Demand (Careless Whispers #2)(9)

“Ella. Ella, easy now.”

I blink at the sound of Matteo’s voice, becoming aware of him to my left and Marabella at my right.

“Ella,” Marabella repeats. “You’re okay.”

I blink again and realize I’m gripping Giada’s shoulders, and I’m not sure if I’m shaking or she is. “Ella,” she pleads, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Ella, I—”

“Need to go to your room, like Marabella said.”

I let her go, turning and starting down the stairs, my legs trembling with each step. Who was the man who was dead? Who was I afraid of? I try to replay the memory in my mind, to will the images to materialize, but they don’t. I am a blank space, and it’s infuriating. I want my memories back, and, ironically, I barely remember the walk to the foyer, or the moment I punch the button to raise the door again. But it’s lifting and I impatiently duck underneath again, making a beeline for the stairwell leading to the central tower, and hoping for good news about Enzo. I really need some good news right now.





three




I’m halfway to the landing when I’m suddenly in his bedroom, whoever he is, and I’m on my knees in front of a drawer, staring down at a gun. I blink and I’m on the landing, staring at the closed door to Adriel’s collectibles store, and it just plain freaks me out that I seem to be blacking out. What is wrong with me? Aside from a man nearly bleeding to death while I held his wound shut?

I turn left, the direction Kayden had indicated I’d find Enzo, and travel down the stone hallway, the many closed doors reminding me that this entire tower was shut for years for a very good reason. This is where Kayden’s fiancée and mentor were slaughtered. The very idea has me shoving my hands in the pockets of my hoodie, with the impossible hope of warming any part of me. I just pray that maybe, just maybe, this place can now be the tower where Enzo gets a second chance at life.

Finally I reach an open room, pausing a moment before entering to steel myself for whatever awaits me inside. Inhaling, I round the corner, finding a room one might expect to be a getaway at an inn, with crackling flames in the fireplace framed by a pair of narrow, rectangular windows, and a sleigh bed directly in front of me, sitting on a blue-and-gray rug. But any coziness it might hold is turned bitter and chilled by the sight of Enzo lying in the bed, an IV feeding a bag of blood into his arm and a beeping heart monitor sitting next to the headboard. He is pale and lifeless, and I have a bad feeling about how this is going to turn out.

“Ella.”

At the sound of my name, I look to the far left corner to find Nathan sitting in a large leather chair, his white button-down shirt stained with blood. His hands are scrubbed clean, telling me he’s done what he can for Enzo. I walk toward him and tentatively claim the ottoman in front of him. “How bad is it?”

“The next few hours are going to be touch and go.”

“Should he be in a hospital?”

“What he needed was blood. We got that for him. The question is whether it was soon enough.”

“An hour ago, I didn’t want to know where that blood came from,” I say. “Now I do.”

“Kayden donates generously to a hospital nearby,” he supplies.

“That was a fast answer.”

“And an honest one,” he says.

“If it is—”

“It is,” he says firmly.

“Then it’s a better answer than I’d expected.”

He studies me a long moment, his intelligent brown eyes weary. “You’re very calm about all of this.”

“Considering I drew a gun on Kayden, I doubt he’d agree,” I surprise myself by saying, not sure what I hope to get in reply.

“There’s a new twist on foreplay,” he says, and any other time it would be funny. But not now. Not in this room.

“You aren’t going to ask why I did it?”

“Having someone’s life in your hands is a lot of pressure,” he says, getting right to the crux of my emotions.

“Says the doctor covered in the blood of the man I tried to save.”

“He wouldn’t be alive right now, if not for you. What you did took a level head and training.”

“Tell me that if Enzo lives.” I glance at his blood-soaked clothes. “Do you want me to get you something of Kayden’s to change into?”

“My clothes are the least of my worries right now,” he says, a hint of his native Canadian accent in his voice I’ve never noticed before. It must be stress induced. “But thank you.” He studies me intently. “Where did you get medical training?”

“My father was some sort of Special Forces and trained as a medic. He taught me.”

He arches a surprised brow. “Did you get your memory back and forget to tell your doctor?”

“Small pieces of things are slowly coming back to me, as you said they would. But I’m a little concerned. Tonight I blacked out in the middle of my flashbacks.”

“Define ‘blacked out.’?”

“I was angry at Giada for calling Gallo and—”

“She’s why he was here?”

“Yes, she is. I was furious at her, and it triggered a memory. One minute I was giving her a piece of my mind, and the next I was shaking her shoulders without any memory of doing so.”