Callahan.
Loud voices cut through the nothingness of a heavy sleep. A familiar sleep. One I don’t want.
“Let me through.” I recognize this one. The others I don’t know. All men and one woman. She’s the reasonable one.
“For fuck’s sake if you don’t get out of my way, I’m going to kill every one of you mother fuckers.”
Antonio. I try to make my face work but something’s wrong. I want to tell them to let him in. But let him in where? And why can’t I fucking move? Why can’t I wake up?
“He’s being moved from your facility,” another familiar voice says. Diamente. Yes, Diamente. He’s also reasonable. Calm.
“Get security up here,” the woman’s voice says.
There’s a crash and then the voices are louder.
“Shit.” Antonio again.
I should open my eyes. I’m trying to.
“Cal.” It’s Antonio and he’s closer now. “Fuck. Cal. Fuck. Open your eyes, man.”
Someone pulls up an eyelid and shines a bright light into my eye. I groan against the intrusion. At least I can groan. Make some sound of resistance.
“He’s heavily sedated. Help me. Take that.”
I feel my arm lifted then set back down before someone prods my side. Now that fucking hurts.
“There’s no reason for him to be sedated. Surgery was over a full twenty-four hours ago.” The last part fades out as I start to drift off again. Maybe I can go back to that beach. See Elizabeth and mom one more time. What had they said last time?
“Wake up, Brother,” Antonio says and in usual form, he slaps my face a couple of times. “You need to open your eyes. I need you to open your fucking eyes.”
“Let’s get him on that stretcher. Antonio, you take that side.” It’s Dr. Marino.
The instant I’m lifted pain cuts through my side. That groan must be me because the doctor’s yelling at them to be careful.
“Can’t you give him something to wake him up?” Antonio snaps, his tone urgent. He’s closer to my ear now and I’m being rolled. I hear Diamente again and the woman.
They’re arguing, Diamente will win.
“It won’t be safe,” Dr. Marino says.
I hear a ding. An elevator. The wheels bump as they cross the threshold and I feel my side again. My head lolls and I open my eyes, or I think I do, and I see Fernando Mancini. I see his dead eyes. See the knife in his throat.
I put it there. I killed him.
The doors swoosh open and we’re rolling again. A few minutes later, we’re outside. I feel it in the change of temperature, in the fresh, not chemically scented air.
“Is he answering?” Antonio asks someone.
“Nothing yet. Calls are going right to voice mail. He must have his phone off.”
“Diamente,” Antonio says as I’m loaded into something. Whoever is lifting the stretcher is not careful but I’m drifting again. “Do you have my uncle’s private number? My phone is dead, and I don’t remember it.”
A sense of dread washes over me. Why is he trying to call him? He shouldn’t. I need to warn him but I’m not sure why.
“We’ll wait to call him when Callahan is awake and alert,” Daimente says.
“Fuck that. Fuck. He needs to know he’s alive. Fuck!”
“It can wait. He can wait.”
“No, he can’t.”
“What’s the urgency, Antonio?”
That dread is back.
“David sends his regards.”
I swallow. Even that fucking hurts.
“No.” It comes out a groan as I fight whatever has me in this sleep state.
“Cal?” Antonio asks. We’re in a moving vehicle. I feel that much. “Come on, man. I thought you were fucking dead. Please wake the fuck up!”
“Antonio. Take it easy,” the doctor says. “He’ll wake up soon. I gave him something to hurry it along as much as I safely can.”
“How long?” Antonio asks.
“Couple of hours.”
“We may not have a couple of hours.”
“Well get him to the island. To his own bed. Portia being there will help,” Diamente says.
Portia.
“If you die, she dies.”
I feel my hands fist at least a little. It feels like that time I heard Lenore and David talking. I was waking up. It was a memory. I know now. I’m sure.
Betrayed. He betrayed me twice. But why did he let me live? Why not kill me, too? Why not kill Antonio and me both?
“She’s not there, ” my brother says, his tone more quiet.
“What do you mean she’s not there?” Diamente asks.
The vehicle takes a turn. I swear I feel every fucking thing in my side where Fernando managed to stab me before I killed him.
“Antonio?” It’s Diamente again.
“David took her. We thought he was dead. Someone told him Fernando had killed Callahan and he took her.”
David took Portia?
“Took her where?” Diamente asks.
“Fuck.” Silence. Weighted silence I can feel. “I don’t know.”
Something begins to beep frantically, and I feel hands on me, the doctor telling Antonio and Diamente to back off.
“He said he knew exactly what to do with her,” Antonio says so quietly that I almost don’t hear.
“You let him take your brother’s wife?”
“I thought… he told me Cal was dead! I thought she’d betrayed him. Tipped off Fernando. I thought… Fuck!”