Kristen Ashley - The Promise

When I needed to understand how someone would recover from a gunshot wound, I asked my cousin (and a nurse), Laura Foster Giannini.

She gave it all to me, from the nitty-gritty to the good stuff, like when someone could again have sexin her words the gentle, non-violent Rock Chick kind.

Since Im acknowledging Lauras help, Ill just sally forth and dedicate this book to her.

Not as an afterthought. Oh no.

Because Laura is, was, and always will be one of the single coolest people I know. Shes funny. Shes generous. Shes crazy. Shes loyal. Shes beautiful. Shes classy.

Shes everything I wanted to be growing up, even knowing if I managed it Id always be a poor imitation.

So this book is for you, Laura. As is my love.

Always.

As ever, I have my grand schemes when writing a series.

But sometimes, my characters have different plans.

In my head, the way Benny and Frankies story would go after saying good-bye to them in At Peace was much different than what they gave me. In my head, it worked within the flow of the series.

In reality, Benny and Frankie had their own story to tell. Try as I might to bend them to my will, they simply wouldnt let me.

And they were right, seeing as I got to do a whole bunch of fun stuff I wouldnt have been able to if Id made their story what I wanted it to be.

So I hope it is no spoiler to share that this is somewhat of a rewind. I wont mention more.

But there are bonuses to that rewind.

I just hope you agree.

You ready?

Yep.

Called a taxi?

Yep.

Lets go.

With effort, I heaved myself off the hospital bed, twisted and aimed my ass at the wheelchair Cindy was holding still for me. I could feel my mouth get tight at the pain, but other than that, I didnt let it show (I hoped).

I settled in, but the pain didnt entirely subside. Luckily, Cindy handed me my bag that I put on my lap, then she gave me a big envelope filled with some papers. I had to concentrate on taking hold of all that so I didnt get to concentrate on the pain.

The pain, incidentally, was the result of a gunshot wound.

It was surprising that a gunshot wound only bought me a week and a half in the hospital. Apparently, according to Cindy and the other nurses, I was a fast healer.

I didnt feel like a fast healer.

I felt like shit.

But I wanted to get out of that fucking hospital. The bed wasnt comfortable. The place was freaking noisy so I wasnt sleeping well. And it didnt help that the shot I took was to the middle so I had to sleep on my back.

I never slept on my back. I snored when I slept on my back. Women didnt snore. I knew this wasnt a reality; women snored. But for me, as a woman, I was not going to be a woman who snored. So, although I used to sleep on my back all the time, I trained myself to sleep on my stomach or side so I wouldnt snore.

Yes, I did this, even though I hadnt had a man in my bed in seven years.

Seven.

Still, I didnt snore. Even in my own company.

The final, most important reason to get out of that fucking hospital was because I had more company in that hospital than Id had to my apartment for the last seven years. Sal. Sals boys. Sals wife, Gina.

And worst of all, the Bianchis. The freaking Bianchis wouldnt leave me alone. Vinnie Senior, Theresa, even fucking Manny.

Then, of course, there was Benny.

If I was honest, Benny was the real reason I was happy to escape that hospital.

Id been avoiding the Bianchis for a week and a half by pretending I was asleep and that was even more exhausting than not sleeping. My door would open and it didnt matter what I was doing. Watching TV. Reading a book. Flipping through a magazine. Talking on the phone. Id instantly feign sleep, even disconnecting a phone call to do it.

Of course, Id stop doing this if it was Sal, one of his guys, his wife, or one of my friends.

I wouldnt if it was a Bianchi.

But yesterday, Benny got fed up with this.

He had, on more than one occasion the last week and a half, said right in my ear, his lips so close to my skin I could nearly feel them, Babe, open your eyes. I know youre fakin.

Usually, he would do this and wait. But not for long.

I knew Benito Bianchi. I knew all the Bianchis. They were not patient by nature. And Benny was a male Bianchi so his span of patience was akin to the attention of a gnat. Therefore, I could wait him out, no sweat.

And I did. Successfully. For a week and a half.

Yesterday, though, I knew Benny was done. This was because he didnt whisper in my ear that he knew I was faking.

Oh no.

Instead, he scooched my ass right over and stretched out in bed beside me, shoving an arm under me, wrapping it around and tucking me close. He then grabbed the remote from my hospital table and turned on a fucking baseball game.

I lay next to him biting my tongue (figuratively, seeing as if I let my mouth move, I could no longer fake sleeping), wanting to remind him of the fact that Id been shot and perhaps he shouldnt scrunch in my hospital bed with me.

Admittedly, this didnt feel awful. Hed been gentle about it and it sucked to discover that Ben could be gentle physically. I didnt need to know that about him, as in I really didnt need to know that about him seeing as he was my dead boyfriends brother, he was Italian American, and last, he was hot in the sense that Death Valley was hot. He so topped the scale on hotness, he reinvented the scale. I was already perving on him, and he was my dead boyfriends brother, so this made it wrong to perv on him, as in wrong.

So I didnt need to know he was gentle.

But he was. Which sucked.

And made him even hotter.

In the end, he was so gentle and so warm and so hardin that good way mens bodies could be hard (or, that other good way)and all that was so comfortable to feel tucked up close, I genuinely fell asleep.

I had a feeling I snored.

That was the bad news.

The good news was, he was gone when I woke up.

The other good news was, I hoped the snoring turned him off. No one liked someone who snored.

You might put up with it if you loved them, but Benny didnt love me and I was going to make sure that remained the case.

Now I was getting the hell out of there. Not because it was my choice, but I sure as hell wasnt saying no.

Cindy started wheeling me to the door and she did this speaking.

There are some scripts in that envelope. You get home, you got someone to go to the pharmacy for you?

Yes. I did. I could call on anyone in the Bianchi family (primarily Ben) and theyd go to the pharmacy for me. Theyd also take me home, tuck me into bed, clean my house, fill my fridge, and then stay a while, cooking for me and keeping me company.

They had a breach to heal. I took a bullet for one of their own. They considered me family once, and when a Bianchi considers you family and a rift forms and they want to patch it, theyll go all out to do it. Hence the Bianchi visits Id faked sleeping through.

But I took their shit for years. I did it because I loved them. I did it because I loved Vinnie Junior. I did it because they lost a son and a brother and they had to pile their pain on somebody, and seeing as I loved them, I let that be me.

Then I took a bullet for them.

Enough.

I also had Sal. Sal would do anything for me. His business killed my man; he owed me and he was the kind of man who felt markers like that never went fulfilled.