Chapter 2 - The Awakening
Pain was the first thing that returned to me.
It didn’t come as a flash or a jolt; it rose like black water, thick and suffocating, flooding every inch of my body until my nerve endings felt as though they had been stripped bare and set ablaze. My chest was crushed beneath an impossible weight. Every shallow inhalation felt like inhaling pulverized glass.
I couldn't move. I couldn't scream. There was only the rhythmic, hollow hiss of a ventilator pushing air into lungs that no longer remembered how to expand on their own, and the steady, maddening *beep-beep-beep* of a heart monitor keeping track of what little life remained in me.
I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids were glued shut by exhaustion and heavy sedatives. In the haze of the sterile dark, voices floated above me. Low. Guarded. Dangerous.
"Her vitals are stabilizing, Boss, but the thoracic surgeon said the fourth round was a millimeter from her pulmonary artery. If she coughs too hard, the sutures could tear." That was a rough, gravelly voice. A soldier's voice. Enzo.
"She won't tear," came the second voice.
It was deeper, smoother, and laced with a quiet, lethal authority that made the hairs on my skin prickle through the numbness. Dominic Rossi.
"She took seven rounds meant for my mother and survived six hours on an operating table without flatlining," Dominic continued, his voice closer now, hovering just inches above my right side. "She isn’t going to die from a cough."
"The papers are processed," Enzo murmured, the rustle of stiff parchment cutting through the hum of the ICU. "Father Thomas signed the certificate under emergency dispensation. The state registrar received the expedited filing through our channels an hour ago. Legally, religiously, she is your wife. But Dominic... Costa knows."
"Let him know."
"He has three crews combing through Queens looking for her mother. If he gets to that clinic in Cleveland—"
A cold panic struck through my paralyzed limbs like lightning. *Cleveland. My mother.*
My heart monitor spiked. The beeps fractured from a steady rhythm into a wild, frantic alarm. *Beep-beep-beep-beep.*
"Clear the room," Dominic commanded.
"Boss—"
"Get out, Enzo. And tell the security team outside that if a single unauthorized person steps onto this floor, they don't get warned. They get buried."
Footsteps retreated, a heavy door clicked shut, and suddenly the overwhelming scent of winter pine, leather, and smoke enveloped me. A warm, calloused hand wrapped gently around my left wrist. It was startlingly tender for a man who spoke so casually about graves.
"Breathe, Tessa," he murmured.
My real name. He spoke it not like an employer addressing a hired hand, but like a man reading an incantation he had practiced in secret.
"You're fighting the machine," Dominic said, his thumb brushing slowly over the delicate bones of my knuckles. "Stop fighting. You’re safe. Your mother is safe. Do you hear me? I moved her. She isn’t in Cleveland anymore. She’s at Mass General in Boston, under my family’s name, surrounded by four of my best men and the best cardiac specialists in North America. No one touches her."
My chest hitched. The tears I couldn't stop slipped hot and silent from the corners of my eyes, soaking into the cotton of the pillow.
"Open your eyes," he whispered, his voice vibrating right against my temple. "Look at me, Tessa."
I forced my eyes open.
The light was blinding at first—a muted, sterile gray filtered through heavy blinds. But as the world slowly resolved, the shadows took form, and there he was.
Dominic Rossi was no longer wearing the pristine midnight tuxedo from the Aster Crown ballroom. He wore a crisp black dress shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, the sleeves rolled up to reveal thick, corded forearms etched with faded scars. His dark hair was slightly mussed, his jaw lined with dark stubble, and his amber-brown eyes—sharp, predatory, and unreadable—were fixed entirely on me.
He looked exhausted, yet there was a coiled, terrifying energy in him, like a tiger standing guard over its kill.
I tried to speak, but the plastic tube down my throat gagged me. Panic flared again, my fingers twitching against the stiff bedsheets.
"Don't," he ordered softly, his hand instantly steadying mine. "The intubation tube comes out in an hour. Don't fight it."
My eyes darted frantically around the room. It wasn’t a standard ICU ward. It was a massive, corner private suite retrofitted with state-of-the-art life-support equipment. Through the crack in the door, I could see two men in charcoal suits standing rigidly, hands folded over their waists, their jacket lapels bulging with concealed firearms.
Then, my gaze fell back down to where his fingers held mine.
On my left ring finger—swollen, bruised, and punctured by an IV needle—sat a thick, immaculate band of brushed yellow gold. It gleamed under the fluorescent lights with heavy, suffocating permanence.
I stared at it, my breath catching in my throat. I looked up at him, my brow furrowing, my eyes demanding the truth.
Dominic didn’t flinch. He didn't look away. He slowly brought my hand up to his lips, kissing the ring, his dark eyes never leaving mine.
"You threw yourself in front of seven hollow-point rounds to save the life of Isabella Rossi," he said, each word deliberate, heavy as an iron anchor. "In doing so, you made yourself the number one target of the Costa syndicate. Victor Costa wants you erased because your survival makes him look weak. He thinks you are a nobody. A catering temp he can silence to clean up his mess."
He leaned in, until his lips brushed against the curve of my ear. The warmth of his skin was an agonizing contrast to the icy dread spreading through my veins.
"I don't protect strangers, Tessa. The men who work for me don't bleed for hired help. But a Rossi? A wife of this family?" His breath hitched, dark and possessive. "Every soldier I have will die before they let someone lay a hand on you. You're not Tessa Vance, the broke waitress from Brooklyn anymore."
He pulled back, his gaze burning into mine with an intensity that terrified me far more than the bullets had.
May you like
"You are Mrs. Dominic Rossi. And from this second on, anyone who wants your blood will have to bathe in mine first."
***
