Page 6 of Till Death Do Us Part

Felice

Iwas getting impatient. It’d been two weeks, and she was still in a hospital bed, letting fucking machines act as her lungs. Her face was unrecognizable. She was patched up like a rag doll that had been torn to shreds by a feral animal.

It took five or so minutes to take perfection and come close to killing it.

Killing her.

With every beep of the machines she was attached to, reality slammed me in the face. She was hanging on by a thin thread of life. The thought of never looking into her eyes, so she could make the connection, made my chest feel hollow.

I took a deep breath and sat in the chair next to the bed. Her hands sat there, one on top of the other, over her chest. My hand reached out and took hers. It was soft but cold.

The door started to open, and I took my hand from hers before whoever it was entered. I didn’t bother standing or looking, not until a throat cleared. It was two of Roma’s sisters, Isabella (the oldest) and Lolita. Isabella pushed Lolita in a wheelchair.

“What are you doing in my sister’s room?” Isabella stepped in front of Lolita, about to charge me, but Lolita took Isabella’s hips in her hands and peered around her.

“It’s okay, Isa. He’s a friend of Tommaso’s.”

We hadn’t had much time to talk, Lolita and me. Not after I headed a massive manhunt for her. She was found at an ex-boyfriend’s place. He’d arranged the entire attack. He was pissed that Lolita had broken up with him for the man Emanuele had chosen for her to marry.

The ex’s original plan had been to save her from a fate neither wanted, but he’d been waiting outside the diner, and he wasn’t happy when his friend called him and told him Lo’s plan. He’d lost his mind when he thought she’d wanted his friend, and the plan turned violent. The ex was out to punish her for playing him, and his friends were all for it.

Lolita had paid with the loss of sight in one of her eyes and the fading bruises she wore around her throat. He was in the middle of strangling her when I’d walked in. If we would have been a minute later, she’d be six feet under and not breathing.

Isabella’s eyes narrowed. “Friend or not, what are you doing in my sister’s room?”

“Isa,” Lolita said, her voice firmer. “He’s the one who...” She refused to say more.

It took Isabella a second, but the pieces must have clicked. “You saved Lo?”

I offered her my hand. “John Maggio.”

She took it and squeezed. “Thank you. We really appreciate it, but it still doesn’t explain why you’re in my sister’s room.This—”she nodded toward Roma “—sister’s room.”

“Checking on her progress,” I said.

“She’s getting better.” Isabella sighed, looking at Roma with an almost maternal concern and warmth. “But not fast enough.”

“Isa, give me a minute,” Lolita said. “John will bring me back to my room in a few.”

Isabella looked between us and then left, but with hesitance.

“My sister…Isa…she’s the oldest. After our mom died, she claimed that role. She feels like she has to manage our lives. She has two kids of her own, and she can’t tell the difference between them and us.”

“Isabella doesn’t know me, and after what happened…” I shrugged. “Can’t blame her.”

“I don’t. Not about this.” Her eyes moved away from mine and locked on her sister’s form in the bed. Tears ran down her cheeks. “I just wanted to have some fun, you know? I’m sure it’s public knowledge the Corvo sisters have arranged marriages. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I never thought—” She stopped abruptly and took a second to compose herself. “I never thought he could hurt me like he did. He seemed totally harmless.”

“People can be deceiving,” I said, realizing how gullible she seemed.

Emanuele arranged their marriages, their futures, but I knew he didn’t totally shelter them from the world. Or they wouldn’t have been at Jupiter, the nightclub, the night Ben decided to take fate in his own hands and play Russian roulette with it.

Her head turned, and she met my eyes straight on. “Are you deceiving, John Maggio?”

“You tell me,” I said.

“You look dangerous, like you could unplug my sister and not even lose sleep over it.”

“I’d lose sleep over it,” I said.

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