Chapter 4 - Rings of Iron and Blood
The room smelled of antiseptic, copper, and artificial oxygen.
When my consciousness clawed its way back through the dense fog of heavy sedatives, I couldn't move. Seven bullets had torn through muscle, shattered ribs, and bruised my lungs; my body felt as though it had been anchored beneath a slab of cold concrete. A clear plastic endotracheal tube ran down my throat, forcing mechanical breaths into my chest with a steady, robotic hiss. Monitors beeped in a slow, rhythmic cadence beside my bed.
I couldn't speak. I could barely open my eyelids a fraction of a millimeter.
Through the blurred haze of the ICU, standing under the sterile glare of fluorescent lights, I saw shadows.
A priest in black vestments stood near the heart monitor, an open prayer book resting in his hands, murmuring Latin verses under his breath. Behind him stood Enzo and two armed guards, blocking the doorway like obsidian statues.
And bending over my bed was Dominic Rossi.
The bloodstains were gone from his jacket, replaced by a crisp black shirt with the top two buttons undone, revealing the harsh line of his collarbone. His dark hair was slightly messy, and his expression carried a heavy, exhausted gravity I hadn't seen in the ballroom.
In his large, calloused hand, he held something small that glinted with a warm, unmistakable brilliance.
My right hand lay resting on the crisp white hospital sheet, swollen from IV fluids, bruised from trauma, and utterly motionless.
Without a word of preamble, Dominic took my limp, unresponsive fingers in his. With agonizing care, he slid a heavy, custom-engraved gold band onto my ring finger, pressing it past the swollen joint until it settled securely against my skin.
I tried to pull my hand back, tried to gasp, tried to signal that I was awake, but my paralyzed vocal cords produced only a faint, useless rattle against the breathing tube.
Dominic leaned in close—so close I could feel the heat of his breath against my ear, smelling faintly of expensive bourbon and rain.
His voice was a low, velvet rasp that sent a shiver straight through my frozen nervous system.
“Now anybody who comes for you comes through me.”
May you like
Before I could process the terrifying weight of his words, the door to the ICU swung open, and a doctor rushed in, pushing Dominic back as emergency alarms suddenly began to warble across the bedside monitors.
My vision darkened at the edges, plunging me back into the abyss before I could ask what hell I had just married into.
