Page 3 of Bound to the Mafia King

I blinked my eyes open, but I quickly shut them closed again when the harsh lights that hung from above hit them. I groaned from the intensity and shifted my body slightly, only to be met with a searing pain in my abdomen. I groaned again, but this time another voice filled the room I was in.

“Rio? Are you awake?”Andres? What the hell was he doing here?

Then I paused.Wait, whereishere?

I peeled my eyes open slowly, giving myself some time to adjust to the lights that hung above me. The fluorescent beams kissed the contours of my skin, and I turned to the side to find my brother standing at my side. Dark circles littered his under-eyes, and he looked like he had aged at least five years since I had seen him last.

“You look like shit.” My voice came out much rougher than I was used to. I tried to clear my throat, but it was too dry. “Water.”

Andres blinked and reached for a jug of water at my bedside, then poured it into a glass. When I tried to lift my arm up to take the glass from him, I failed. It was then that I looked down and saw that my arm was taped up into a cast.

I tried to ask Andres what the hell had happened, but a spar pain pierced my skull. I groaned in agony, trying to find my equilibrium.

Andres pressed the rim of the glass to my lips and helped me drink. I gulped the cold liquid, downing it within seconds. He filled another glass, and I downed that one as well. When I was done, the headache seemed to have subsided, and I eased my back into the pillow.

For the first time since I had opened my eyes, I looked around the room. I was in a hospital, and I was sure of that. It was what you would expect any hospital room to be. Cold, sterile, and generic. To the side, there were machines which were lined up by the bed. The heart monitor beeped steadily as my chest rose and fell gently. There were several other machines that I had no idea what they were, but if I had to take a guess, they were keeping me alive.

I turned my head to the side to look at my brother. His eyes moved up and down the length of my body as if trying to see if I had any injuries. When he was satisfied, he lifted his gaze and looked into my eyes with a mixture of relief and anger.

“Are you okay?”

“What happened?”

His eyebrows pulled together. “Don’t you remember? Do you know where you are?”

I tried to rack my brain, and that’s when it all came back in little flashes that banged against my skull. The more I thought back to the accident, the more pain my head had to endure. I squeezed my eyes shut and then forced the memories back, trying to relieve the pain. But as the pain passed through my mind, that's when she came.

I caught the short glimpses of her. Her eyes. Her necklace. The strands of wet hair clung to her skin. I couldn’t get a clear picture of who she was. But I knew that she was the woman who had saved me.

For that moment, that short split-second glimpse of her, I felt more at peace than I ever had in my entire life. It was like basking in the sunshine on a warm day. I couldn’t put the exact feeling into words, but she felt like peace—like light.

When I opened my eyes again, my brother was looking at me concerned.

“I was in an accident,” I started. “A woman pulled me out of the rubble. Where is she?”

“Who?”

“The woman, the one who pulled me out of the rubble and saved my life. Where is she? She couldn’t have gotten far, I'm sure we can find her.” I tried to sit up, but my brother pushed me back down. “I need to find her, is she in the reception area? Did she leave?”

I hoped that she didn’t. I needed to thank her. I needed to know her name. But in truth, I wanted to be in her presence again. I had never felt so at ease like that before. I wanted to feel it again, it was…addictive, just like drugs.

“There is no woman, Valerio.”

“No, thereisa woman. I saw her, she saved me. Look, she wears this heart-shaped necklace. She had dark brown hair and she—ah!” A sharp shooting pain radiated from my abdomen. Itspread all the way up my side, until it settled in the center of my chest.

“Shit,” I hissed.

Andres pressed a small button that was by my bedside. After a few seconds, I felt some of the pain die down. I looked at him confused.

“Morphine,” he said simply. “You need to go easy on yourself. You had surgery two weeks ago, and your stitches are still fresh.”

“I will be—wait, what?” Had I heard him correctly? “Did you just say I was in surgery two weeks ago? How long was I out for?”

“You’ve been unconscious for sixteen days, brother,” he said solemnly. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

My head spun. I could not believe this. For sixteen days I had been out cold and bordering between the land of the living and the dead.

“And the girl?”

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