Thin Lines (Donati Bloodlines Book 2) (24 page)

“Do not let them make decisions on his life until I am
there,” Affonso demanded.

Critical wasn’t dead.

Emma clung onto that one simple hope.

Some people might believe that hanging onto hope was
useless in most situations, because miracles didn’t happen. She couldn’t allow
herself to let go if it wasn’t the end yet.

Calisto wasn’t gone.

Not yet.

She spun on her heel and left the men to their phone
conversation. But her heart was screaming so loud. She only wanted one thing.

Calisto
.

Emma stood outside the intensive care unit, scared to
enter the room just in front of her. The lights had been dimmed, and the
curtain was pulled around the bed. It was just luck that Calisto was situated
in the same hospital that her doctor was located. Under the guise of needing to
have more bloodwork done, her driver took her.

She sneaked away from him the moment she could and
went to the intensive care unit that she had heard Ray telling Affonso about.

Now, she was terrified.

Emma didn’t know if she could handle seeing Calisto
black and blue, swollen and nearly dead. But she couldn’t just walk away now
that she was here.

Right?

Shooting a look back at the nurses’ station, she
noticed that all of the women and men working there were gathering around a
screen and laughing at something. They were thoroughly distracted.

Emma didn’t want to draw attention.

Quickly, she stepped into Calisto’s hospital room, and
drew the shades on the window to give herself a bit more privacy. She listened
to the beep of monitors and the hiss of oxygen sing their rhythmic, life-saving
tune.

It took her another two minutes before she could step
around the curtain. And when she did … her heart shattered all over again.

Calisto was wrapped in gauze and casts. A ventilator
tube was shoved down his throat, and his face was cut, bruised, and swollen.
His right arm was in a cast, as was his left leg.

Emma choked on nothing but air and her tears.

“Oh, Calisto,” she mumbled.

She stepped forward, taking his left hand in hers.
Gently, she squeezed his hand and rubbed the back with her thumb like he would
do to her cheek when she was sad about something. Hanging above his bed was a
familiar item.

The black rosary with a silver cross.

The one she had given him for Christmas.

She still had his with the golden cross.

He must have had it when he was run off the road.
Apparently, his vehicle had flipped seven times before coming to a stop on its
roof at the bottom of a steep embankment. How he survived, she didn’t know.

Emma pulled the poker chip from her jeans pocket. She
held it tightly for a second, and then she replaced her hand with the poker
chip. She closed his fingers around the item, hoping that when he woke up, he
would know she had been there.

It killed her, but she had to go.

She couldn’t stay.

“I’m sorry, Cal,” she whispered.

Emma kissed two fingers, and pressed them to his
cheek.

Her heart hurt.

It was constant.

Blinding.

Deafening.

She didn’t want to feel like this.

“I love you, Calisto. I love
you
.”

Two more days passed by in a deadly silence.

It was a cold quiet.

A stillness and hush that came with no peace, and no
answers.

Emma woke up alone. She slept alone. She walked the
halls of her home alone.

On the third morning, she stared at her reflection in
the mirror and cleaned another round of tear stains from her cheeks. It wasn’t
like she wanted to get out of bed and do anything, but she didn’t have much of
a choice. Every night, she set Midnight up in the kitchen in a large kennel. He
was slowly getting used to holding his bladder for long enough to make it to the
morning.

Emma didn’t want to ruin his training with her
sadness.

He was just a pup.

And he needed her.

Throwing on something suitable to wear outside, she
quickly made her way downstairs and to the kitchen where her pup would be
waiting with his fluffy wiggles and his tiny tail. Midnight was one small bit
of happiness in her sad world.

And yet again, it was something Calisto had given her.

The moment Emma rounded the hallway and stepped into
the kitchen entryway, her heart dropped into her stomach, and the bile spilled
on the back of her tongue.

Affonso sat at the kitchen table, glaring at the pup
he was holding by the scruff of the neck. Poor little Midnight wiggled and
yelped in all his eight inches of length. He twisted and turned in Affonso’s hold,
his sharp little whines and barks having no effect on the man.

Affonso kept glowering at the dog.

Apparently, Emma’s entrance had not gone unnoticed.

“What on earth is this creature?” Affonso asked.

Emma swallowed back the sickness in her throat. She
had hoped he would at least call to let her know when he would be arriving
home, but he hadn’t. Obviously.

The shock finally wore off.

“He’s my puppy,” Emma said. “He’s not a creature.
Don’t hold him like that, you’ll hurt him.”

Affonso scowled, still holding Midnight’s scruff as he
dangled him over the kitchen floor. “This is not a dog. It is a rat with a lot
of hair. A rat that shits on my floors and chews things, for that matter.”

Ouch.

“He does not, Affonso. Put him down. He’s just a
baby.”

“Where did you get it, Emma?”

Emma chose not to lie. “Calisto gave him to me because
I was lonely. He found him starving and frozen nearly to death behind his new
club.”

Midnight continued to bark and wiggle. Finally, the
pup caught the side of Affonso’s thumb with his sharp baby teeth and bit down
hard enough. Affonso dropped the dog with a curse. Midnight hit the floor with
a yelp, and scuttled toward Emma.

She dropped down and picked Midnight up, glaring at
Affonso. The pup calmed the moment he was in her arms.

Affonso lowered his gaze. “I didn’t mean to drop the
ugly thing. He bit me.”

“He’s just a little dog, and I like him.”

“Calisto brought him, you said?”

“Yes,” Emma replied quietly.

“I’ll let you keep him, but if he chews on my shoes, I
will flush him down the toilet.”

Emma clenched her teeth, forcing herself not to
respond.

“I was told Calisto looked after you while I was
gone,” Affonso said after a while.

“I guess.”

She wouldn’t say much else.

“Good, I hoped he would.”

“You could have let me know you were coming home,”
Emma said.

Affonso cocked a brow. “This is my home, too. I didn’t
realize I needed to make you aware of my comings and goings.”

“It would be nice, that’s all I’m saying. You up and
left without as much as a goodbye, Affonso.”

“I’m sure you didn’t mind, sweetheart,” he drawled,
sneering.

Emma didn’t even bother to deny it.

Affonso stood, fixing his jacket and picking up a
folder on the table.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Things,” Affonso said, offering nothing else.

“Are you going to the hospital?”

“In a little while.”

“Can I go?” she dared to ask.

Affonso spun slowly on his heel, eying her curiously.
“Why do you want to?”

“Calisto is … a friend. I worried about him. I was
hoping to see how he was doing.”

“Well,” Affonso said, waving a hand high, “… he’s
awake now.”

Emma’s heart leaped high.

The relief was like a drug.

“Is he?” she asked calmly.

Somehow.

Affonso nodded. “But that is the least of my worries.
Seems the accident and his head injury has done a number on my nephew. You
might find he’s … not quite the same, Emma.”

She didn’t understand.

“I would still like to go,” she said. “Please.”

Affonso didn’t seem suspicious of her request.

Emma figured that was for the best. Her pregnancy was
just one of the things she would have to keep quiet about until Calisto was
better and she could tell him. He needed to know first, and then maybe they
could figure something out.

“I don’t see why not,” Affonso said.

“Thank you.”

He pointed at her. “But not dressed like that.”

“About two and a half years?” Emma heard Affonso ask
just around the corner.

“Seems that way,” the doctor answered.

She couldn’t fully comprehend their conversation. She had
only heard bits and pieces of it as she paced back and forth outside of
Calisto’s private hospital room. After waking from his coma, and becoming
stabilized, the doctors had approved him to move into his own room. 

Emma still hadn’t seen him yet.

“What does he know?” Affonso asked.

“Mostly everything. His family, his name, age, the
year—barring the fact he’s missing two and a half years—he answered correctly,
if it were that time and not today.”

Emma’s brow furrowed.

What did that mean?

She was pretty sure she knew, but it terrified her.

“You’ll have to go about explaining what’s happened in
the time he’s missing,” the doctor said, sympathy coloring up his tone.

“Is this common?” Affonso asked.

“For amnesia patients, yes.”

No
.

Emma sucked in a hard breath, and willed away the
tears.

No.