Chapter 154 Together
Third person pov
“…you won’t stay in your bed! You keep pulling out your IV. You keep insisting on being moved. You’re going to kill yourself, sir!”
Gavin finally looked at her. His expression was completely bored. Almost annoyed.
“I will die if I’m not in the same space with her,” he said flatly. “Is that too much for anyone to understand?”
The nurse opened her mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again.
“Sir, that’s not…you can’t just…medical protocol…”
“I don’t care about medical protocol.” Gavin’s voice was calm but absolute. “Either you move my bed into this room or I keep getting up and walking here myself. Your choice.”
The nurse looked at Melissa. As if hoping for support.
Melissa just started crying harder. Not from sadness this time.
From relief.
Pure, overwhelming relief.
Gavin was alive. Bandaged and pale and looking like death warmed over. But alive.
He was being stubborn and impossible and so perfectly himself.
Alive.
“I can’t…” The nurse looked between them. “The doctor needs to approve…”
“Then get the doctor,” Gavin interrupted. “And while you’re at it, bring me actual food. Not whatever watered-down hospital garbage you’ve been trying to feed me.”
The nurse threw her hands up again. “You’re impossible!”
“So I’ve been told.”
She stormed out. Muttering about difficult patients and medical malpractice lawsuits.
The door closed and Silence fell. Melissa and Gavin just looked at each other.
She was still crying. Couldn’t seem to stop.
“Hey.” Gavin’s voice softened. “Piccola. It’s okay. We’re okay.”
“You almost died,” Melissa choked out. “You were lying in a pool of blood. So much blood. I thought…I thought you were…”
“I wasn’t.” He reached over with his less-bandaged arm. Found her good hand. Squeezed it gently. “Takes more than a couple bullets to kill me.”
“Don’t joke.” Fresh tears spilled over. “This isn’t funny. You could have died. You should have died. How are you even…”
“I am stubborn, remember?” His thumb traced circles on her palm. “And I had reasons to stay alive.”
“Gavin…”
“You.” His eyes held hers. Blue and intense despite the exhaustion. “You’re the reason. I couldn’t die because you were still here. Still in danger. Still needing me.”
Melissa’s breath hitched. “I did need you. I do need you. I…”
She couldn’t finish she cried harder.
Gavin stood up. Slowly. Painfully. The movement clearly cost him.
“Sir, what are you…” A different nurse had appeared in the doorway.
“Out,” Gavin said without looking at her.
“But…”
“OUT.”
The nurse fled.
Gavin limped the two steps to Melissa’s bed. Sat down carefully on the edge. His bandaged leg stretched out awkwardly.
Then he gathered her into his arms as best he could with both of them injured.
Her broken arm between them. His bandaged shoulder limited his range of motion.
But he held her.
And she clung to him with her good arm.
And they just stayed like that.
Crying together.
Both of them shaking with relief and trauma and the weight of everything they’d survived.
“I’m sorry,” Gavin murmured into her hair. “For all of it. For your father. For Zeus. For everything you went through because of me.”
“Stop.” Melissa’s voice was muffled against his chest. “Just stop. I don’t want to hear apologies right now. I just want…I just need…”
“I know.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I know.”
They stayed like that for a long time.
Until Melissa’s tears finally slowed. Until her breathing evened out.
Until she could think clearly enough to ask the questions burning in her mind.
“Aria?” she whispered.
“Alive. In the ICU. Stable. Kane hasn’t left her side.” Gavin’s hand stroked her hair gently. “She’s going to be okay. It’ll take time, but she’ll recover.”
“And… and the families?”
“Exposed. Most of the heads are in custody. The ones who aren’t are in hiding.” His voice held grim satisfaction. “The FBI, Interpol, multiple international agencies…they’re all coordinating. The Five Families are finished.”
“Sophia?”
“Gone. No one’s seen her since the compound. She’s probably fled the country.” Gavin paused. “Kane went to check him recently and Jason’s body was gone too.”
Melissa pulled back slightly and looked up at him. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“When the authorities arrived at the hospital, his body wasn’t there.” Gavin’s expression was unreadable.
Melissa didn’t know how to feel about that. Jason had killed her father. But he’d also saved them at the end.
Died…or almost died…for them.
It was too complicated to process right now.
“What happens next?” she asked instead.
“Next?” Gavin smiled tiredly. “Next we heal. And we will figure out how to live with everything that happened.”
“And us?” The question came out small. Vulnerable. “Is there still an us?”
Gavin cupped her face with his good hand. Made her look at him.
“Piccola. Do you really think I’m going anywhere?”
“But my father…”
“I killed your father. Yes. I’ve carried that guilt for twenty years.” His thumb brushed away her tears. “And if you can’t forgive me for that, I’ll understand. I’ll respect it. But it won’t change how I feel about you.”
“How do you feel about me?” Melissa whispered.
“I love you.” The words were simple. Absolute. “I have loved you since the moment I saw you. Since you made me feel something other than emptiness for the first time in two decades.”
He leaned his forehead against hers.
“I love you, Melissa Hayes. And I will spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of you. Trying to make up for the pain I’ve caused. Trying to build something good from all this destruction.”
Fresh tears spilled down Melissa’s cheeks.
“I love you too,” she said. “I don’t know if I should. I don’t know if it’s healthy or right or any of the things love is supposed to be. But I do. I love you. But I need space and time to think through this”
“That’s enough,” Gavin said. “That’s more than enough. I’ll wait for you my love. I’ll wait.”
He kissed her then.
The kiss was full of promise and pain and hope and trauma and everything they’d survived together.
When they pulled apart, they were both crying again.
But smiling too.
The door opened. The first nurse was back with a doctor in tow.
“Mr. Cross, you cannot keep…” the doctor started.
“Move my bed into this room,” Gavin interrupted. “Or I’m checking myself out and taking her with me.”
The doctor looked at Melissa. At Gavin. The two of them tangled together on her bed.
Sighed.
“Fine. But if either of you dies from being stubborn, it’s not on my conscience.”
“Deal,” Gavin said.
Within the hour, his bed was moved in. Positioned right next to Melissa’s.
They held hands across the gap between beds.
And for the first time since this nightmare began, they both slept.