Page 117 of Charity's Redemption

“I’ve been in plenty of fights to last a lifetime and teach me a thing or two, Charity. How can you forget who raised me?”

I hung my head and placed my hand on his. “Maybe I want to protect you from having to experience what you’ve worked so hard not to.”

“I don’t need you to do that, Charity, but I appreciate you wanting to protect my sensitivities.” He smiled, then tapped my leg. “The doc is waiting. We better get you all patched up.”

I rolled my eyes and exhaled through my nose, then exited the vehicle. Tearing off my wig, I walked inside with the netting still wrapped around my head.

Luca and Max stood beside the doctor with their matching expression of uneasiness.

“Doctor Dan,” I announced with too much enthusiasm. My voice bounced off the walls, down the halls. “Miss me already?”

“You just can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can you?”

“Trouble is my last name…”

“Middle name,amore.”

I winked at Luca as he corrected me. “I’m ready for sleep. So if you could stitch me on up, I’d like to pass out right about now.” I peeled off Nico’s jacket and winced. The silky material inside stuck to the drying blood that seeped out from beneath the towel, tugging on my pained flesh.

“This is going to be fun,” I said, glancing at the tape. “What was I thinking?”

Handing Nico his jacket, I followed everyone into the living room while peeling the tape off as fast as I could, hissing in the process. Doc had his tools set up in sterilized packages resting on top of the coffee table, ready for me.

“Lay face down.”

Doc covered the couch in something resembling puppy pads with a blue bottom and a cotton top, so I didn’t bleed all over Luca’s sofa. The plastic crinkled under my weight as followed his direction, keeping my face away from him.

I could handle gun wounds, knife wounds, and torture, but don’t show me a needling penetrating my skin.

“What happened this time?”

“An angry woman didn’t take too kindly to me being with her boyfriend. So she stabbed me.”

“Being with?”

“The less you know about this one, the better,” Nico said.

“Got it.”

“Do you know what she stabbed you with?”

“A butcher knife. She went all Ghost Face on me.”

He chuckled as he poured a warm liquid over my arm, soothing the pain, then patting it dry. “Well, the good news is, it doesn’t look deep. The bad news is, this is going to sting a bit.”

A burst of sharp pain struck the center of my wound, causing me to bury my face in the couch cushion and grab hold of the fabric while trying to hold still at the same time. The sharp stick turned into a burning sensation as he injected some sort of solution.

“Almost done. Try to hold still.”

A warm hand gripped my clenched fist and caressed my knuckles in an attempt to soothe me as the next stick stabbed the other side of the wound, bringing about its scorching fire along with it.

This time I cried out as he pushed the needle in further, my adrenaline ramping back up, causing my legs to shake. The needle hurt worse than the knife wound that I barely felt thanks to pumping endorphins blocking my pain receptors.

As time increased from that cluster fuck I called a success, the more the pain increased, and the more I wanted to drink to excess and knock myself out.

“There. Now we’ll just wait a moment for that to numb you up, and then we’ll stitch you up and you’ll be good as new.”

I sniffed as I wiped my tears on the couch cushion while turning my head to the side. Luca stood over me from behind the couch, his hand clutching mine.

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