Chapter 123: Operation: Make Dracula Talk About His Feelings

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Lorenzo stayed by my side throughout the exam, one hand resting on the bed’s edge while his gaze tracked every movement of the medical staff.

He looked like he would interrogate the poor, innocent bandages if they were applied wrongly, and when the nurse cleaned a particularly nasty cut near my elbow, his jaw tightened so noticeably that I almost felt the urge to reassure him it wasn’t my first time dealing with antiseptic.

Almost. Unfortunately, I was just too exhausted to be generous.

"Be gentle with him." Lorenzo said to the nurse.

The nurse nodded frantically, not at all looking to offend a straight up Mafia boss. "Yes, of course sir."

"You’re doing that thing again," I told him.

"What thing?"

"Looking at the nurse like you’re thinking about firing her."

The Beta nurse glanced at him. "It doesn’t appear deep enough, sir, but I’ll have the doctor confirm."

"See?" I said weakly. "Now you’ve scared the poor lady into double-checking."

Lorenzo ignored me, which was probably a smart move since I suspected my humor was relying on the same damaged power supply as the rest of me. I wasn’t sure what else to do in my defense...I’d never been treated by an actual medical team before... nor had I ever survived an actual bomb.

Guess there was a first time for everything.

While the staff kept treating me, Timothy arrived with a couple of other guards. Their clothes were dusty, and one had a bandage around his forehead, but they were both on their feet.

Timothy looked relieved when he saw me, but that expression vanished quickly when Lorenzo turned to him.

"Report."

Timothy stepped closer, lowering his voice. "We’ve managed to contact most of the teams. Several guests were taken to nearby hospitals, and our men are assisting emergency services wherever they can. We still haven’t confirmed the total number of casualties."

Lorenzo’s expression revealed nothing. "And the building?"

"Extensive structural damage. The ballroom and the adjoining section took the brunt of it. Authorities are treating the site as a major criminal incident."

"Any signs of the men who planted the device?"

"Not yet. We’ve identified two individuals involved in the attempted abduction, but we don’t have confirmation on their identities or whether they made it out."

"Then find out."

"Yes, sir."

"And Volpe?"

I narrowed my eyes at my light haired husband, so he did know this Volpe.

Timothy hesitated for a moment. "We found evidence that the operation was planned well in advance. Whoever arranged it had detailed knowledge of the event’s security procedures and about your movements. We’re looking into how they got that information."

Lorenzo’s eyes turned icy. "Start with everyone who had access to the schedule."

Timothy nodded, but before he could leave, Lorenzo added, "Quietly. I don’t want anyone tipped off that we’re investigating an internal leak until we know who’s involved."

"Understood."

The men withdrew, and the door shut behind them.

I watched Lorenzo for a moment, trying to reconcile the man who kissed my hand in the car with the man discussing a bombing, an attempted kidnapping, and a potential traitor without his voice faltering.

His expression was still controlled, posture straight, already focused on the next problem to tackle. It was like he had locked away everything he felt somewhere out of my reach and tossed the key.

I knew he cared. I felt it in his arms after I returned to the ballroom, and I had heard the fear in his voice when he urged me to look at him after the explosion.

But he had this ability to set his feelings aside whenever survival was at stake, and I was starting to realize this wasn’t a recent skill, he had learned it long before I entered his life, maybe even as a kid. That thought left an unsettling ache in my chest.

By the time the doctor finished with me, my hands had been cleaned and bandaged, the cut on my elbow was dressed properly, and they had documented the worst of my bruising.

They prescribed pain medication after reviewing what I could have been given during the kidnapping, and the doctor went over his instructions regarding rest and monitoring my symptoms until I was almost tempted to ask if he planned on giving me a written test at the end. I was also told I couldn’t leave until they were certain I was stable.

Lorenzo, of course, agreed with that before I could even open my mouth.

The damn traitor.

When the doctor and nurse finally stepped away, the room fell silent, and I realized I had been holding myself together mainly because there had been too many people around to fall apart comfortably.

Now, without distractions, the clean white sheets, pristine floor, and fresh bandages did little to mask the lingering smell of smoke in my hair, as if the night had followed me inside and politely refused to wash away.

I looked at Lorenzo, who was near the window with his phone in one hand, listening to another report. His face was slightly turned away, and the clinic’s pale light illuminated his profile, accentuating the sharpness of his jaw and the exhaustion he was doing a stellar job of hiding. He appeared perfectly composed. And for some reason, that made me angry.

When he ended the call, I spoke before I could talk myself out of it.

"Why aren’t you as scared as shit as I am?"

Lorenzo turned to me. "What?"

"The explosion, the lives lost, the building collapsing around us. You witnessed it all, and now you’re just standing there making calls like someone merely bumped into you and changed a meeting time."

His expression was still, though his eyes narrowed slightly. "You think I’m not shaken?"

"I think you’re really good at pretending you’re not."

For a moment, he was silent. Then he slipped his phone into his pocket, approached the bed, and pulled a chair closer, sitting down in front of me with unhurried movements.

"Do you want the honest answer, Alex?"

I met his gaze. "Preferably. I’ve had enough surprises for one night."

"The honest answer is that I’ve seen worse."

He spoke those words not with cruelty but with a simplicity that cut deeper than I expected. Lorenzo rested his forearms on his knees, looking at me with those steady green eyes.

"I’ve watched men die. I’ve seen people I trusted betray me, and I’ve made choices that determined whether others lived or died. There have been moments when innocent people were caught in the middle of things they had no part in, and times when I’ve been responsible for the violence that followed."

I was at a loss for words. He had never pretended to be innocent. I understood who he was, and I’d seen enough of his world to know that being part of the mafia was far more than just a fancy title attached to a nice suit.

Still, there was a difference between knowing that the man that loved me had blood on his hands and hearing him calmly acknowledge the lives he’d seen vanish.

"I don’t tell you these things to frighten you, my love." he continued. "But I won’t lie to you about my life. In my world, feelings can be a liability, if I allow myself to break down every time something terrible happens, I won’t be able to protect those who rely on me."

"So you just shut it off?"

"No." His gaze softened slightly. "I put it aside until I can afford to feel it."

I looked down at my bandaged hands.

"And what if you never have time to feel it?"

Something shifted in his expression, so briefly that I might have missed it if I hadn’t been watching closely. "Then it becomes part of you."

His answer filled the room, and I felt a chill that had little to do with the clinic’s air conditioning. I recalled the scars on his chest, pale lines crossing his skin like a history he never wanted to explain.

I remembered how sometimes he would wake from sleep, his body tense and expression distant, as if he returned from somewhere he couldn’t describe. I thought about the boy he must have been before the world taught him that vulnerability was dangerous, and I wondered how much of that boy was still beneath the man sitting before me.

I had spent so much time worrying about what Lorenzo might do to others that I hadn’t always considered what others had done to him.

"That sounds so freaking miserable," I whispered.

His lips curved faintly, but there was no real amusement behind it. "It isn’t always."

"You’re a really good liar."

"Only when necessary."

"Well, I hope you realize that one day, I’m going to make you sit down and talk about your feelings like a regular person would."

And just like that, I was reminded of why I even agreed to this marriage-divorce scam a year ago.