Chapter 16

Applause and toasts carried through the wall. Glasses clinked, again and again.

In the recovery room next door, Rio shot up from the bed, gasping as pain tore through his wound. He didn't even feel it.

"What's her name?" He grabbed Marco's sleeve, hard, his voice shaking.

Marco flinched at the look on his face. "Nina Walsh. Did that gunfight take out your hearing?"

"Nina. Walsh." Rio repeated it, his whole body starting to shake.

"No. That's not possible. My fiancée's name is Nina too." He said it again under his breath. "Nina Walsh."

Marco frowned. "So what? Maybe it's just the same name. You think there's only one Nina in the world?"

"It's not the same name." Rio's voice broke apart. He reached into his shirt and pulled out the broken necklace, gripping it in his fist. "She has this necklace. She's..."

Nina's question from before came back to him. Something rose in his throat and he threw up blood across the white sheets.

"She's my fiancée."

The obsession he'd carried for four years collapsed all at once. He fell forward, coughing hard, tears falling onto the bloodstained sheets, one after another, and he couldn't stop them.

Marco stood there frozen, no idea what to do. "You're a grown man. Why are you crying?"

Rio kept his head down, shoulders shaking. The wound on his back tore open again, but the pain in his chest was worse than anything on his skin.

Regret drowned out everything else. He whispered to himself, hoarse.

"What did I do. Nina. What did I do."