyway?” he asks.

I ignore him, and I place two fingers underneath her chin to check her pulse. It’s barely there. I slide my hand under her neck and the other hand under her knees, scooping her up from the floor.

“Where are you going?” Donatello asks me.

I ignore him and turn to the doctor. “Follow me. We have to try to revive her,” I say to the doctor. He follows behind me, forming a wall against the verbal protests from my brothers as I carry Alyssa to the opposite wing of the mansion and into my master suite.

Her skin is starting to feel cold under my hands, but I shake off my fear. She is a strong woman. She will be fine, I tell myself.

The doctor checks her pulse again as she lies on my bed, and he requests some supplies from the testing room in the basement. The maids hurry off to get the things that he asked for while Donatello and Bunny deafen me with their protests.

“Do we need to remind you that she is Giovanni’s spy?” Donatello asks.

“If you were going to get rid of her, you can just do it this way,” Bunny says.

They say a lot more, but none of that matters because she stirs suddenly. I look at her and then at the doctor.

He turns to me. “She’ll be all right. She’s just exhausted. She needs rest and fluids. Aside from that, she’s fine,” he says. He starts the work of hanging fluids and puncturing her skin with an IV. I look away from the sight of the needle slipping into her arm. It makes me feel dizzy thinking about what we almost did to her downstairs.

“Thank you, doctor,” I say when he’s done setting her up with fluids. “You may all go.”

“He can’t leave yet. We still haven’t tested the drugs,” Bunny says.

“We can do that another time,” I reply.

“We don’t have time, Antonio,” Donatello says.

I turn to them with a calm, but stern look. It’s a look that they both immediately understand. “You may all go. I won’t repeat myself,” I say.

“I can’t believe this,” Donatello scoffs before he walks out with Bunny following behind him.

The room empties out, and then it’s just Alyssa and I left in the space. I walk over to the bed and stroke her long hair tenderly. Her lips are chapped, and her face is deadly pale.

What am I doing? This woman is twisting me up inside. But then again, I always knew she would. I roll up my sleeves and dip a cloth into a bowl of water that the maids brought, pressing it down on her forehead gently.

My feelings for her are confusing and probably all wrong, but I’ll puzzle them out later. For now, she just has to open her eyes. It’s the only way that this painful lump in my throat will go away.

“C’mon, Alyssa,” I mutter. “Please be okay.”

Chapter Nine

Alyssa

I open my eyes, expecting to see the same deep darkness I have stared at for the past three days. Instead, I see a large figure hunched over me.

I want to move, but my legs feel like a dead weight attached to my body. When I can fully open my eyes, the rays of sunlight find their way into my pupils, and I shut my eyes at the stinging pain.

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