Page 87 of His Deadly Lies

“You can’t leave me. Do you understand?” I press my hand to his side. “You cannot fucking leave me here alone.” I don’t care who sees me clinging to him.

Ricardo is at my side a moment later. “Mia, get a hold of yourself,” he murmurs. “People are confused about why you care so much. You can let go of him now. Let go.”

I won’t stop pressing my hands to his side, Carter going in and out of consciousness. His fingers graze my chin a second later.

It’s okay.

He mouths the words, and my tears spring free. “Get the hell off of me,” I screech at Ricardo.

“Let me handle him. Okay? You’re not strong enough to lift him.”

Eventually, the cool resolve in Ricardo’s voice cuts through the panic.

“You’re going to be fine.” I have to say it out loud as if it will somehow make the statement real. “You’re going to be okay, Carter. You have to be fine.”

Ricardo kneels next to me and practically elbows me out of the way. “Mia, let me take him.”

“But I’m putting pressure on it,” I tell him unnecessarily.

He nods, and I realize then he’s got his cell pressed between his head and his shoulder. “Yeah,” he says into the phone. “This is the address.” He rattles it off before saying, “It’s Carter. Make sure there’s a private room available.”

“Is that the hospital? Who are you talking to?”

“On my authority. He’s not able to speak to himself. You know who I fucking am.” Ricardo scowls. “I’m his second. You’ll do as I goddamn say, or else you’ll face his wrath once he’s healed. Get here now.”

My lower lip trembles. What did he say? I blink away the tears. “What do you mean, second? Carter? What’s going on?” I stare between the two men; Carter finally passed out. My head is light and spiraling toward the ceiling with each passing beat of my heart. “I don’t understand.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Ricardo places his hands over mine to put pressure on the wound in my place. “Someone is coming to get him.”

“Mia? Sweetheart, come away from there. Come.” And there’s my father, dragging me away. “Are you hurt? Where is all this blood coming from?”

It’s too hard to pay attention to them. To struggle against the pull of my father and the crowd, people asking too many questions. The only thing I know is that I’m being taken away from him.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I insist. “No, I’m fine.”

I’ve lived this story before, struggling to get back to the man who means something special to me, the man bleeding out from a gunshot wound. The stress and trauma of watching the same thing happen to Rafel cascades over me and brings me right back to that night. Only compounded. A thousand times worse because this is Carter, and I’m too far away to see if he’s even still breathing. Or not.

It doesn’t matter that I’m fine. I’m being taken away against my will.

“What does he mean, second?” I say loudly. “Ricardo?”

But he’s refusing to look at me, and I’m tumbling his words together on repeat in my head. On my authority. I’m his second.

And that means…it means…

Carter is the Vittorio heir, not Ricardo.

Carter is my fiancé. And he always has been.

24

MIA

“Where the fuck is he?”

Somehow in the chaos, we make it to Lakeside though it feels like the rest of the world is going on without me. Like I’m somehow stuck in time and space while reality swims. Carter’s been taken into surgery, and that’s all I know. Sometime between them wheeling him away on a stretcher, ashen and still, and now, someone shoved a cup of coffee into my hands.

Carter is my fiancé.