26 - Best Nurse

Mia's POV

".... should wake up soon, but it's been a day already," I heard a very masculine, very worried voice say. Why did that voice sound so familiar?

Ever so slowly, I tried to open my eyes. They felt heavy, as did the rest of my body. Groaning a little, I forced my eyes open, squeezing them shut almost instantly when bright light nearly blinded me.

"Mia? Baby, are you awake?" I felt a large, warm hand squeeze mine and I squeezed back to let them know that I was, in fact, awake. But the action caused a sharp pain to shoot up my arm, making me groan louder.

"What is it, baby?" The voice that my fuzzy brain was slowly coming to realize was Federico's asked. He sounded awfully worried and concerned.

Again, I tried to open my eyes, blinking rapidly this time when the light hit them instead of closing them completely. As my eyes adjusted to the light, the first thing I saw was Federico's worried face.

"What...what happened?" I asked, my throat feeling scratchy and dry as I spoke. A woman dressed as a nurse hovered by my bed, shooting me a small smile as she jotted a few things down on her notepad.

"Thank fuck, you're awake," Federico whispered, pulling my attention towards him, leaning down and placing a soft kiss on my forehead. "Do you not remember what happened, cara?"

His words were like a shock to my system, bringing everything back to me at once. The club, the Russian mafia hideout, him coming to my rescue, the gang war, me getting shot in my arm. I remembered everything up to the point where he had helped me up the window and the two of us had managed to escape. After that, I was drawing a complete blank.

"I remember everything up to when we escaped through the window," I said to him, taking in his own bandaged arm and disheveled appearance. With his messy hair, darker than usual stubble and eye bags, he looked like he hadn't slept in days.

His thumb rubbed circles on the back of my hand as he nodded. "That's because the moment we got out, you fainted. I carried you home, and got you immediate medical attention. You've been unconscious for a day, now."

I nodded slightly in understanding, looking around the room. I was in Federico's room, in his bed and judging by all the medical machines and equipment surrounding us, he seemed to have converted his room into a hospital ward to accommodate me. I guess when you're as rich as he was, anything is possible.

"Her vitals are all stable. I'll inform the doctor. She'll be in to see you soon," the nurse informed us, before leaving the room to do just that.

"Right. Thanks," I rasped out, coughing a little as she left.

Almost instantly, Federico picked up a glass of water from the bedside table and put it to my lips, raising my head with his other hand so I could take a few much-needed sips. I drank the whole glass before he put it away.

"The doctor said all the blood loss had caused you to lose consciousness and that you would wake up soon, but I was still so fucking worried you wouldn't," he said, looking down at me with an undecipherable emotion on his face.

"My arm hurts like a bitch, and I'm sore all over, but I'm mostly fine," I told him honestly.

He shook his head at me. "Why did you do that, cara? Why did you jump in front of me like that?" He whispered, the anguish clear on his face.

I looked away from him at that. The truth was, I didn't know why I'd done that either. When I'd seen that man about to shoot, the first thought in my mind had been to protect Federico. Why, I had no idea.

When I didn't say anything, he placed a hand on my cheek and turned my head so I was facing him again. "You should not have done that, Mia. Your life is much more precious than mine could ever be."

I frowned at his words. "That's not true."

"It is. Your soul is much more pure than mine, cara," he said, his dark eyes boring into mine.

"I think that ship sailed when you shot so many people right in front of me, don't you?" I retorted, the memory of life leaving their eyes still fresh in my mind.

He shook his head, a light, sad smile dancing on his lips. "There's innocence of the eyes, and then there's innocence of the soul. It's important not to confuse the two."

I scoffed. "The heart, the mind, the body, they all make one being. What the eyes see seeps into the soul. You can not compartmentalize morality."

His jaw tightened as he clenched his teeth. "In my line of work, it is required."

I looked away from him again, feeling conflicted. It was required, wasn't it? How else were you supposed to live with the knowledge that you had just killed a bunch of people if you didn't?

In my book, a life was a life. It didn't make you any less of a killer even if the people you killed were demons in disguise. But then again, the inhumane acts they would've continued to commit had they still been alive would've hurt a lot of innocent souls. Did that justify killing them? A previous conversation we had once had about everyone having their own path to walk crossed my mind. Was this his? To be the lesser of the two evils?

I was slowly realising there was no such thing as black and white, right or wrong. There was a lot of grey in between and Federico seemed to live in that. And now, so did I. Because suddenly, his life seemed just as precious as mine. In fact, more than mine seeing as I had taken a bullet that was meant for him.

If everything had been black and white like I'd always assumed it to be, I should've let the bullet hit him. I should've let him die because he wasn't innocent either. He had killed a lot of men, too. But I hadn't. What did that say about me? I cared about a man who was a murderer.

He wasn't just a murderer, though, was he? What he did for a living did not justify the kind of man he was. This was the same man who loved his family fiercely enough to leave his old life back just so he could avenge the death of his family members. This was the same man who had let his niece stick a tattoo of a butterfly on his face because it had made her happy. This was the man who had taken me to a wonderful dinner at a wonderful restaurant. This was the man who had ensured I made it through my injury, staying by my side through the entire ordeal.

And maybe it was because of all this that I'd helped him. Because despite everything, he was still a good man.

I looked at him again, my gaze falling to his bandaged arm. "How is your arm?"

He shook his head with a small chuckle. "I've had worse. And it's nothing compared to what you're going to go through the next couple of days."

I tried to shrug before thinking better of it and shaking my head instead. "I'll recover quickly. I do have the best nurse at my service, one with plenty of personal experience in the field," I said, giving him a pointed look.

He chuckled. "Of course, you have me, cara. I'm not leaving your side until you're fully healed."

And he didn't, not even for a second.