Page 92 of His Deadly Lies

It’s important for me to be able to explain myself, and the sooner I get a handle on it, the better it will be for us. For me. Of all the relationships I’ve had in my life—not that this even counts as a relationship in the traditional sense—this is the most serious I’ve ever felt about a woman.

I tap out a stronger beat with my fingers until Ricardo gets back with a nurse, clucking her tongue at me, and my drugs.

And Mia is so much younger than me. How will we even find things to talk about? How are we on the same page?

Our styles of communication have got to be similar based on this lifestyle. She understands me.

The feeling is mutual.

I stretch to set my feet down solidly on the floor, muscles stiff and protesting, and fumble around on the side table. Enough waiting. Time for me to make the first move. Finally, I grab hold of my phone and call her.

There’s no answer.

Worry skitters along my spine with spidery fingers. It’s driving me fucking crazy not knowing where she is. “How long ago did she go out for some air?” I question.

Ricardo shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s not like I have a timer set. She needed space.”

“You let her go alone?”

The weight presses down on me further. Ricardo sees it and disappears, only to return half a heartbeat later with the sister in tow.

Isabella.

“Since you can’t get up yet,” he says in lieu of explanation. “Thought it might be better to get our information straight from the horse’s mouth.

“She probably ran home to make herself pretty for your grand reunion,” Isabella says, scowling sideways at Ricardo for the horse comment. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it.” She turns to me, and I have the gut feeling that this child—even though she’s only a few years younger than Mia—sees everything. Every piece of me flayed open and on display for her.

Fuck. I have to get a grip. I’m losing it.

“Have you heard from her at all?” I press.

“I have so many questions for you two,” Isabella continues. “Too many questions that demand answers. You’ve been cagey from the start, and now you’ve lost the plot entirely. Haven’t you?”

“Probably not the time to go there. Yeah?” Ricardo scolds her, and Isabella shoots a fiery grimace at him.

It seems all the Balestra girls have perfected the same expression, designed to cut a man down at the knees.

It might amuse me if this one has information about Mia, but it seems to me that Isabella is more concerned with Ricardo than with her sister. I cut my gaze away from her and force my legs to straighten. Pain shoots through me, and I drop back, shoving all of it to the side until it dulls at the periphery of my attention.

“Where are you going? You shouldn’t be moving yet.” Ricardo lurches forward to physically stop me.

“Let him go. You’re clearly not going to stop him,” Isabella says with a laugh before her phone rings. “Shit, let me…hold on…”

I’m only paying her the smallest bit of attention as she answers the call.

But I still and zero in when she gasps, when I turn around to look at her, and her eyes are round.

“So, Mia isn’t home. Her driver is still in the hospital parking lot.” Her voice is small. “She never left.”

“She was just going out for air. She should still be here,” Ricardo replies as if it will somehow make the statement true.

I struggle to stand to my full height, my head swimmy with the pain and the wound throbbing with each movement. “I’m going to look for her. Fuck this.”

Ricardo reaches out, his hand gently pressing to my chest. “Are you crazy? No way.”

“Get out of my goddamn way. I’m leaving this hospital right now and getting my fiancee back.” It’s a sick inner sense and nothing I’d be able to explain logically. But the attack on her when I first snuck into this hospital, the way someone slipped a drug into her drink…

What if someone made their move while she was vulnerable? I’m willing to bet my life that she’s not on hospital grounds anymore. I struggle with my clothes, the open back of the hospital gown letting in way too much air for my liking. When it becomes abundantly clear to my nephew that I’m not stopping, he ushers an increasingly panicky Isabella out of the room and helps me with my shirt.

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