Page 113 of His Kidnapped Queen
“I’m not doing it for you,” he warns, and my eyes snap to his. “I’m doing it for Rosa. She doesn’t need to read her parents’ love story in some dossier.”
I smile despite myself. “You think it’s a love story?”
“A really fucked up, toxic one, but yeah.” He smiles back.
I throw my arms around him.
“I’m glad you’re here, Scott.”
“I’ll do anything I can to help you and Rosa,” he says firmly, and I know what that means.
Scott has my back. He always has.
32
LUCA
I blink and suddenly I’m somewhere else, in the back of an ambulance, sirens blaring, and my chest hurts like a motherfucker. I open my mouth to speak but all that comes out is a hoarse whisper.
“Sophia?”
“Don’t try to talk,” a female EMT says to me, putting an oxygen mask on me. “We’re on the way to the hospital.”
I open my mouth to protest, to tell her I don’t need the hospital, that all I need is Sophia but then I’m out again and when I come to there’s someone yelling in my face.
“Mr. Rossi, is it? We need you to stay awake, now, okay, open your eyes!”
Should be easy enough, but it feels like my eyelids have bricks on them. The next time I open my eyes I’m in a bright room, light beating down on me.
I squint against it, trying to sit up and a whole chorus of “Nos!” descend upon me.
“You’re about to have open-heart surgery, Mr. Rossi,” one of the nurses says quietly, and I fight harder, trying to get up, willing myself to move.
But my limbs barely wiggle. I’m weak and clearly injured and I don’t know which way is up.
“You’re just going to take a little nap,” the nurse chirps, but there’s too many doctors in the room and they’re all talking in lowered voices.
It’s bad. Open heart surgery? I need to get to Sophia. What did she say to me? Something she needed to tell me?
A daughter.
“We have a daughter, Luca.”
I’m remembering it wrong. I have to be. I’d have known if she had a kid, would have found it…but how? I didn’t even know her last name until she told me.
I fight to stay awake, but whatever they put in my IV puts me out and when I peel open my eyes it feels like there’s an elephant on my chest.
I can barely breathe, but a voice starts to come into focus.
“Push the button in your hand. It’ll help.”
I feel around for said button, find it, and press it, and warmth floods through my IV, taking the pain and pressure away. Or at least allowing me to care about it less.
“Is it you?” I ask, cracking one eye open, and sure enough, Sophia, her face tear-streaked, sits by my bed in a chair, her small hand in mine.
“It’s me. Fuck, Luca, I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” I ask, a little out of it as I try to focus on her face. Her features swim but then finally come into focus.
