The gentle flush flush flush of hospital equipment reached me first. Then the light blazing against my eyelids. I open my eyes, blinking against the too-bright fluorescents. I’d woken in hospital beds before. Never after having been kidnapped and beat up by a bunch of Italians though.

A warm weight on my forearm prompted me to look down. Kat’s hair lay splayed across my sterile white sheets, one of her hands clutched around my arm, her other twisted at an ungodly angle so she could entwine our fingers together.

The side of her cheek was barely visible through her ponytail, and the gray sweater enveloped her shoulders. She appeared so peaceful like this. Tiny. So very fragile. I swallowed against a wave of nausea arching through me at the thought of her lying in a bed like this. She’d break, and right now, I couldn’t do a thing about it. Where were my guards? Where were hers?

I gently tugged her hand from mine, about to find them, or my cell phone to call them, and she jumped away, hair flying around her head. “You’re awake.”

“Where are the guards?” My voice cracked. “Do you have some water?”

She leaned over her chair and came back up with a bottle in her hand. Before I could grasp it, she cracked the top, took a swig from it, and handed it to me. I shifted up, and a sharp pain shot down my side, robbing me of breath. She cupped my hand around the bottle, helped me take a few sips, and then and gently reclined me into the bed again.

“You need to be careful. You have two broken ribs on that side. And Gerry is outside the door. He checks every employee on a list and won’t let anyone in until they talk to him. I think he misses you at home.”

“Is that all? It feels like someone took a sledgehammer to my lungs.” I tried to steady my inhales and exhales, moderate the air best I could. Other aches and pains began to filter in as I continued to pull from sleep. My left wrist sported a serious bandage, and my two middle fingers were splinted together with tape and wooden sticks.

I tried to pull apart what happened. The bar…Holt trying to drag me to the car. Someone ambushed us. I closed my eyes against the pain and the haze. “Damn. What happened?”

She scooted her chair closer the edge of my bed and grasped my hand. It seemed more for her support than mine. “You went to the bar, got drunk, Holt tried to bring you home, but a couple of guys from the Aristo family knocked him out, left him on the curb, and brought you to one of their houses.”

“That’s about what I remember.”

She wouldn’t meet my eyes, instead staring intently at the bedding and our entwined fingers. I’d allow it for now, but if she felt some sort of guilt about what happened to me, I didn’t care if I broke another rib. I’d strip her of that notion and whatever else I needed to get it through her thick skull.

“I don’t know what happened on that side except they held you there with the heir to the Cambio family and Prospero from Biondello. Apparently, they refused to join with Aristo and Litio against me. They were in similar shape as you. Prospero is at home being cared for, and Lucien is next door.”

“But how did I end up here? For a little while, I think I’d resigned myself to the end.”

Her fingers tightened on my arm, and her jaw tightened. “They turned it into a game. Set a ransom for each of you, called their families, and whoever’s next of kin showed up first, they got to live. But I doubt they intended that for you.”

“And then what happened?”

“Holt came back to the house and told us what happened. Gerry stepped up to take control of the situation, we, er…had a conversation, and I let him accompany me to get you. We arrived at the Aristo compound, found you guys, and I persuaded Argyll and Benedict they should choose another course and another person to pay penance.”

None of that sounded familiar. I didn’t even remember Kat arriving. I would have liked to see her pitted against those bastards.

“What did you do to get us out of there?”

She tucked her chin again, and I tried to stretch my other arm across to force her eyes to mine. Another rocket of pain shot down my nerve endings. “I’m going to keep moving if you continue to hide things from me. Do you feel guilty about me being here? Is that why you won’t look at me?”

She swallowed heavily and glanced up. “Guilt. Not for you, but what I did to them.”

“What did you do?”

A sheen of tears coated her eyes and threatened to thread down her cheeks. She held them back until she could speak again. “Years ago, when my father assumed control of the five families, he captured the loved ones of the leaders and forced them under threat of violence to accede. I didn’t take anyone, like he did, but I threatened it.” A sob came out of her, a sound I’d never heard before. My heart splintered. I wanted to hold her, but I could barely move to reach for her.

“I listed off where their kids were one by one, and implied I had them at gun point. Argyll wanted to push me, but Benedict is old enough to remember my father and his ruthlessness. He gave in and released you and the others.”

“What did you do to Argyll?”

Another tip of her chin toward her chest.

“Stop it.”

She shook head back and forth and back and forth. Her voice cracked as she answered. “I shot him with my father’s gun.”

“Is he dead?”

“I thought so, as I’d never shot anyone before, but no, he’ll live. He’s under his family’s care, and his daughter Rebecca has now been appointed to take care of his family business.”

“Where did you shoot him?”

She threw up her hands trying to explain and reason through the guilt I could tell wracked her. “He kicked you while you were already passed out. I thought you were dead. I shot him in the knee once to make him kneel, and then I shot him in the stomach, low. I didn’t want to kill him, but I wanted to put him in more pain than you. Gerry said I barely missed the important organs.”

I pulled her by the arm to standing so I could bring her closer. She inched along the rail until her face came along side mine. “Kiss me.”

She leaned in and planted a chaste peck on my mouth.

“Kiss me, woman,” I said, louder this time, a growl on the end.

This time, she leaned over the bed, every jostle hurt like hell, but I didn’t show it. She pressed her lips to mine, still soft but a little deeper. When she leaned back, I reached out again with a hiss.

“Stay still, you bastard, or I’m going to make the doctor tie you to the bed.”

“I don’t think I’m up for bondage yet, but give me a few weeks, and we can get there.” I tried to smile, but the pain beat through me on a steady wave.

She reached around the sheets and pressed a button near my hip. “You’ll feel fine in a second. Lay back, rest. I’m not going anywhere.”

A cold tingle went up my arm, and my vision went a little hazy. “You know I love you right? My crazy, impossible shrew.”

She gave me a smile, and my injuries probably were the only thing keeping me from further damage for calling her that. “I love you, too, you fucking bastard. Now sleep.”