Chapter 188: The Hospital Room

Rachel's POV

I had a vague idea of passing out in Draco's arms. When I opened my eyes after, I was in a room. I shook my head gently to shake off the slow, dizzy veil blurring my vision a bit, and much of the room came into focus—I recognized the patient monitors, the IV stand, the flowers by the window, and, importantly, Draco's handsome face leaning up to me—I was in a hospital room.

I slipped Draco a smile to assure him that I was fine. Still, the lines of worry etched in his face refused to leave. I sat up gently, my butt scraping up the soft, cushiony hospital bed beneath me.

I heard Logan sigh as he dropped into view around me. I tried to move my eyes to see more of him, but a wave of pain shot through my head. I winced, touching my head, feeling the bandage wrapped around it, covering a bump on the side of my head.

Logan moved closer. He took my fingers gently from the bump as I began to caress it to feel its extent.

“You don't need to worry about it. You will be fine, Rachel. We have a surgeon prepared to take care of it. Draco and I won't let anything mar your beautiful face.” Then he leaned low, bringing his lips forward to mine.

Draco pushed him back from the shoulder up. “Get a grip on yourself. Can’t you see she is still healing?” He snapped at him.

I chuckled just as Logan rose gently from being pushed. His eyes tightened with pain for a moment. “A little kiss won't hurt her, Draco.”

I grabbed Draco's arm. He looked down from glaring at Logan to me. “A kiss won't hurt me. In fact, it would make me feel better.” Then I pulled him lower with the little strength in me. I brushed my fingers over his clean-shaven jaw, and I steered his face to me, bringing his lips to mine. I tasted his lips and licked them, and he let me, licking and tasting mine too.

I pushed him away gently after a minute. I didn't want Logan to get very jealous. I had to make this work between us. I had to make them stop fighting because of me. I turned to Logan to pull him to me, but he was already leaning low for me.

He grabbed my head, steadying me for his kiss. Then he plunged down on my lips, so hard and hungry, I moaned into his mouth. He licked and tasted every inch of my mouth, then he bit gently on my lips, making me arch my head up for another moan.

That displaced the position of my head and struck shots like bullets from the injury in my head to my brain. I winced, crying loudly in pain.

“I am sorry, Rachel.” He pulled away from me then. He tried to grab my shoulders to calm my pain, but Draco slapped his hands off, holding me instead.

Logan retreated a foot back. “I am sorry, Rachel.” He repeated. I saw his hands quiver beside him.

What was I fucking doing? I wanted to let both of them know I loved them and make them stop fighting over me. Yet, I am making them hate themselves right now.

I shrugged off Draco’s arms, biting my lips to keep back the pain in my head. “I am fine, Draco,” I said to him.

“But—” Draco said.

“I said I am fine, Draco. Logan didn't do anything wrong; he just kissed me. Stop making him feel like he hurt me. Stop picking on him,” I told him.

Draco's lips parted for words, but he closed them immediately. His gaze flicked to Logan, then to me, and then he sat down on the hospital bed beside me, sinking the mattress with his weight.

“Okay, Rachel. I don't mean to victimize Logan.” He whispered softly, reassuring me. He pulled me gently to his arms, resting my head gently on his chest, his big arms wrapping around me. “I just care about you so much, Rachel, and I worry.”

“I know, and so does Logan.” I said, my words muffled a bit by his shirt.

“Okay, Rachel.” He slipped his fingers into my hair and caressed it.

Logan moved closer to the bed. “What happened in the car, Rachel, that made you jump out of a moving car? Though reckless, I’d have to agree; we wouldn't have found you otherwise. Still, what made you do that?”

“The bastard talked about inbreeding with me. I could let him do whatever else he wanted with me. But that… that made me decide that I’d rather die than suffer such an experience. That was why I summoned up the courage to jump.” I explained. A mental picture of Luca around me suddenly popped up in my head at my explanation, and I shuddered, shaking my head slowly on Draco's chest to shake away the thought.

Draco grunted, his body growing tense around me. His biceps pulsed. It seemed like rage was pumping through him. But he said nothing. For a man like Draco, that meant something.

Then I realized Logan said nothing too. I snapped away from Draco's arm, groaning softly in pain from a sharp pain in my head.

I held my head, my gaze jumping from Draco to Logan and back. Other than the fury that tightened their brows and their jaws, there was nothing else—no hint of shock, no surprise, nothing. Damn it, they knew.

“Why didn't you tell me that my fa—,” I paused. I swallowed for a moment before I rephrased my question. “Why didn't you tell me that Luca Tinirello's family practices bloody incest?”

“To protect you, Rachel.” Draco moved to draw me back to his arms, but the hardness in my eyes stopped him. “After I saw the way you took the news about Mariah and Luca, I couldn't bring myself to tell you about that too.”

“We are sorry, Rachel. We just thought it was better we kept that from you. That's why we were keen on not letting you leave the estate or go anywhere alone when we discovered that Luca or Nicolas was alive.” Logan said. I threw my eyes from Draco to him now. He stood with his hands now in his pockets, looming over my hospital bed.

Something struck me from his words. I squinted my eyes at him. “So you mean, if it was Nicolas Tinirello that was alive, and not Luca, even he was going to sleep with me, his biological daughter, just to continue the crazy Tinirello family tradition?”

Logan said nothing but dropped his shoulders. Though he’d said nothing, I did get a response, a response that drilled cold tremors down my veins. I was more tainted than I thought. I was from a bloodline of psychopaths. A tainted blood ran through my veins—vile, devilish blood.

I stared at my arm—at a long stretch of vein from my wrist to the end of my forearm. I felt like ripping the veins, letting that tainted blood out of me—that vile, devilish blood that linked me to the Tinirello. But I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to kill myself. My eyes thickened with tears, and I wiped them off with the backs of my hands quickly. I didn't want Draco and Logan to worry.

“Mariah was just a mistake from Nicolas. He never meant to let her keep you. She protected you with her life, hiding her pregnancy from the Tinirellos. Luca eventually discovered she was pregnant, and he helped her at childbirth, but for his ulterior motives, he stole you away from her and lied to her that Nicolas had killed you. Still, Mariah never stopped searching for you until Luca took her too," Logan explained.

I just took in everything. Refusing to process all he had said. I hated myself more and more—hated my existence—hated that I had to be born into such a vile family and through such circumstances. I looked away from Logan and Draco now and allowed the tears to drop freely, emptying out the sorrow and pains in my heart as quietly as I could.

But Draco heard me, and he dragged me into his arms again, squeezing me tight to his body.

I cried on his shirt, emptying every pain in me out in the form of tears. My tears soaked his shirt, the hot moisture gluing his shirt to his skin.

“What else did Luca say, Rachel?” Logan inquired, and though he didn't look it, his tone was very heavy with it—curiosity.

“He said he killed Andrew, Draco's son, and that Mariah is alive.”

Draco pulled me away from his arms instantly. His eyes drilled down into me, hot and intense.

“Did he really say, ‘Mariah is alive?” He asked, his tone extremely serious, echoing an ache and longing.

A wave of coldness gripped my spine, spreading through every inch of me, as I held his gaze. The ache, longing, and love in his eyes right now didn't seem to be for me but for another person—my mother, his first wife—Mariah.

Draco grabbed my shoulders, shaking them gently. “Did he really say Mariah is alive, that she isn’t dead?” He asked repeatedly until I nodded my head—nodded very hard, so that pain rang through the whole of my skull. I winced softly in pain. Yet, that was less than the pain that was consuming my heart right now.

“Did he talk about where he kept her and where he buried Andrew’s corpse?”

I shook my head gently in disapproval. He jumped from the bed then, driving his fist into the wall nearest him. He punched the wall so hard, the whole room almost rattled, the noise of the punch resounding in the room. I glimpsed blood on his knuckles when he brought his hand back to his side.

I moved to him to check the extent of his injury, but he retreated from me, dropping back some feet from me. “Draco—” I called.

"I am sorry, Rachel." Was all he said. And he dropped further and further away from me.

Logan grabbed my shoulders.

“Draco can take care of himself, Rachel.” He said. He sat down on the bed before me, deliberately blocking off my view of Draco. “And don't worry, I am sure Draco loves you very much. He is just in love with Mariah too. Before all we had was suspicion. Now that he has proof that she is alive, he is trying to deal with his feelings. But he will come around. It is just so much for him to process now.” Logan said, assuring me.

I stared beyond his shoulders at Draco. Draco was slumped face down on the wall, muttering to himself. As I watched him, my heart constricting against itself in my chest, I wasn't so convinced that everything was going to return to the way it was after this news. I wasn't so sure that Draco was going to look at me with the same genuine love and desire he did before.

Logan steered me from Draco. He forced me a smile. “Trust me, Draco would come around, Rachel. He just has so much to deal with right now. So what else did Luca say?”

I folded my hands tight on my thighs as I struggled to look away from Draco completely, pinning my gaze exclusively on Logan.

“Luca said someone else was alive also. He didn't tell me who the person was, but with his choice of words, the person seemed like a she."

I felt Logan's hands quiver over my shoulders. I narrowed my eyes on him, reading the slight distortion in his expression. He knew who the person was.

I shrugged off his hands from my shoulders, grabbing tight to them instead. “Who is it, Logan? Who is still alive? Tell me it is my foster mom, Miss Bernett, or Aunt May, or some—"

“It should be Briella,” Logan said. I dropped his hands, another wave of heat gripping my veins. And my lungs, my breath froze for that moment.

“Briella,” I inquired cautiously.

Logan nodded. “I have always suspected she was alive, that she survived the gunshot that day. It could only be her. Luca wouldn't need to incinerate her if she had really died then. He wouldn't care about her corpse enough to come to the hospital to get it, as he didn't care about Dylan Forest’s corpse, which was buried by the police. The incineration was to make us believe she died, and her remains don't exist anymore.”

“So that bitch is alive also.” Draco asked, his voice sharp as if snarling at Logan, while I struggled to contain all the information in my head.

“Yeah,” Logan answered. “And I fear she might be carrying your niece or nephew too. Since Luca didn't get his hands on Rachel. That kid would be his next bargaining chip and his tool for manipulating us to get what he wants.”

“What?” Draco screamed, his body trembling in intense alarm as he dropped completely from the wall, his expression shrouded in disbelief.