Page 152 of Thorns of Death

“I will never hate you,” she repeated, her voice surprisingly firm considering her state. “You did exactly what I told you to do and that made me so proud. If they’d gotten you too, I wouldn’t have made it.”

“But—” Enzo’s face twisted with agony. Forever the protector. Both of my boys were.

“But nothing,” she scolded him softly. “You listened. That’s all a mother can ask for.”

All of us froze, and I watched my sons’ necks bob and their dark eyes glimmer with tears they tried so hard to hold back.

“You still want to be our mother?” Amadeo whispered, his lip trembling slightly. “Even though Donatella hurt you?”

Isla’s eyes narrowed on him, but her lips curved into a soft smile. “I am your mother and you are my boys. I don’t care that she gave you life. It takes a lot more than that to be a mother.” Amadeo wiped his face with the back of his hand, desperate to hide his tears. “Now give me a hug or you’ll see what a mad Russian-American-Italian does.”

She patted a spot next to us and our sons didn’t hesitate. My wife would forever have the Marchetti men wrapped around her finger.

“Thank you,” I mouthed.

“Siempre.” I didn’t bother correcting her that she’d reverted to Spanish. All that mattered was that she was coming back. To all of us.

FIFTY-FIVE

ISLA

Two weeks had gone by, and each time the doctor came to visit, Enrico hovered. He refused to leave as the doctor examined me. He was making the poor man nervous, but he didn’t seem to care. The doctor slipped on a pair of latex gloves and started poking and prodding. When he came to my bicep, his brow furrowed.

“Is everything okay?” Enrico asked, the alert in his voice making the doctor jump.

“It’s healing properly,” the doc answered vaguely.

“But?”

His bushy eyebrows and concerned gaze met mine. “An implant won’t be possible anymore. Not here.”

“Oh.”

Enrico’s spine went rigid but he remained quiet. “Do you need to be—”

The doctor struggled with words, his face turning deathly pale. Then it hit me. He thought I’d been raped.

“Nobody touched me,” I murmured. “Not that way.”

“Bene.” The doctor wiped his forehead with a shaking hand. “If you need birth control, let me know.”

I swallowed and shook my head. The thought of feeling a surgical knife or anything shoved into me had me reeling. There was a shot or pills I could take instead, but I hadn’t forgotten about the conversation with Enrico.

When Donatella is dead.

The bitch was dead. It wasn’t that I wanted to start working on getting pregnant. I had other more important things to worry about. Like moving on. Getting my head screwed on straight. Extinguishing the nightmares that plagued me.

Once the doctor was gone, I turned to look at Enrico. There was one person that I had avoided talking to. One family member who lingered, waiting for me to be ready, and he was there from the beginning.

I slowly shifted out of the bed, the cuts on my body still hurting. I had yet to find the courage to look at myself in the mirror. I’d take it slowly. One step at a time.

I made my way to the large window where the breathtaking view stretched for miles, but my gaze was locked on the tall dark form with the blonde woman. My brother and Tatiana.

“Enrico?”

“Yes,amore.”

I turned to look at the man who’d pulled me out of the darkness every single day in the past weeks. It was his voice, his scent that kept me holding on to the light. Yes, I hated that bitch Donatella, but I didn’t want to be consumed by it. I wanted to move on.