Thin Lives (Donati Bloodlines #3) (11 page)

He couldn’t stare at the blood-soaked cloths for long.

It made him sick.

But worse yet, it made him sicker that somewhere inside of him, Calisto didn’t know what to feel at all. The sight of the blood bothered him, and he wanted to be worried for Affonso, but he just felt cold.

So numb.

He thought it was shock, maybe.

It would be a damn good excuse.

Instead, he was unfeeling.

Unconcerned.

Unapologetic.

And he just didn’t know
why
.

The very next second after the ambulance stopped, the paramedic leaned over with one hand and hit the latch on the back doors. Light, noise, and several new voices took over as the stretcher’s wheels were kicked out and Affonso was pushed out of the ambulance without a second of hesitation. People—doctors, likely—swarmed the stretcher, taking over and barking orders while listening to the paramedic’s report.

“Straight to the OR on the fourth,” one of the doctor’s barked. “Get blood on standby. He’s
blue
.”

Calisto didn’t even get the chance to blink or stand from the small, uncomfortable steel bench he was sitting on before Affonso’s bloody, prone body was gone from his view completely. All he saw was the automatic door close, and the small trail of blood that had been left in the wake of Affonso’s departure.

Wary, Calisto pushed up from the bench as the paramedic climbed back into the ambulance. He offered Calisto a small smile, and nodded his head toward the doors.

“You should catch up with them,” he said.

Calisto knew the man was right.

But he just … couldn't move.

Not fast enough, anyway.

The paramedic seemed to understand, and went about cleaning up the mess that the back of the ambulance had turned into over the chaotic drive to the hospital. Calisto eventually got out of the ambulance, but he didn’t go far. He leaned against the side of the vehicle, pulled out his pack of cigarettes, and lit one up with shaking, bloodstained fingers.

Taking a hard drag, Calisto closed his eyes.

He just needed to think.

He felt wrong all over.

“Damn, that is you,” came a voice from the side.

Calisto opened his eyes only to find another paramedic watching him from the back of the ambulance. It was the one with the familiar voice, but now that he could get a good look at the man’s face, he didn’t recognize him at all.

“Me?” Calisto asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Been a shitty year for you, huh?”

Calisto blinked. “I don’t … understand?”

Why did that come out like a question?

Even he didn’t know.

Calisto was so sick and fucking tired of being unsure all the damn time.

“You’re having a rough year, man. I hope I don’t see you in my ambulance again,” the paramedic said.

“Again.”

That time, it wasn’t a question.

The paramedic shrugged, and took a spot next to Calisto. When he asked for a smoke, Calisto handed him one without a word. He held up a lighter and waited for the man to light up. Then, he replaced the lighter back in his pocket.

“You need a Xanax or something?” the paramedic asked. “The last time, I almost shoved one down your throat. You looked ready to kill me, but I got it and all, given your wife was beaten pretty bad and you were having the worst anxiety attack I’d ever seen.”

Calisto just stared at the man from the side, not knowing what to say. He didn’t have a clue what the man was talking about. He sure as hell didn’t have a wife, and he couldn’t remember being in the back of an ambulance recently.

Then again, he couldn’t remember a whole lot as it was.

The paramedic kept talking like he didn’t realize Calisto was just watching him and not responding.

“You seem better this time—not as out of control, anyway,” the man said, shrugging one shoulder as he took another drag off the cigarette. “Then again, you had me pretty worried what with the way you were going on over your wife and whatnot.”

Calisto swallowed hard. “My wife.”

“Yeah, man. I mean, you might as well have begged to be put in her place. She was beaten pretty bad, but came out okay. It looked worse than it was. We’re not supposed to check up on our patients after we drop them off—like a distance thing to keep our head clear for the next call. But I couldn’t help it with you two. I wanted to make sure she was all right, and you were, too. I got an update from the nurse on shift that was watching her room. You never left her side.”

“My wife,” Calisto repeated quietly.

“Emma, right? That’s her name.”

Calisto didn’t respond.

He was already walking toward the hospital.

The taste of fear saturated his tongue, but it wasn’t from the current day’s events surrounding him. No, it was from something else—something he couldn’t remember, but his heart could still feel.

Pure terror.

That’s what it felt like.

He’d almost lost Emma at some point, he realized, and that felt like
terror
.

Calisto listened as the nurse stood in the doorway of the family waiting room, giving an update on Affonso’s condition. He was still in surgery. He’d lost a great deal of blood. His heart had stopped once on the table, but they brought him back from the brink. The surgery to remove the three bullets from Affonso’s chest and repair the damage to his internal organs had been touch and go for a while, but it looked good from that point forward. It was very likely he would come out of it just fine, as long as they could continue to keep him stable.

Hope lingered at the edges of the nurse’s voice as she relayed the messages to the waiting people. Calisto wasn’t really listening. His mind was somewhere else entirely.

Once the nurse was gone, Calisto resumed his spot in the corner of the room, alone in his thoughts. From the corner of his eye, he watched the people huddled in small groups, chatting amongst themselves. Most were his uncle’s men, others were friends of Affonso who had shown up after news of the shooting began to spread, and in the far corner, directly across from Calisto’s spot, was Emma.

She sat still and silent. The woman hadn’t even looked up when the nurse came in to talk about her husband’s progress and current state. Her gaze was drawn down to her rounded stomach where her hands rested, cradling the swell.

Something heavy grew in Calisto’s heart at the sight of Emma holding her pregnancy swell, all of her attention focused only on her child and not the panic surrounding her. She was still wearing the same clothes from earlier—the ones that had been stained with Affonso’s blood, but someone had taken her to wash her arms and face, thankfully.

Still, Calisto couldn’t stop staring at her.

His wife, the paramedic said.

The man thought, by Calisto’s reaction and behavior toward Emma during a time he couldn’t remember, that she was his wife.

He couldn’t let go of that—his mind wouldn’t let go of it.

Especially not while he stared at her, seeing how carefully and sweetly she ran the tips of her fingers over her swell as if to soothe the moving child within.

Shouldn’t she be more panicked?

Shouldn’t she be worried for her husband?

Calisto wasn’t stupid; he knew the marriage between Affonso and Emma was essentially a sham. But the woman was pregnant, wasn’t she? She’d lost a previous child, too. Obviously some aspect of that marriage was
real
, no matter how disgusting it felt to consider it.

Suddenly, Emma’s gaze lifted.

Instantly, she found him staring.

Calisto didn’t look away, though he knew he probably should. But the strange stirrings of heat in his stomach didn’t let up as Emma smiled at him—faint and fleeting—as her hands flattened to her rounded stomach and she glanced away.

That stirring grew, heating and flaring to life.

Calisto swallowed back the ache it caused, because shit, he didn’t even know what it meant.

How could he be attracted to Emma Donati?

She was married.

His uncle’s wife.

Pregnant.

It wasn’t right at all.

And yet, he found his gaze sliding back in her direction when he thought no one might watch him.

Oh, yes.

This was bad.

All of it.

Calisto went for his next best defense, knowing he needed space. “Someone needs to take Emma home.”

No one moved.

Wolf Puzza glanced at Calisto from his chair two seats away. “She’s the boss’s wife.”

Emma was watching Calisto now, too.

Calisto cleared his throat. “She needs to go home. Someone take her home.”

Calisto

The Donati home was dark and quiet when Calisto unlocked the front door and pushed it open. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but the darkness wasn’t it. Maybe he assumed he would find the house lit up, and Emma rushing to the door at the first sign of someone coming home with news about Affonso.

Oddly enough, Calisto felt stupid somewhere deep in his soul for even assuming so. It was like a part of him somehow knew that Emma Donati didn’t care for her husband as much as she let on when Affonso, or anyone else, was around to see the couple together. She had a part to play—she played it well.

But the woman didn’t offer very much else where her husband was concerned.

Shaking the feeling off, Calisto toed his shoes off, and hung his jacket in the coat closet. He took note of Emma’s shoes, her coat, and purse sitting in one big lump in the middle of the hallway floor just a few feet down from the front door. Like maybe she hadn’t even had the care or strength to put her things away.

Calisto understood, if that’s what she felt like. The day had been an emotional fucking hurricane all across the board. From the funeral, to the shooting. It seemed like the world was playing one huge joke on them all, and it didn’t look like it was about to let up any time soon.

So yeah, he didn’t pass judgment on the heap of belongings or the fact Emma had clearly just wanted to get the stuff off and hide away.

But he still needed to find her.

He had news.

And he had questions.

Calisto just wasn’t sure which one was more important right then.

What he did know, however, was that now was a good time to ask those questions. There was no one around to walk in on the conversation he needed to have with Emma. There was no reason for her to look over her shoulder like someone might jump out and punish her simply for talking to him.

She had no escape.

No excuses.

Not here.

Calisto wouldn’t allow her one.

She had all the answers. Somehow, he just knew she did. God knew he was owed an explanation. Whatever he had been up to—whatever
they
had been up to before his accident and amnesia—Emma had the answers he craved.

He intended to get them from her.

Every last one of them.

Calisto found that much of the rest of the Donati home was in the same condition as the front hall. Empty, dark, and lonely. It was almost like he could hear the loneliness ringing through the halls and bouncing off the walls. Or maybe … just maybe … that was his own mood reflecting the darkness surrounding him.

He wasn’t really sure.

Upstairs, Calisto found a single door open down the hallway that housed the master bedroom, other rooms for guests, and several bathrooms. The door belonged to the master bedroom. A small stream of color filtered out through the opened doorway, but it wasn’t enough to say the bedroom light was on.

It was only strange because there was no noise. Given it was ten o’clock at night, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think Emma was sleeping. Calisto didn’t know many people who slept with lights on, no matter how dim the light was.

If she was sleeping, he hoped she wouldn’t be too pissed off at his presence. He was aware of the fact she was supposed to be on bedrest, and that stress wasn’t good for her pregnancy.

Emma hadn’t given him a choice.

Her, not him.

Yeah, that’s what Calisto was going to keep telling himself. He refused to feed into the strange curiosity he had about Emma Donati. It had been building from the moment he’d first seen her face after he’d awakened. He wouldn’t admit that for longer than he cared to admit, he thought there was more behind her false smile, polite words, and the distance she put between her and him—that there might be more to them.

He couldn’t.

Except … he was feeding into it.

Calisto just wasn’t sure what
it
was.

But tonight he was going to find out.

Whether she wanted to tell him or not.

Calisto stood in the doorway of the master bedroom and looked around. The bed was made—sheets pulled perfectly flat and looking untouched. The large chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling was in fact turned off, but a stream of light came from the small crack of an opening in the door across the room leading to what he knew was one of two walk-in closets. The one that belonged to Emma.

The lump of clothing in the middle of the bedroom floor caught his eye as he took a few steps into the room. He recognized the article immediately as the dress Emma had been wearing at the funeral. The bloodstained, silk dress looked as though it had practically been ripped off, what with the way the silk was crumpled and snagged.

Calisto stepped over the dress, concern compounding in his heart. Maybe he had made the wrong choice by sending Emma home alone. She hadn’t seemed all too distressed at the hospital, but it was possible that she was better at hiding her inner turmoil than Calisto really knew.

Crossing the rest of the space, Calisto hesitated at the slightly open door to the walk-in closet. He wasn’t exactly sure what had made him pause, but his hand froze around the doorknob just before he pushed the door open.

Then, he heard the softest murmur inside the small room.

“It’s okay,
bambino
,” he heard murmured.

Emma.

Calisto pushed the door open just enough to get a view inside. He found Emma sitting in the middle of the walk-in closet on a round, white leather bench seat. Bare foot and wearing nothing but a short, silk chemise, her head was tilted down and her attention was on her rounded stomach. Her hands slid over the swell in a rhythmic fashion as she sighed. At her feet, her little dog slept.

Emma shifted on the seat, wincing slightly.

Calisto wondered if she was uncomfortable, or worse, in some kind of pain.

Her next words explained her discomfort a bit.

“I know, you’re running out of room, huh?” she asked the unborn baby softly. “
Mamma’s
sorry, sweet boy. Just a little while longer.”

Calisto knew he was intruding on a private moment that he had no right to witness. This wasn’t his place, or his space. This woman wasn’t his wife, and she wasn’t carrying his child.

He shouldn't be standing there, watching her.

But he couldn’t move.

Emma started to hum quietly under her breath, still rubbing her stomach with soothing, gentle movements. “I need you to stay in there for a little while longer, Cross. Until your daddy is ready—when he’s back to himself. Okay,
bambino
? Just a little while longer.”

Cross?

Calisto blinked, taking in the name. Something about it made him want to smile, but it also felt like a heavy weight had landed on his chest. He didn’t know why, though, because he’d never even heard it before.

Guilt compounded hard in Calisto’s emotions. Unable to spy on Emma more than he already had, he knocked gently on the door, cleared his throat for good measure, and pushed it open.

Emma didn’t even look up.

It was almost like she knew he was standing there watching her.

Had she?

“Calisto,” Emma greeted quietly.

With the door fully open, he had a much better view of how little clothing she actually had on. Calisto’s gaze traveled over Emma’s long, shapely legs straight from her bare feet right up to the creaminess of her thighs. The chemise she wore barely reached mid-thigh, and it was low cut enough to showcase her cleavage. His throat tightened, as did his slacks.

Calisto ignored those strange reactions.

This woman was married.

And pregnant.

He had no business being attracted to her.

Clearing the thickness from his voice, Calisto asked, “Would you like a moment to get dressed?”

Emma stood, reaching for a silk robe that hung off a dresser. Her pup barely moved an inch, just stayed happily sleeping by her feet like the dog had nowhere else he would rather be. She quickly pulled on the robe, and tied the sash at her waist.

“I’m fine,” Emma said. “Do you have news about Affonso?”

Calisto raised a brow, unsurprised at the dryness in her tone. She didn’t sound like she cared at all, or that she wanted to know anything.

“Do you care to hear it?”

“He’s my husband.”

“That’s not an answer,” Calisto said.

Emma didn’t break his gaze for a second. “I suspect he’s not dead, or you probably wouldn’t be here. At least, I would think you’d have other things to take care of. I called Cynthia and Michelle’s school. I had their flights booked—they’ll be here in two days. I’m sure Affonso will want his children.”

“He probably will.”

“Yes, well, if that’s all you came for—to tell me that he’s survived the surgeries—you can go.”

Calisto took a step into the small room, not finished in the slightest. He had other things he wanted to know—things that had very little to do with his uncle.

Yet, the second he walked in, he also stopped.

His gaze dropped to the floor.

White marble stared back at him.

Calisto had looked at the floor before—he’d seen white marble.

This time, he looked again.

He saw something different.

He heard gentle breaths, and sharp gasps.

He saw his fingers raking down pale skin. He tasted salt and sweetness on his tongue when he kissed a shoulder blade, and tangled his fingers into the dark, wavy hair of the woman beneath him. Her clothes were on the floor, mixed up with his things.

Her words—the high cries of his name—came from trembling, pink lips and echoed.

Echoed
in a dark, quiet room.

Seeped
into his bloodstream.

Burrowed
into his soul.

Calisto could feel her.

Soft skin.

Wetness and heat.

Tight and slick.

And he knew that skin, knew those green eyes, that silky hair, and her voice.

Her voice
.

Jesus Christ.

“Cal?”

Calisto blinked.

He fisted his hands at his sides, and breathed deep.

“Cal?” Emma asked again.

For a moment, Calisto didn’t really hear her. He was in a different place, a different time.

White marble.

Clothes on the floor.

Gasps filling a quiet penthouse.

I think I would keep you
, he remembered saying.

A gentle touch to his cheek made Calisto’s head snap up. It broke the daze—the memory drifted away. Instead, he found himself staring into worried, expressive green eyes as Emma stroked his cheek with her thumb.

“Calisto, are you okay?”

He blinked again.

A frown tugged Emma’s painted red lips down.

Oddly, he wanted to run his thumb over her lips.

Just … touch her.

But he couldn’t really remember why. He did remember something—that night, in Vegas. It had to be Vegas. He didn’t remember what led up to it, what happened that day, or why he had been in bed with Emma, but clearly he had.

At some point, he had taken this woman.

And she was not his to have.

Emma moved a little closer to him. Calisto wanted to step back—distance would be better—but he didn’t move. He liked the smell of her perfume, and the way she was watching him.

“Vegas,” Calisto said, his tone barely breaking a whisper.

Emma gaze flashed with knowing, and she nodded once. “Vegas.”

“White marble.”

“My floors,” she murmured, smiling gently. “What else, Cal? What else do you remember?”

“You.” The word came out in a breath, nothing more. “Me.”

Emma sighed shakily. “That doesn’t tell me a lot.”