Saved Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle
Gavin
“Clara!” The woman I love is soaked in blood, leaning against me like all of the fight has gone out of her. She’s breathing, but slowly, each breath incredibly shallow like taking too much air into her lungs is going to hurt, and I can feel the blood from her clothes soaking through mine. “Clara, are you okay?” I ask, pulling back from her a bit so that I can push her hair back from her face.
I have to look at her. Have to see if she’s okay.
Her eyelids flutter and then snap open as she tilts her head up to look at me. “Gavin,” she gasps, “the house.”
I don’t have to ask her what the problem is to know exactly what happened. We all heard the explosion and knew immediately that the house had been blown up. She obviously got hit with shrapnel and is obviously in shock or she’d be able to talk to me.
“The house will be fine,” I say, scooping her up into my arms. “But I’m worried about you. Where are you hit? There’s so much blood.” She’s limp in my arms, so tiny and frail that I’m honestly worried about her.
I can’t let anyting be wrong with her.
She shakes her head but before she can respond, Freddy’s at my side, grabbing my arm. “The Accardis are on their way up to the house and I called the doctor to come check her out. Sean’s talking with the cleanup crew. I’m going to reach out to our contact at the police department and make sure that nothing gets reported from all of this.”
“Thanks,” I say. He’s on his phone as soon as he turns away from me and I start the long walk up the hill. Clara doesn’t weigh much at all and I carry her easily, not stopping once on the way up. By the time I reach the house, the Accardi men are there, pulling dead men from the bushes and dragging them to the front yard.
“You three don’t have to do that,” Sean says, walking up to Lorenzo. “We have a cleanup crew on their way.”
“This will make it easier.” Lorenzo has a cut on his forehead but grins at my brother. I see this, see the way his eyes flick over me with interest when he notices Clara, but I can’t seem to slow down enough to talk to him. “Gavin,” he calls, “is she okay?”
I shake my head, unsure of the answer. Johnny joins me at the front door to the house and yanks it open.
“What the hell happened?” He asks.
“They blew up the guesthouse and she was in it,” I tell him. I’m choking on my words but manage to spit them out. “She’s covered in blood but I haven’t had a chance to really look at her and see how badly she’s hurt.”
Johnny doesn’t answer but runs ahead of me to the sofa in the living room. When he’s pulled all of the pillows and blankets off and thrown them on the floor I put Clara down, cupping her face in my hands to turn her head so that she looks as comfortable as possible.
“Hey, Clara,” I say, leaning down to give her a kiss. “You’re safe, okay? Can you tell me where you got hurt? I need to take a look at you.”
Her eyes flutter open and the way she smiles at me makes my stomach twist. I promised her that I would do whatever it took to protect her and now she’s hurt. There’s no way in hell that I’m ever going to be able to forgive myself if something really bad happened to her.
“I’m okay,” she says, but I shake my head.
“I told you that you belonged to me,” I say to her, taking each arm and carefully running my hands down them. I’m looking for any signs of injury, any cuts or gunshots, but her arms look fine. That means that she probably has an internal injury, and that’s much more dangerous.
But it doesn’t explain all of the blood.
“I promised you that I’d keep you safe and make sure that you were happy,” I say, carefully putting her arms down so I can keep examining her. Johnny’s off to my side watching but he doesn’t say a word while I try to figure out what’s wrong with Clara.
“I told you time and time again that you were going to be safe with me,” I say to her, running my hands down her shoulders. Her shirt is stuck to her body with blood and I should cut it away so that I can really examine her but the last thing I want to do is accidentally reopen a wound. “You believed me, and that makes it even worse, darling. Out of all of the women in the world, I want you, and I couldn’t even keep you safe. But I’ll fix this, I promise.”
“Would you listen?” She asks. Her voice is still quiet but sounds stronger than it did a moment ago. “I’m not hurt.” Her eyes lock on mine and I stare into them, ignoring the blood smeared across her face and how my stomach flips when I slow down enough to really look at her. “I’m not hurt. This isn’t my blood. I fell in it when I shot someone.”
My head spins as I stare at the woman I love. “You...slipped in blood,” I repeat, really unsure of what she just said. “After you shot someone?”
Her chin wobbles but she manages to nod and I scoop her up, sitting down next to her to pull her close to me. It doesn’t matter that she’s soaking with blood and that I’m going to be covered in it in just a moment, too. I want to make sure that she’s comforted and that she’s going to be okay.
“Are you okay?” I ask, lightly tapping her forehead. “Up here, I mean.”
She nods but then a sob escapes her and she curls into me, clawing at me to get me to wrap my arms around her. “I was so scared,” she admits, and guilt washes over me. “I thought that I was going to die but I found the trunk under the bed and managed to get it open and get a gun.”
“You did great,” I say, “you’re amazing, Clara,” but she’s not finished.
“I shot him, Gavin.” Her voice is strangled and it’s obvious that she’s struggling with what she’s telling me. “Do you get that? I looked at him coming for me and I knew that he was going to hurt me, going to take me to Nick, and I shot him right in the hall. Over and over and over until he fell and then I ran and I fell and it took everything I had to get up and keep going.”
“But you didn’t run away,” I say, lifting her chin with one finger so that she’s looking at me. “You ran towards the main house, not away.”
Her eyes are bright and clear but I notice a slight frown. Reaching up, I massage between her eyes to try to get her to relax.
“Of course I ran towards the house,” she says, a note of concern in her voice. “I wanted you. Was that the wrong thing to do?”
“Hell no.” Standing, I lift her to my chest. My next words are directed at Johnny. “Have the doctor wait when he gets here, I’m going to get Clara cleaned up in the bathroom before she gets checked out.”
“I’m fine,” she protests, looping her arms around my head. “Really, I don’t need a doctor.”
“You still need to be checked out,” I tell her, turning to carry her upstairs to a bathroom. Quiet places where we can have some privacy are going to be few and far between for a little while until everything is all cleaned up, but I’m determined to get some time with my girl. “But not until I clean you up and check you out first.”
She’s silent as I carry her up the stairs, then waits as I run the hot bath and strip down. I need to get out of my bloody clothes and clean up, too, and the fastest way to do that is to get in the shower with her. Her fingers tremble when she tries to strip, so I do it for her, dropping her filthy clothes into a wet pile on the floor.
“Gavin,” she says, her voice trembling. It looks like it takes all of her mental strength to look me in the eyes, but she finally does, locking them on me. She’s naked, smeared with blood, and I know that I shouldn’t get hard at the sight of her, but I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anything or anyone.
“Did I do the right thing?” Her voice is so quiet that I almost miss the words at first, but when I realize what she just said, I pull her to me, wrapping my arms around her. I’m going to get this woman clean and then I’m going to show her just how much I think she did the right thing.
