Mariella grew up in the foster care system, abused every day until she found solace in the most unexpected form; Mateo, the son of an Italian mob leader.
Fate brought the two together, but when it tears them apart, how is she supposed to cope? Espe...
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Mariella's POV
"Teo, stop." I reprimand in the firmest tone that my scratchy voice will allow.
Mateo sits on a side chair, glaring at the two nurses who are adjusting my IV and a few other medications they have me on. They're simply doing their jobs but taking care of me, but he, however, doesn't see it that way.
He's luckily calmed down from when the nurses came into the room not long ago. He tends to sleep like a child and wasn't very pleased when he was asked to get up off the bed so that they could tend to me.
Every flinch or sign of pain that I show, his glare intensifies. It's scary. I think the nurses feel the same way with how they've become much more frantic. For their sake and mine, even though I'm being poked with needles, I've suppressed my emotions. I'd rather not end up hurt as an unfortunate consequence of a rushing nurse's. No thanks.
My eyes narrow in on him as his glare shifts up to me. Almost instantly his posture softens, along with the sour look on his face. Although he still doesn't look very pleasant, I decide to let it go.
He sighs, his shoulders deflating.
"I'm sorry....." He trails off grumpily like a three-year-old being denied graham crackers.
I nod in response. I understand how he feels. It's the same way I reacted when I took Angel to the doctor for his broken arm and watched them poke and prod at him.
He was at a youth soccer game when some douchy little brat tripped him, which was completely on purpose. Well, I think it was. I was too caught up in the moment to really pay attention to who's fault it was if it was really anyone's.
"Ma'am, we need to examine your ankles," One of the nurses announces, glancing up at Mateo before asking sheepishly, "If that's ok?"
He gives them permission through a hesitant nod and pursed lips, causing me to roll my eyes. They shouldn't need permission to do their job and help me.
Apparently, when we arrived at the hospital I began to pass out from the loss of blood. The gunshot wound was gushing that it had soaked Mateo. The thought makes me involuntarily gag. I can't help but cringe at the thought of blood touching my bare skin, no matter who's it was. Even Mateo's reassurance that it wasn't that bad didn't ease my discomfort.
They had to do emergency surgery on me and needed to let me recover at least slightly before fixing anything else. Too much trauma for my body to handle or something. They had, however, been able to do an X-ray on my badly bruised ankles. They just haven't given us the results yet, which angered an impatient Mateo.
