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"Coward," I whispered.

"Dead man," Angelo corrected.

A silence stretched between us again, heavier now, thicker. Like it knew there were things we weren’t saying.

I broke it first. "You came for me."

He looked startled. "Of course I did." He swallowed. "You’remine."

The way he said it—fierce and broken and utterly certain—hit me somewhere beneath the bandage near my heart, making it hurt even more because he didn’t mean it the way I wanted him to.

"I’m not some pretty doll you can keep in a glass case, Angelo," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

"I know," he said. "I know. You’re fire and thunder and glitter and chaos. No glass case could ever holdyou.”

The last was said ruefully, yet it still broke my heart a little. I wanted him to want to keep me, and that made me stupid. I closed my eyes and let the tears fall.

For everything I’d lost.

For everything I still had.

And for the boy with the devil’s smile who had come for me.

“I’m sorry it hurts. Get some rest. I’ll be here. Your brothers are here too.” He pushed the button for morphine, and I let it carry me away, not bothering to tell him the reason for the waterworks.

CHAPTER 17

ANGELO

The hospital wallswere the color of paper—white, sterile, and so thin that if you pressed too hard, the entire place might collapse under the weight of your sins. It smelled of antiseptic and stale air, and the chairs in the hallway were just as hard. Simply walking inside the place gave me the fucking creeps.

It amazed Remo and me that Frankie wanted to work in places like these, where people were perpetually sick, weak, and frail. She said they were also places of joy, and I looked at them all wrong. My sister wanted me to think of a glass half full. Her perspective was that people came to the hospital for help, got well, had babies, and returned totheir families —that they were places where relationships were mended.

I couldn’t see it. Walking into this place made me break out in hives. All these people moaning in the emergency room or shuffling around with their IV poles gave me the heebie-jeebies.

But Theo was alive.

That was the only thing that mattered.

Still, the past three days had carved me hollow. I’d been hunting Renzetti like a dog, teeth bared and blood on my hands. I’d been rooting out men that he’d hired for that party of his from every hole-in-the-wall motel that I could find and every back alley bayou. Bacco, Remo, and I had delivered some extremely enjoyable torture sessions in borrowed barns and then fed the remains to the swamps. There were some pluses to being in Louisiana despite the humidity. However satisfying, we hadn’t learned any actionable intel other than the fact that all the security had been hired muscle.

I’d left Theo in the care of her brothers—something that had taken more self-restraint than anything I’d ever managed in my life. Every second away from her was like walkingwith a knife between my ribs. I needed to be moving, to bedoingsomething. And if I were going to let off steam, I’d do it the way I knew best: with precision and fire.

Today was discharge day. The day we’d all be returning to New York. Thank fuck. I was cutting it close when I stepped off the elevator. All the Anthakos siblings were already present and accounted for, flanking Theo’s wheelchair like some royal entourage.

Clearly, she wasn’t too happy to be forced into a wheelchair; she scowled at her brothers as they spoke in low tones, turning at the sound of my boots. She wore oversized glasses and a scarf that she had crafted into a couture-style headband, complete with a trailing bow down her back. The woman had taken a bullet, yet was still somehow on trend. When our eyes met, the tightness in my chest finally cracked.

"You’re late," she said, one brow arched above the glasses. “I’ve been sitting here for hours.”

“Don’t listen to her. We just got her into the chair. They’ve taken forever to get her discharged. You’d think we weren’t capable of taking care of her or something. The paperworkis a nightmare.” Vaso rolled his eyes at his sister, but I knew he didn’t mind waiting around if it meant she was taken care of. “We’re still waiting on the nurse to bring us our last care package. There are some bandages and stuff I guess that we need.”

My eyes swept over her again. She kept herself clear of the wheelchair’s arm to avoid jostling herself. Her face appeared almost pale, and I doubted she was very comfortable.

“Listen to you being such a smart ass,” I replied, unable to stop the smirk pulling at my mouth. “Starting to feel better. I like it.” Directing the question to Ilias, I asked, “Can we hurry the nurse up at all so we can get Theo somewhere more comfortable?” I didn’t like that she was sitting out in the open with Renzetti on the loose.

“Spiros is on it. Hopefully, it’ll just take a second. Any update on the bastard?" Ilias asked.

My smile dropped like a guillotine. "He’s gone to ground. We tracked him to the Gulf, but someone tipped him off. Locals say he had a boat. Could be anywhere in the Caribbean by now."