Betrayal (5 page)

“Juicy!”

I opened my eyes. Renata was standing by my bed and she looked worried.

“Juicy?” she said my name again. “You were crying out in your sleep, honey. Are you in pain? Do you need more medication?”

“Gino,” I muttered. My body trembled from head to toe. The coldness in my dream had been real. I realized I’d brought it with me to wakefulness as I lay there crying and shivering, my teeth chattering uncontrollably.

“Oh my God! You’re shaking,” Renata soothed me with her strong, even voice. She pulled an extra blanket from the end of the bed and spread it out over me. She smoothed my hair back from my forehead and took my hands in hers. “So cold, Juicy,” she said gently. “Your hands are so cold.”

“Gino,” I muttered again. “I gotta see Gino.”

Renata shook her head and patted my hand.

“Not yet, Juicy. It isn’t safe for you to move around yet. But don’t worry. Frank has been sitting with Gino every day. In fact, he’s with him right now. Gino’s condition hasn’t really changed, but at least he’s still alive.”

“I gotta see him, Renata!” Fear had me whining like a baby. “He needs me.”

The icy terror from my dream was pounding deep in my bones, and all I knew was that I had to be by Gino’s side.

“Please help me,” I begged her. “Take me to him, Renata. Take me to my man.”

Renata gave me a look and opened her mouth like she was gonna tell me no, then she closed it again and nodded.

“Okay,” she said, and I was lifted by the glare of determination that had entered her eyes. “I understand how bad you want to see him, Juicy, and I think you should. It might do you both some good. I’ll go down to the nurse’s station and talk somebody into taking you upstairs to the ICU.”

$$$$$

Renata had done her part in talking to the doctors, but all those fools could bark about was the liability they would face if I got out of bed and something went wrong for me or the baby.

Why couldn’t they understand that I didn’t care about any of that? Two doctors and a nurse rushed up in my room when Renata came back. I guess they figured if they rolled up on me like a gang it would be easier to get me to accept them telling me no.

“I’m sorry,” one of the doctors said, crossing his arms. He was the ob-gyn doctor whose job it was to make sure that me and Gino’s baby stayed alive. His tight-ass wouldn’t even let me get out of the bed to go sit on the toilet and pee. Instead, I had to lay flat on my back and use a nasty bedpan.

“It’s just too risky, Juicy. Your body is still traumatized. Your cervix is very dilated. Even if we were able to transport you upstairs, the trauma of seeing Gino in his condition is likely to cause both you and the baby a lot of distress. I just can’t recommend it.”

The other doctor backed him up with a nod. She was the surgeon who had operated on me.

“He’s right, Juicy. I understand how concerned you are about Gino, but right now your baby’s health is our priority. You simply cannot leave your bed.”

I cut up like a true project chick up in there.

“This baby is
your
fuckin’ priority!” I screeched. I was spitting mad. Sweating bullets and slinging hot tears all over the room. “My priority is
Gino
! Y’all can’t keep me away from him! You don’t have the
right
to keep me away from him! Gino needs me. I need him. I don’t care what I have to do. I’m seeing him!”

The cop who was posted outside my door stuck his head inside, and ignoring the doctors, asked me if everything was okay.

“Oh, it’s about to
be
okay!” I snapped, wiping my nose with the end of the sheet. I struggled to sit up in the bed and winced in pain as I tried to slide my legs around. “’Cause I’m getting the fuck outta here!”

“You can’t be serious,” the male doctor said.

“Oh, she’s serious,” Renata answered.

I grilled both those damned doctors down.

“Bring me my papers! Bring me my
mothafuckin
’ papers! I’m signing myself
out!
”

That got their attention.

By the time I scooted my naked butt to the edge of the bed and my feet were dangling down about to touch the floor, everybody in the room understood that I was not bullshitting! The nurse rushed over to my side, and both doctors started backpedaling, eating all the words they had just spoken.

“Okay, okay,” the surgeon said. She put her arm around my shoulder and lifted my legs back onto the bed. “Don’t do this,” she said softly. “Please don’t hurt yourself like this. We’ll take you to see Gino. Let me get the staff to bring us a wheelchair and I’ll have an attendant get you seated in it safely.”

But the ugly man-doctor still wasn’t having it. “I don’t advise that,” he said sharply. “The fetus—”

The female doctor shut him down with just one look. “It doesn’t matter what you advise. Her fiancé and the father of her child is upstairs fighting for his life. He’s fighting for
their
lives. Do you have any idea what this must be like for Juicy? To have to lie in bed helplessly while Gino fights his battle alone? We’re taking her upstairs. In my personal and professional opinion, by his side is exactly where she needs to be.”

CHAPTER 6

My whole body hurt as they placed me in the wheelchair, but I took the pain without even flinching.

While Renata had been downstairs with me, Frank had been visiting Gino, so she jetted upstairs to tell him to leave so that I could go in. She told me there was a cop posted up to guard Gino too, but since Gino was up there with the critically ill patients he could only have one visitor every other hour.

“Are you cold?” the hospital attendant asked me kindly. He was a heavy-set, freckle-faced white guy, and I was thankful that his hands had been so gentle and compassionate when he lifted me off the bed.

I waved away the blanket he was offering me. I was shivering and goose bumps had popped up all over my skin, but there wasn’t but one thing on my mind, and that was getting close to my man.

Gino needed me. This I knew for sure.

I could feel him calling out to me with his heart, and every ounce of me was focused strictly on getting up there and answering that call.

The attendant turned the wheelchair around cautiously, and pointed me toward the door.

“Can you move a little faster?” I asked him. Both doctors gave him a look, and I got even more pissed off when they both shook their heads, no.

I waited while they signed the papers giving me permission to leave the floor, and then we bounced.

My police guard walked behind us as the attendant pushed me down an endless hall and through several sets of double doors. When we got to the elevators I saw we were on the third floor. Renata had told me the intensive care unit was on five, and if I could have jumped up outta that chair and ran up those two flights of stairs I would have.

Finally, the elevator came and we got on. We only had to go up two floors, but in my mind it was taking us forever. I closed my eyes and started praying again. I didn’t open them until I felt the elevator stop on the fifth floor.

The intensive care unit was all lit up. Family members of the sick and dying were standing around in the hallway pushing coins into vending machines, and talking on cell phones while they waited to see their loved ones.

Down the hall, I could see Renata and Frank standing outside of a room across from the nurse’s station, and my heart started pounding real hard as we got closer. Even with the seriousness of our situation I was hyped with the anticipation of seeing Gino again.

But just as they were wheeling me toward his room, Renata peeped us coming down the hall and she rushed over to stand in my path.

“What’s going on?” I asked, frowning. There was a commotion going on in the room behind her and I peered past her and tried to get a look inside.

“Is Gino in there?”

Renata nodded. I didn’t see the cop that was supposed to be standing guard over Gino, but now a bunch of medical people were leaving the room with blank expressions on their faces.

“What’s going on?” I asked her again. “All them doctors wasn’t in there for Gino, was they?”

Renata didn’t answer. She just stared at me with a real funny look in her eyes.

I glanced over my shoulder and barked at the dude who was pushing my wheelchair. “Push me in there, please! Take me in that goddamn room!”

But Renata stood in front of me like a mountain. She was blocking hard, and I wasn’t having it. I leaned forward to push her out the way, and that’s when the first pain hit me. It was real low in the bottom of my stomach, and it shot out of my tailbone like a ball of fire.

“Ouch!” I yelped and doubled over, my chest almost touching my knees.

“What’s wrong?” Renata said. Her eyes went from looking sad to looking worried quick fast.

“Nothing,” I gasped. Suddenly there was pressure building inside me like I needed to use the bathroom. I pressed my hands to the seat of the wheelchair and lifted my butt up a little bit, trying to relieve the pain.

Gino
.

“Get outta my way,” I muttered to Renata. I had come to see Gino. Why the fuck was she standing in my way?

My stomach cramped again. Harder this time. Hard as shit! I needed to use the bathroom, and my whole body broke out in a sweat from trying to hold my bowels in.

“Renata,
move!
” I tried to raise my voice, but I was hurting so bad that all I could do was whisper. “I gotta see Gino. Get out my way.”

“Please don’t go in that room, Juicy,” Renata said softly. “Gino is not there anymore.”

“What?” I glanced around, confused. We’d gotten off the elevator on the right floor. The pain rocking my stomach was messing with my head.

“He’s not in there? Then where the fuck is he?” I demanded loudly. The hallway got real quiet. A few people who were standing around stopped talking and stared at me, but I didn’t give a damn.

“He…” she started. “He…he…”

Tears slipped from Renata’s eyes and ran down her cheeks.

Fear pounded in my heart and I straight wailed.

“
Renata!!! Tell me where my man is!!!
”

“He’s dead, Juicy!” she blurted. The words slipped from her mouth and felt colder than the blood that was now rushing through my veins.

“His blood pressure fell and his heart just couldn’t go on. He didn’t make it,
cara
. Gino is dead.”

Grief washed over me in a giant, suffocating wave. It snatched all the air from my lungs. I felt like I was being smothered under an enormous pillow. But then, a searing pain and a numbing dizziness overtook me. I gripped the arms of the wheelchair and trembling, I pushed myself to my feet.

I staggered over to the doorway, and almost fell inside the room. Wasn’t nobody rushing around anymore. I took one look at the patient, and then that blistering pain shot through me again. I almost collapsed, but Renata was right by my side, catching me before I could fall.

I stepped deeper into the room and stared down at the man who was stretched out in the hospital bed, but I didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t Gino. He wasn’t
my
Gino.

His features looked stressed and puffy. Tubes was all in his mouth and nose. The last time I’d seen my man he was smiling and dressed in a fly tuxedo. His haircut was fresh and shiny, his slight goatee had been trimmed real tight, and his eyes had been full of promise for the life we were gonna build together.