Reparation of Sin: A Sovereign Sons Novel Zavarelli, A. (online e book reading txt) 📖

So I get up and go to the door. I try it, but I know it’s locked. I call out, but no one answers, and I don’t know what I want. I go to the desk, opening the drawers until I find a pen and some of that De La Rosa letterhead. I tear off their family crest, crushing that part and dropping it at my feet, then return to the bed where I lie down again and set the paper beside me.

When I start to write, the pen punctures the paper at the Dear. The aspirin can’t be working that fast, though. This is probably exhaustion. Starvation. I feel dizzy, a different sort of dizzy than usual, so I close my eyes for a minute. But when I open them again, I know it’s been longer than a minute.

I feel sweaty, disoriented, and heavy. I sit up, squinting against the double vision. I swing my legs off the bed, and a wave of nausea hits me so hard, I drop to my hands and knees and vomit before I can even think about trying to make it to the bathroom. Another wave comes, and I throw up some more. After dry heaving, I sit back, one hand on my belly, the other on my forehead, my breathing shallow and labored.

My ears are ringing, and I swear I can hear my own heart beat too fast.

A noise at the door has me turn my head, but when it opens, the room spins, the girl freezing when she sees me, her mouth falling open.

I think I reach out for her and try to say something. The man is inside, the look on his face panicked. The girl screams, and the man calls out for help, but that ringing is too loud. I can’t seem to keep my eyes open, and the last thing I see is the empty bottle of aspirin rolling under the desk.

33 Ivy

I’m not in my bedroom anymore. The smell is different. The sounds. The light. I lie still and listen and try to remember. Something tugs at my arm, but when I try to pull away, I can’t, and the first thing I think is I’m back in that cellar.

Panic grips me.

“It’s all right,” a woman says. “Shh. Nothing to worry about, love.” She has an English accent. “There you go. Just relax.”

I try to open my eyes, but the lids are too heavy, and a moment later, I’m gone again. The light is different when I next wake to the sound of men’s voices talking quietly.

“Dehydration in addition. She vomited most of it on her own from the sound of it.”

“Why is she restrained?” This voice I recognize.

Santiago. He’s here. He's come back to me.

I want to call out to him. Touch him.

“She tried to pull the IV out. We’ll remove those as soon as we can.”

IV?

“When will she wake up?”

“When she’s ready. Her body is exhausted. It’s working twice as hard now. Give her time, Santiago.” I hear affection in the voice of this man.

“You’re sure about that?” Santiago asks. He sounds worried.

“Blood tests don’t lie.”

I hear him exhale. “Thank you, Doctor.”

Doctor.

I realize what that smell is. Why the light is different. I’m surprised I didn’t recognize it before. I’m at the hospital.

A door opens and closes, and someone moves, footsteps coming closer. I smell his aftershave over the antiseptic, and despite all that’s happened and all that he’s done to me, it’s a comfort.

Fingers brush my forehead, then my cheek.

I turn my face into his touch and feel a chill as the blanket is pulled away. But he’s touching me again then, touching me gently, fingers feather-light over my arm, my belly. A hand laid flat there, big and warm.

I want to open my eyes, but I can’t. I’m so tired. I try to move my hand at least, try to touch his, but something doesn’t let me.

“Shh,” he says. “Sleep.” The blanket is tucked up around my shoulders again, warm but not as warm as when he touches me, and I feel myself drift even though I feel him move away. I want to tell him to stay with me. And when I manage to momentarily open my eyes in the dim light coming from a machine to my right, I see him sitting in the chair across from mine, one ankle crossed over the other knee, eyes dark and intent, watching me.

* * *

I wake up because I’m hungry. Ravenous. Someone is humming, and the light is suddenly too bright.

I groan, turn away, blink, but then it’s dimmed again.

“There she is. I know it’s early, but you need to wake up. You need to eat. Doctor’s orders. Come now, love.”

Opening my eyes, I see the needles and tube sticking out of one arm. “What…?” But it’s when I try to pull at my arms that the real panic sets in.

The door opens, closes.

I look up, meet his eyes, and freeze. He freezes too.

“You can go, nurse,” Santiago says, not taking his eyes off me.

“I’ll just give her—”

“I said go.”

My gaze shifts to the elderly nurse standing beside my bed, looking up at Santiago’s face, riveted by it.

He’s wearing a hat, keeping it in shadow. At least half of it. It’s daytime. I see the light coming in from around the blinds. It’s not like him to be out during the day.

“I should make sure she eats, sir.”

“I am capable of taking care of my wife. My family.”

Family? That’s an odd way to say it.

The nurse nods, glancing once at me before hurrying away. I watch her go, and when the door closes, I turn slowly back to find Santiago’s eyes still locked on me.

I don’t speak right away. I can’t. I try to pull my hands up again, but the leather restraints don’t allow me to move.

“What’s happening?”

He pulls up the chair and sits down, taking off his hat and setting it on the table beside my