Page 37 of Borrowed Bride

“He’s gone, sir. He’s been kidnapped from Mario’s where he was having dinner!”

15

GIANNA

Ihate hospitals.

The acidic, chemical smell burns the inside of my nose and clogs my throat, the air is cold and dry, and the machines around Tara’s unconscious body beep like a continuous threat.

She looks peaceful, almost. If I ignore the bandages around her arms and shoulder and the bruises and lacerations from the beating she sustained, then I can pretend she’s asleep. If I ignore the look on the doctor’s face when she told me Tara had been shot in the gut, and was clinging to life, then I can pretend she just has a cold and is getting some rest.

It’s a weak lie, one that doesn’t hold up against anything, but I try. I try as the hours tick by and nothing changes. My legs grow numb from the hard plastic chair, and I burn through two boxes of tissues sobbing, but still nothing changes. Marco is absent, out searching for whoever has kidnapped his father, and he’s left me here with Anton, Ben and a host of others to watch over Tara and wait for her to wake up.

I wait for her to tell me who did this to her, but I think I already know.

The weight of the guilt is crushing, suffocating me with each passing hour. This is my fault. The last time we spoke, I asked Tara to dig into Cherry and now, suddenly, she ends up like this. She’s paying the price for my curiosity and there is nothing I can do to help her.

She is my only friend, and I may have just gotten her killed.

A fresh wave of tears warm behind my raw eyes and I close them over, sniffling tiredly.

How do I fix this? Telling Marco the truth hardly made a difference because some fucker has snatched his father and that is an open declaration of war.

While Marco kissed me hard and promised to protect me, I knew he needed to do this. This left me to help Tara, and I have no idea how. I’m not a doctor. Not a surgeon.

I just have to watch her heartbeat dance sluggishly across the monitor, and watch the pump helping her breathe hiss up and down.

“Tara,” I weep softly. “I’m so sorry I got you into this. This was my fight and I never should have involved you. I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry.” Clutching at her motionless hand, my heart aches to feel a twitch of recognition from her but there’s nothing.

She took a beating that was surely meant for me.

“Fuck,” I whisper, using up the very last of my tissues. The thought of leaving the room to get more pains me. I don’t want to be away from Tara until I have to, so instead I locate Tara’s belongings and quickly rummage through her purse in the hopes of finding a hidden packet of tissues.

I do find them, but I also find the pregnancy test I asked her to buy for me. I’d forgotten all about it with everything else that was going on. Another thing Tara was selflessly doing for me.

Glancing around the dark room, Tara remains dead to the world and the door is firmly closed against the guards.

Do I take it?

I should. She risked a lot to get me this so I can’t let it go to waste. Leaning over Tara, I gently kiss her warm forehead and then slip into the attached toilet to do my business. In theory it’s simple, but it’s rather difficult to pee on a stick when you’ve been crying on a numbing hospital chair for two days straight. I get more on my hands than on the stick, but it glares up at me with a small countdown as I scrub my hands clean.

I don’t know what to hope for. Positive? Negative? Will either result magically fix all of my problems?

No.

Will either result bring a distraction? Or just disappointment.

I don’t have the answer. A baby was always in the back of my mind since the moment Marco and I met. He made the deal clear. But with Tara in hospital, Dante missing, Cherry in the wind, and Leonardo likely scheming his comeback, this is not a safe world for a baby.

The test beeps and a small animation of a baby appears on the screen.

Pregnant.

“Fuck,” I whisper into the eerie silence of the bathroom. “Hey Tara.” Moving slowly back into her room, I hold up the test. “I’m pregnant. And you’re the first person I’m telling, so you gotta wake up and tell me what the hell I’m going to do with a—ababy.”

In another time, another place, this might have been a moment of joy, but right now, all I feel is terror.

How can I bring a child into this? Into a life where bullets fly as easily as words, where the people I care about end up in hospital beds or worse? Where revenge and betrayal are the language of survival?

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