Chapter Twenty-Two

The letter opener glints in the stark light flooding in from above.

The room around us is starkly white, sterile and featureless. Kate looks like she's floating through space while walking on the ground at the same time.

I hear shouting and I think in a vague way that I will kill the Baldini brothers, but not now, later.

"I'm more useful to you dead, Elio," she says, smiling softly as blood runs down her slim neck. "It's better to let me go."

I want to say something to her, want to touch her, but I feel frozen. I lunge forward, reaching for the knife she has pressed to her throat. I don't want her to do anything rash.

I want to tell her that I can handle this situation if she just trusts me for the first time in her life. I haven't earned that trust, but I need her to do so in spite of that.

"Tsk," she clucks, dancing away from me nimbly.

Her hair is a cloud floating around her shoulders and her beautiful golden eyes shine from her pretty face. "You can't stop it now. I've already set my plan in motion. I'm sorry that it had to come to this, but maybe it was always meant to be this way."

"Kate," I manage to say hoarsely, reaching for her again. I think I am going to grab her shoulder, but then my fingers slide past her. How is she so fast? Why is she so determined to die in order to save me?

"You never told me that you loved me." she says then, her lush mouth turned down in a frown. "I always wanted to know that you did. I thought you might, but you never say the words. You barely even compliment me."

My mind fills with all the things that I want to say to her, all the compliments and the praise that she should hear about.

I want to tell her that I fell in love with her the moment I saw her the summer I was sixteen. I want to explain to her that I tried to forget her. I tried to drown the memory of her with tequila and other women, but it never worked.

I want to tell her, I swear on my mother's grave, that I was never able to sleep with another woman after I lost her because no woman could compare to her.

I want to scream that I still love her, that I want to raise our son together.

I want to offer her the shattered pieces of my heart so that she can start the process of sewing them back together again, even if I think that healing my psyche is an impossible feat.

But my lips won't form the words, my throat feels clogged with terror and tears and I remain silent. She looks at me so sadly and backs a few more steps away from me, lifting her elbow in preparation to do the unthinkable.

"Maybe we were always star-crossed lovers," she says in that dreamy, sing-song voice. "If so, I'll see you on the other side, Elio."

She tightens her grip on the knife and slits her own throat, her caramel-brown eyes widening for just a moment, before she crumples to the floor like a marionette.

"No!" I scream, racing to hold her hands, to lift her into my lap. "No," I sob out, pulling the silky hair away from her face. I lift my hand and see that it's sticky and red, coated in her blood. "I love you," I manage to say. "I love you, Kate."

I wake with a start, feeling like I've been running for hours.

My hair is matted to my brow with sweat, and the sheets are sticky around me. I stare around, wild-eyed, for a moment before I realize that I'm safe, and that I'm in my bed at my house.

"Jesus Christ," I mutter to myself, dipping my head down into my hands. "Fucking hell," I mutter, shaking my head slowly as I grip my temples.

What the actual fuck was all of that about?

If I was a superstitious man, I would think that someone had cast a curse on me.

I had never had such a vivid dream ever before in my life. I look at my shaking hands, just to reassure myself that they aren't covered in her blood, that it was just a dream.

My phone starts ringing and I feel like I jump a foot in the air at the sudden noise. "You're unraveling at the seams, you bastard," I say to myself with irritation, but is it any surprise?

I've experienced more violence, done more terrible things than almost anyone else on earth, but none of those experiences holds a candle to the emotional trauma caused by seeing Kate holding a knife to her throat or hearing her tumble down the stairs.

I died a thousand times watching her take control of that sham of a meeting by threatening to do herself harm. I am a changed man, even if it's likely too late.

I reach for my phone with shaking fingers, and see that my mother is calling me. My heartrate rachets up instantly and I hastily press the green button to accept the call. "What's wrong?" I ask, my voice harsh even to my own ears.

"Nothing is wrong," my mother says reassuringly. "However, there is someone here to talk to you. I think you want to come to the hospital right away."

"Mom, what…" I start to say, but she has already hung up. "Damn it," I say to myself, before swinging my legs out of bed and hurrying into the bathroom.

I decide I had better take another shower since I feel like I ran a marathon and I'm drenched in sweat. There's no telling how long I will be at the hospital before I can come home again to clean up.

My mind restlessly wonders who would have come to the hospital to see me.

Who else knows that Kate is even here in the US? I think of her parents, but then I dismiss that thought. Marco might have told them where she is by now, but they would never risk her safety or the safety of their family by showing up unannounced and without an escort.

I try to shove all my worried thoughts into a corner of my mind as I yank on jeans and a shirt. The hospital isn't far away and I will know soon enough what is waiting for me at the hospital.

I yank a leather jacket off a hanger in my closet and call my brother as I hurry down the stairs.

"Elio," Gabriel says, his deep and steady voice was a balm to my sensitive nerves.

"Have you heard anything from the lawyer who was working on the custody situation?"

"Not yet," Gabriel tells me. "I'll call the office. Something wrong?"

"Don't know yet," I say. I swing around the banister and hurry down the hall to my office.

I nod at my head of security who is standing by the doorway waiting for me. Ducking into the room, I use a fingerprint scanner to open the closet in the corner of the room and pull a pistol out of the gun safe inside.

Tucking the pistol into a holster under my jacket, I whirl around and slam the closet door.

"Keep me informed," Gabriel says.

"Will do," I say to my brother. "Gabe," I say suddenly, halting in front of the entrance to my house. I hear a noise that indicates that my brother heard me and didn't hang up on me. "I love you, brother."

There's a moment of shocked silence on the other end of the call, then Gabriel chuckles. "Fuck me, Jess won our bet," he says.

I frown a little. "What?"

Gabriel laughs again. "She's been betting me for weeks that you'd become human once you realized that you loved Kate. Turns out she was right."

I laugh in spite of the worry curling and looping around in my gut. "What do you have to do for her now that you lost the bet?"

"Oh, you don't need to know the details of the bet," he says and I can imagine him winking at me.

I chuckle. "Fair enough. Let's hope that my newfound humanity doesn't threaten the safety of our business."

"I'd rather have my brother back," Gabriel says, his tone serious.

It never occurred to me that Gabriel would feel that way.

The night that I killed our brother, I snuffed out my emotions so thoroughly that I didn't even remember that I had destroyed that part of myself. I didn't think about all the ways, that this change would have affected my family.

I shake my head gently and sigh.

"Love you, Elio," Gabriel says to me and I smile, my heart feeling lighter in my chest.

"Look after things for a while longer, okay?" I say.

"You got it," Gabriel says. "Give Kate our love when she wakes up."

That word: when. My heart cries out, if, but I shove the wave of sadness away from me before it can cause me to unravel again.

When she wakes up, I assert to myself. She's going to wake up. "I will," I manage to say before I disconnect the call.

I gesture to my bodyguard and hurry through the door toward the Porsche waiting in front of the house.

I should take a safer car, but I want to feel the twitchy, difficult nature of the car at high speed, hear the road rumbling by beneath the tires and know that I am controlling my own destiny, holding the spark of my life in the palm of my hand.

When I arrive at the hospital, I drive up to the valet parking lot and jump out. I wave to one of the kids behind the parking desk, his eyes wide at the sight of the expensive car.

I chuckle when I think of my collection of expensive and rare cars in the garage at home. "Make sure you park someplace with enough room to open the doors," I tell him, tossing him the keys and a hundred-dollar bill.

My head security guy jogs after me as I power walk toward the hospital's front entrance. I feel bad for him for a moment, but I couldn't slow my feet down even if I tried.

Every fiber of my being knows that Kate is close and the pressure to be close to her is overwhelming.

I tap my foot in the elevator as it slowly climbs to the ICU floor. I press myself through the opening in the doors before there is enough room for me to fit. I disregard my shoulder running into the door and I hustle toward Kate's room.

I dodge a nurse who is looking at a tablet and she glances up at me in irritation before realizing who I am and then she hurries away.

I see my mother first and I notice that she looks completely and totally composed. She's angled away from the door, talking to someone who I can't see yet.

I realize that I have been holding my breath all of a sudden and I draw in a huge gulp of air so fast that I feel lightheaded for a moment.

"Did she wake up?" I ask, my voice rough with the hope that feels like sandpaper scraping against my heart.

"Not yet," my mother says apologetically.

"Then why did you…" my voice dies in my throat as I catch sight of the person sitting next to my mother in the other lumpy hospital chair.

The woman rises to her feet, smoothing down her stylish skirt and smiling at me. I take in her dark eyes and the long, dark hair hanging down her slender back. I had never realized how much she looked like her brothers until this moment.

"Hello, Elio," she says in a soft, musical voice.

I swallow hard, then manage to say, "Hello, Grazia."