Chapter 6 - Waking Up in the ICU
When I finally opened my eyes, the harsh fluorescent lights of the intensive care unit felt like needles stabbing into my retina. My entire body felt heavy, encased in lead, and every breath burned my throat through the plastic oxygen mask strapped across my face. I blinked sluggishly, focusing my vision on the rhythmic green spikes of the heart monitor beside my bed. I was alive. But the immediate, overwhelming panic gripped my chest: Where is my baby? Did she survive?
Before I could tear the oxygen mask away, a shadow fell across the bed. Mateo sat in the hard plastic chair beside my gurney. He looked utterly destroyed. The immaculate charcoal cashmere coat was gone, replaced by a rumpled white shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his knuckles bruised and scabbed. His dark hair was disheveled, and dark purple hollows bruised the skin beneath his ice-blue eyes. He looked like a man who had spent days staring straight into the abyss of his own damnation.
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When he saw my eyelids flutter, he froze. Slowly, hesitantly, as if touching a ghost that might vanish if he applied too much pressure, he reached out and wrapped his warm, calloused hand around my pale, IV-punctured fingers. ""Elena,"" he choked out, his voice cracking with a broken sob that sounded entirely alien coming from the most dangerous man in Greyport. ""Thank God... God, Elena, I am so sorry. Please... don't look at me like that."" I pulled my hand away from his grip with a weak, defiant jerk, turning my head slowly toward the blank hospital wall.
""Get out,"" I rasped through the oxygen mask, my voice sounding like grinding stones. Mateo flinched as if I had struck him across the face with a lead pipe. ""Elena, please listen to me,"" he pleaded, leaning closer. ""Salvatore found the truth. The car crash... it wasn't a random accident. Vivienne’s family... they found out you discovered their financial treason against the syndicate. They tried to silence you. But I swear to you on my life, they will pay in blood. Every single one of them is already in custody."" I turned my eyes back to him, the cold fury in my gaze cutting deeper than any knife. ""You brought her into our home, Mateo. You let her push me out. You don't get to play the grieving husband now.""
