Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
AURORA
I t took us too fucking long to get across town, and now Sinclair is driving us through the warehouse district in a grid pattern. It feels like it’s been hours when a glance at my watch confirms it’s only been an hour since we left the house. But that may be an hour Enzo doesn’t have.
My pulse is racing and I can’t stop my knee from bouncing while I tap my heel against the floor in the footwell. I can’t fucking believe it . He’s alive… he’s been alive this whole time. Alone in that hellhole.
If I lose him again, I’ll never forgive myself.
After Sinclair told us that Stefano had divided the capos across the city and deployed them to Enzo’s possible locations we all went quiet. There was nothing left to say. We knew what we needed to do, and we knew the consequences if we failed.
We can’t fail.
Stefano is coordinating the capos’ updates and sending text alerts at five-minute intervals .
As the minutes tick by, my thoughts grow darker and less hopeful. There’s no guarantee Max didn’t pick Enzo up the minute he stopped filming and this is just a wild fucking goose chase to keep the bulk of my manpower occupied. However, I know Max. He wants me to suffer. And finding Enzo dead would satisfy his need to inflict the most amount of pain on me.
Please, please, let us find him… alive.
My eyes dart around the derelict landscape, scanning each side road as they flick past the passenger window. My heart is pounding so loudly that I almost miss Benny calling out.
“Sinclair, I said stop. Back up,” comes a desperate plea from the back of the SUV. “Turn down the alley on the left.”
Sinclair slams on the brakes and is backing up before I can get a visual on whatever Benedict has spotted. I’m craning my neck to glimpse over Sinclair’s massive frame, but I can’t see a thing.
“What do you see? Where?” I shout, turning back to Benny. The strain in my voice is as clear as the pain in his eyes.
“The end of the road. I swear I saw something on the ground.” He’s almost frantic, pressing his hands to the window and squinting to get a closer look.
Sinclair has turned and is gunning it towards the next intersection. I’m staring to try and find what Benedict saw.
And then I see him and my world tips on its axis. “Enzo.” His name escapes me with a choked cry that rakes along my throat.
He’s sprawled on his front, one arm awkwardly crushed beneath him, surrounded by a pool of dark crimson. My heart stops for a moment, skipping a beat, like it's threatening to follow him if he dares leave me again.
The tyres of the car screech offensively loudly as Sin brakes and swerves to avoid the lifeless body of the man I love. I’m out of the car and running at full pelt to get to him, falling to the ground beside him, his blood soaking into the knees of my jeans.
“Please don’t be dead,” I whisper, reaching out to find a pulse in his neck. My heart beats so rapidly it echoes in my fingertips, making it harder to find his. I fumble, desperate for the tiny beat in response to the pressure I’m applying.
“Don’t move him yet,” Sinclair snaps, his deep voice pitching too high, laced with worry. “This is too much for Doc Em. Nico. Call an ambulance now!”
“He’s got a pulse,” I force out on ragged breaths, practically choking on my own words. Relief courses through my veins, but it’s at complete odds with the terror that still grips my chest. I lean down to listen for more signs of life. “I can’t hear him breathing, Sin.”
I’m dragged away from Enzo, and lash out, blinded by rage.
“No, let me go. I need to help him. Get your fucking hands off me,” I scream as I flail. Benny’s hands grip my shoulders tightly, not letting me go to Enzo. Not letting me touch him. No matter how hard I struggle, he holds strong.
Sinclair rolls Enzo onto his back. I can’t control the sobs that wrack my body when I see the extent of his injuries.
His exposed torso is a mass of welts and burns, interspersed with cuts and ragged lacerations. Ones that match every scar I have. His left shoulder is unnaturally shaped, either dislocated or broken, while his arm is obviously fractured in multiple places, bones piercing the skin. I’m guessing that what we are seeing is superficial, and I’m terrified there are worse injuries internally.
Sinclair hunches over him, his face a mask of grim determination, and a whimper escapes my lips as he begins CPR. Enzo’s chest jolts with every brutal compression. Sinclair stops abruptly to blow two breaths into his lungs before resuming his relentless compressions.
Every passing second is another moment where I plead to any god who will listen to make him breathe for himself. My eyes are fixed on Enzo’s chest, scared to look away for fear that one missed compression will be what steals him from me. From us.
Sinclair doesn’t falter in his efforts, only pausing to check Enzo’s pulse. For a fraction of a second, the fear in his eyes falters and is replaced by a moment of relief when he finds it.
Nico is bellowing into his phone somewhere in the background at who I assume is the emergency dispatch operator, demanding to know how long the ambulance will be.
Benedict’s breath dusts my ear and his words float over me. “We’ve got him, Aurora. He’s safe now. There’s no way he’d ever leave us willingly. Breathe. You just have to be his little warrior a while longer. Till he wakes up and sees your face. Just breathe, mia reginetta .” His words ground me and wrap me in a blanket of solace.
A strangled wheeze punctuates the haze that’s threatening to engulf me, and it’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard. Enzo’s chest begins to rise and fall on its own. It’s like a part of me I thought I’d lost returns to my body. I match my breathing to his. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Forcing myself to quell the torrent of emotions that threaten to drown me.
Distant wails of sirens sing out in the silence of the space causing a weight to lift, not from my shoulders, but from my soul.
Nico runs to the end of the alley and waves frantically to make sure the ambulance doesn’t drive by us. The sirens blare, echoing off the buildings that dwarf us on either side before they’re cut short when the rig jerks to a stop. Two paramedics jump out of the cab and rush towards Enzo .
“Sir, give us some room to work,” one says to Sinclair. Only he won’t move. “You’ve got to let us help him, sir. Back up.”
I look across at Nico and nod. He knows what I’m asking. Approaching Sin carefully, Nico leans down and grips him by the shoulders, pulling him out of the way. Sinclair rails against him, refusing to leave his place at Enzo’s side, but he loses against Nico’s brute strength. Suddenly he’s turning on Nico, hand on his throat, marching him back to the wall.
I make a move to rush to them both, but Benedict holds me tight. “No. Let Nico handle it. Sinclair was bound to break eventually, and Nico can handle himself,” he says with an air of calm that surprises me given the situation.
Sinclair’s fingers flex as his grip tightens on Nico’s throat, whose chest strains with every ragged breath he heaves in. Nico digs his fingers into Sin’s forearm, and instead of using the leverage to push him away, he pulls Sinclair into a bear hug he can’t escape.
A heart-wrenching howl erupts from Sinclair, muffled by Nico’s embrace.
“You did good, man. Let them take over,” Nico whispers, just loud enough for me to catch.
The paramedics get to work, and before I can track which one is doing what, there’s an oxygen mask over Enzo’s battered face, a collar around his neck, lines going into the back of his hands, and a portable monitor connected to his chest. We are redundant and I’ve never felt so helpless, watching as they do everything they can to help the man who sacrificed everything for me. He didn’t just risk his life, he gave up his family to make sure I never had to be subjected to Max’s torment again.
My traitorous tear ducts betray me yet again, blurring my vision as fat tears cascade over my lashes.
One of the paramedics looks up at me. “Ma’am, he’s as stable as we can get him in the field. We need to get him to the hospital, but we can only take one of you,” he says while his partner is scrambling to the back of the rig, hauling a gurney and backboard out.
“I’m coming with you,” I reply, turning to three men who are already getting ready to protest. “I’m not fucking leaving him. Benny, follow us in the car. Nico, call Stefano and get him to meet us at the hospital with Doc Em.”
When I mention Doc Em, the other paramedic flinches before he glances up at me with a look of recognition before casting his eyes down. He clearly knows who we are.
I pull Benny with me as I approach my near-broken men. They engulf me in an embrace that feels like we’re pouring every ounce of emotion we have into each other. Their warmth cloaks me. A hand cups my cheek before hooking a finger under my chin, and the words I’ve been holding back can’t be denied any longer.
“I love you,” I declare to them all.
“We love you so much, phoenix,” Nico says, in a rich resonant tone that feels like it’s warming me from the inside out.
Those words have been begging to be confessed for so long, but it never felt right without Enzo, and I hope there’s some part of him that can hear us. That knows that we love him too. They bow their heads, touching their foreheads to mine.
“Go, colibrì ,” Sinclair says, his voice gravelly with emotion. “We’ll be right behind you.”
“Go, mia regina. ” I squeeze Benny’s hand before letting go and turning to run back to the ambulance.
Climbing in, I take my seat, perched across from Enzo. I gaze down at Zo’s face, trying to ignore the hurried motions of the paramedic furiously working to keep him alive long enough to get him to hospital. This random man is responsible for keeping a man I love alive, and I’m unreasonably angry at him for not being able to wave a magic wand and bring him back to me right fucking now.
The badge on his uniform declares his name to be Paul Scanlon.
Paul has become the most influential person in my entire world and every time he steals a glance at me his expression becomes wary. I want to grab him by the throat and tell him to school his fucking features better because he should be more worried about Enzo than me.
To avoid me throttling him while I jam the nearest needle into his neck, I decide to call him on his shit.
“Worry about the man in front of you rather than who the fuck you think I might be,” I rasp between clenched teeth, making no effort to hide my resentment of his unprofessional behaviour.
He squeaks in surprise, like some kind of yappy little dog. I lean forward and make sure I have his full attention before continuing, “I don’t give a shit about you. I only care that you keep him alive.” He doesn’t look at me again. Not even when we pull up outside the hospital minutes later.
When the doors open I’m met by a sea of medical people in various coloured scrubs, but I recognise one immediately. I stand back as the paramedics pull the gurney out of the ambulance and watch as the throng of people converge around Enzo, all directed by a woman I owe my life to. Doc Em.
“Take him straight through. I want imaging and full panels, stat,” barks Dr Katerina Mancini, taking charge of the situation before running back to me and hugging me tight. “You can’t come in with him,” she whispers, and before I can protest, she’s waving to someone who walks up behind me and guides me inside as Doc Em runs in after the gurney.
Standing alone in the ambulance bay, I don’t have to look up to recognise Stefano’s silhouette in my peripheral vision when he walks up to stand at my side. I’m lost in my thoughts, or it could be my own personal hell. Hard to tell right now.
This morning Enzo was dead. I should be happy he’s alive, but the overwhelming feeling that coils in my stomach is that of sheer dread. I don’t think I can survive losing him again. I feel like I’m slipping back into the darkest place in my mind. Ready to hide away like before, so I can protect myself from the greatest form of torture Max has ever subjected me to.
Stefano flanks me and I bolster my resolve as we head into the hospital. The reception staff direct us to a family room to wait, and not long after, Sinclair, Nico, and Benny crash through the doors. Sinclair lifts me into his arms and sits on the woefully uncomfortable plastic chair, settling me in his lap while Nico and Benny sit on either side of me, all connected in the way we console each other.
We sit in silence. We wait. We breathe.
In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.