Chapter Eighteen

Aurelio

"Where is Claire?" was the first thing out of my mouth when Lucky and my mom made their way into the hospital room. "And Judah?"

Maybe I should have thanked them for being there, assured them that I was okay. That was what you did with the family who'd been worried sick, waiting for you to come out of surgery after nearly dying from gunshot wounds.

But my only thoughts since I woke up in the recovery room, aching, weak, and disoriented, were about where they were, if they were okay.

I'd had nothing left in me at the end there, but there was no shaking the feeling that I should have been able to rally, to at least stay conscious to make sure they were okay before I let the darkness claim me.

"The waiting room," Lucky said. "They're both okay," he added. "Worried about you, but okay. But listen, before we talk about anything else, we need to get the story straight."

He'd launched into the story then, the one Damon had told the police when they'd shown up at the hospital. Some fake random drive-by crime that would be hard to prove and even harder to refute.

I had a vague memory of being in the car with Damon, of his hand pushing hard into my neck with one hand as he drove with the other, but everything was pretty much blank from the moment I shot my traitorous fuck of a guard, then dialed Luca's number on my phone before passing out.

Luckily, it seemed, Luca had known something was wrong, that we needed help, and had called to wake up Damon at his hotel.

Then he'd shown up to grab me and drag me to the hospital.

Part of me was pissed that he'd left Claire alone in the house with the baby, even if he gave her weapons. Even if I was bleeding out in front of him.

But from the sound of things, his quick action was probably the only reason I was alive right now.

Well, the quick action and the fact that Claire had shoved Warren at the exact right second, making it so the bullet lodged in a relatively harmless area of my neck instead of anywhere else that would have all but assured my immediate death.

I understood that I needed to see my family all first, even if I was most anxious about seeing Claire herself.

Each set of visitors that came in to see me filled me in a little bit more, though, gave me details that I didn't have, filled in blanks I'd been curious about.

It had been Milo, though, who had whipped out his phone, showing me a picture of Claire that looked like it was out of that prom scene in Carrie, with her drenched in blood.

Warren's blood.

Apparently, she must have stabbed him dozens, if not hundreds, of times, according to Milo's report on the state of his body.

He'd concluded she was a ‘badass' for pretty much disemboweling her former abuser.

Luca, a little more tactfully, told me how bad of shape she'd been in when he'd arrived. She'd still been sitting against Judah's door, armed, completely dissociated.

Understandably, given the events of the night.

Then, of course, as it all came back to her, she'd been sick and hysterical.

Judah had been in his crib alone. Likely crying himself to sleep since his mom was too traumatized to go to him.

I knew she probably felt like shit about that too, even if there'd been nothing either of us could do for him in that moment. Me, bleeding out and unconscious in the car with Damon. Her, in shock, zoned out.

But kids were resilient.

He would be alright.

My family swore that he'd been good at the hospital, eating junk food, and playing games on everyone's phones to keep him occupied.

And after this, his life would be so much more secure and normal.

He would likely have no memories of the one night he'd needed to cry himself to sleep when he had all the new memories about stores, restaurants, parks, arcades, and play dates with other kids his own age.

He'd be okay.

I'd been more worried about Claire.

Until, finally, she walked into my room. Alone. Eyes swollen half shut from crying, face splotchy from tears.

She looked fragile as she collapsed down onto the chair beside my bed and cried again.

It wasn't until I started talking about the future that she seemed to calm a bit, focusing on the upcoming good instead of the traumatizing past.

No one had been allowed to stay long, though, and it killed me to watch the way her face fell when she was informed that I needed to rest.

She leaned over me, pressing a soft kiss to my lips.

"I'll visit as much as I can," she assured me.

She made good on that, too.

Luca ended up putting her up in a hotel where the rest of my family was staying, and she was always the first one there every day, leaving Judah with one of the others, so she could get a precious hour or so with me before it was time for someone else to visit.

Each day, she looked a little better, a bit less haunted.

By day eight, I was finally cleared to be able to leave, to head home and follow up with my usual doctors. Or more accurately, Lettie. Who'd called one day to inform me that I was all of a quarter of an inch from death, according to what she saw in my file. And that I owed Claire a pair of diamond earrings or something for the gift of my life.

I silently declared that it wouldn't be diamond earrings, but a diamond ring, I planned to give her.

It seemed as if the small town cops in the area had accepted Damon and my cover story without any concerns.

And I knew from Luca that he had a crew up at the safe house to get everything all cleaned up. A big job, considering there were five bodies to deal with.

Only five, though.

From the driver's seat, Luca glanced back at Judah and Claire, both of whom were passed out, then looked back at me.

"Dante has been working overtime to figure out why it was only five of them," Luca said, reading my mind.

"Any luck?"

"Denny staged a coup," he said. "It helped that Warren was fucking half-insane with his need to get his son and make his ex pay. So, it was easy for him to take over and kick out Warren and his most loyal supporters."

"Does anyone know how long he and my guard have been in cahoots?"

"It's impossible to pin down anything exact, with both of them being dead. But Dante found out that he was heavy into gambling, had debts coming out of his ass. So if Warren was offering him money for access to the kid…"

"Yeah," I said, jaw tight.

"We're going to do a full internal audit," Luca said. "Everyone hands over their financial records and all that shit. This won't happen again."

No, it wouldn't.

It couldn't.

Claire and Judah had been through enough. They deserved a soft, safe life.

I intended to give them that.

As soon as I was able to do more than function.

I was alright. Sore. My lower back, especially, was giving me some trouble. But in a few weeks, it would be like nothing happened.

And then we could go back to how we were. But add in more outings.

"As for Denny, we are watching right now," Luca said. "Warren was always the more hotheaded of the two, it seemed. Denny is someone who is going to think shit through, weigh his pros and cons. I doubt he's going to attack us."

"He can't just be let to stay here," I said, anger bubbling up, knowing he stood by and watched Claire get abused, then watched her and her son become prisoners.

"No," Luca agreed. "I think he's going to leave. If he hasn't already packed up. But if it seems like he is staying, we will take out the whole operation."

I wanted him to be taken out either way, but I understood Luca's reluctance to chase someone to take them out.

We'd already had casualties.

Injuries.

And a traitor uncovered through all of this.

It was his job as the boss to try to make sure no one else got hurt or killed. And, of course, to go through our ranks with a fine-tooth comb now and make sure everyone left was as loyal as we'd assumed.

"She's a good one, you know," Luca said a while later, nodding his head back at Claire.

"I know," I agreed.

"And while I think she had every right to have the kind of rage she took out on Warren, I think that is some shit you're gonna want to talk about, make sure she's alright about. She was… a mess afterward."

That made sense.

She was a gentle woman.

Not prone to violence, save for self-preservation, or to protect her son.

But the day after the attack when she'd visited me in the hospital, she hadn't been able to raise her arm from the muscle failure caused by all the stabbing.

"We got Lettie," Luca said. "Think what we need next in the family is a shrink," he said, shooting me a smirk. "Should tell Milo to marry one."

"She's gonna be alright," I assured Luca.

She did what she needed to.

Was it overkill?

Yeah.

But she'd been beaten, humiliated, and held captive by the man for a long time. If anyone deserved to go a little overboard on the stabbing, it was her.

The memory of that night would slowly but surely get buried under new, better memories.

It would just take time.

—

"What do you think you're doing?" Claire asked later that night, coming into the kitchen to find me standing at the island.

"Making dinner," I said.

"Yeah… no," she said, rolling her eyes at me, then coming around the island to gently push me back toward the living room where I was camping out on the couch for the time being.

The stairs had been attempted, and quickly written off as an option for another few days.

"Did you forget that you're a Grassi?" Claire asked as she flicked a blanket over me when I lowered myself down. "While you were sleeping earlier, no fewer than four meals were dropped off. And I was informed that this is just the first wave."

"Oh, yeah?" I asked, smiling at the idea of her interacting with all the family's women, getting to know them, getting comfortable with them.

She'd already gotten close with my mom and my sisters during the whole hospital and hotel stay. But I liked that she was meeting the cousins and aunts and everyone else as well.

The more of them she met and got to know, the more she would be able to see herself as one of them, of us.

"Yep. We are having ravioli tonight, by the way. Judah decided," she said, smile sweet as she dropped down next to me.

"He's got good taste," I said, reaching out to pull her closer.

"I don't want to hurt you," she objected, trying to pull away.

"You won't," I assured her. She didn't have a second objection in her, but she was careful to angle her hips away from mine as she leaned over to press her head into my good shoulder.

"It feels good to be home," she said, making my heart fucking melt.

"Yeah, it does," I agreed, leaning down to press a kiss to her head.