Aligned: Volume 3 (2 page)

Her body presses so tightly against mine that I know she can feel the ring box in my pocket. Well, she would notice if she wasn’t in such a trance. I wasn’t going to give it to her yet. I was going to wait. I just carry it with me in case the perfect opportunity appeared. Now, it never will.
 

“Mrs. Wolfe?” an older male doctor says. I wince as I hear him speak the name. Alex’s real name.
 

Alex pulls away from me letting go so easily.
 

“That’s me,” she says walking over to him.
 

I follow close behind needing to be close to her. Needing to find out any information I can use against this bastard.
 

“Mrs. Wolfe, your husband has lost a lot of blood, which probably caused him to pass out. He suffered extensive internal bleeding and damage. He is still unconscious but is in stable condition. We are moving him to intensive care where you can see him shortly. Do you have any questions?” the doctor says.
 

“Do you know what happened to him?” Alex asks.
 

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wolfe, but until Ethan wakes up, we won’t know anything more than what you told the police in your statement,” he says.
 

“Thank you, Doctor,” Alex says before turning back to me. She immediately wraps her arms back around me as if she knows this moment is fleeting. I watch over her shoulder as the doctor leaves. I know that in a matter of minutes, someone will return to take Alex to Ethan. To her husband. To where society says she belongs. It isn’t the
perfect
moment. In fact, it’s the
worst
moment. But it’s the
only
moment.
 

I untangle myself from her arms, and while still holding onto her hands, I kneel in front of her feet. I pull the box from my pocket and open it to reveal the sparkly ring to her.
 

“Alex, I love you. I know this is crazy, but marry me,” I say.
 

Her large eyes stay glued to mine. She doesn’t even glance down at the ring I’m presenting to her. She opens her mouth to speak.
 

“Mrs. Wolfe, I’ll take you back to see your husband now,” a young nurse says.
 

Alex nods to the nurse as she wiggles her hand out of my hold and begins to follow the nurse. I stand quickly and take her hand back in mine.
 

“Alex?”

“No,” she says as she pushes through the door to the ICU leaving me empty and waiting.
 

I hate these goddamn parties. There is never anyone here worth my time. I should just go, I think as I slug down another shot of tequila. It burns my throat, but I don’t feel the pain. I never do. I glance at my watch. It’s past midnight. I have to be up in less than five hours. I walk toward the entrance of the bar when I see her.

I open my eyes. I know the pain exists, but I don’t feel it. I never feel it. I’ve never felt pain, not even when I was a kid. Instead of pain, I feel nothing. I look at my bruised and broken body lying in the hospital bed, but I still feel nothing. I feel nothing until I look up.
 

Staring back at me are the most beautiful green eyes I have ever seen. The eyes that got me into this whole mess to begin with. God, I’ve missed these eyes. Excitement doesn’t fill her eyes as I had expected. Instead, sorrow fills them.
 

“Hey, beautiful. Everything is going to be okay,” I say.

Alexa smiles, but it’s weak and not her normal, wide smile that fills her whole face. She stands from the chair and sits on the edge of my bed.
 

“I’m glad you’re okay. We thought you were dead. The police said you had most likely drowned and that your body was swept away. Your body was never found, so we thought you were dead,” she says.
 

I reach my hand out to her, and she collapses into my arms on autopilot, as if she has done it thousands of times before.
 

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you,” I say into her hair as I hold her body close to me. The smell of raspberries immediately overcomes me. I smile. She hasn’t changed.
 

Alexa gently pulls away from me to look me in the eye. Her eyes are dripping with tears that are so out of character for her. I reach up and wipe the tears away, and she winces at my touch.
 

“What happened? Ethan, where were you?”
 

 
I take a deep breath preparing the words to explain.
 

“Do you remember that case I was working on before the wedding? The Alfie King case?”
 

She shakes her head. I worked on that case for over a year. It was basically the only thing I had worked on since we got together. She should remember.
 

“He was the only case I ever lost. It cost me a lot more than just the lost case. His men came after us. It wasn’t a random hit and run. Or a drunk driver that hit us the night of our wedding. It was King’s men. They tried to kill us.” I tighten my hands into fists as I think about the men who did this to me. They will fucking pay. My face reddens and my breathing quickens just thinking about what I plan to do to them. They’ll be begging me to kill them before I am done with them. What they did to me won’t even compare.
 

“When we didn’t die in the initial crash, they dragged me away. Tortured me. Threatened to kill me every day for six months.” My face softens a little as I feel tears forming behind my eyes. Alexa continues to stare at me. Waiting to hear more.
 

“I thought you had died. They told me you had, and after six months of torture, I finally had my chance to get free. They forgot to lock the door where they were keeping me in the basement of a building about ten blocks from our apartment. That’s what killed me the most. Being so close, but not being able to get to you. As soon as I was free, I ran straight home. I just needed to see you. I needed to know if you were really dead.”
 

I pull her to me needing her lips on mine. I kiss her hard needing to feel every inch of her mouth on mine. She doesn’t kiss me back, though. She just lets me kiss her. I try deepening the kiss needing her desperation for me to match my own. When I push my tongue into her mouth, she finally kisses me back. Slowly, with less urgency, but the need to kiss me is still there.
 

“I’ve missed you so much, Alexa,” I say, as my lips hover over hers. “Every day without you, I died a little more thinking I could never have this again.” I grab her hand needing her touch. Needing to know she is real. Alive. I run my hand over her fingers expecting to find her engagement and wedding rings, but they aren’t there.
 

“Where are your rings?”
 

Alexa pulls her hands from mine. She grabs the bottom edge of her shirt fidgeting with it. Shutting me out.
 

“Alexa?” I try again. She winces slightly when I say her name. I watch as her shoulders rise and fall as she takes a deep breath.
 

“I buried them.”
 

“What do you mean you buried them?”

Alexa pauses to take another deep breath before continuing. “You were gone. I had to let you go. So I buried them at the gravesite to free myself from the guilt of moving on ...”

I grab the back of her neck pulling her lips to me so I can kiss them softly. “I don’t care what you did while I was gone. We can get the rings back or buy new, better rings. It’s about us together now, forever.”
 

I smile brightly at her, but all I see is worry covering her face.
 

“What’s wrong?”
 

“Ethan, it’s not that simple.” She stands up and starts pacing the room. She runs her hand through her thick, red hair before turning back to me. Her pants rise up a little and I see it. I can’t believe I haven’t noticed it before. I try to climb out of bed to take a closer look at it, but my IV pulls on my hand keeping me in place.
 

“Alexa, what ...” I can’t bring myself to finish. My eyes are glued to her leg as she walks to me.
 

“It’s amputated. Gone,” she says calmly as if she has fully accepted it. “The car accident ... no the car
attack
took it, just like it took you from me.”
 

“Come here,” I say. She walks to me and sits back on the edge of the bed. She watches as I pull her amputated leg into my lap and roll her pants up so I can see the damage done. I can’t hide the look of disgust from my face. I can’t believe she lost her leg. I hate who did this to her. I hate him more than anyone knows. I’ll kill to make this right.
 

I kiss her thigh letting her know that I still love her.
 

“I’ll always love you. No matter what happens,” I say. I wait for her to say ‘I love you’ back, but she doesn’t.
 

“I’m sorry,” Alexa says.
 

I tuck her loose hair behind her ears trying to comfort her. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” I say.
 

“Yes, I do. The attack took more than you or my leg. It took my memory of you, my memory of everything.”
 

I pull her to me and hug her tightly.
 

“Everything is going to be okay,” I say in her ear. Although I know that’s not true. Love doesn’t make anything okay. It just makes it painful.
 

Without the flash drive, I will never be free.
 

“I feel incredibly guilty that I don’t remember you,” I say, averting my gaze from Ethan. I also feel incredibly guilty for being with Landon when Ethan was still alive. Is it cheating if you think your husband is dead? I can’t bring myself to tell Ethan about Landon. It would destroy Ethan if I told him about Landon. It would destroy me.
 

“Don’t be. It could be fun making you fall in love with me again,” Ethan says, winking at me.
 

I smile and blush, but it doesn’t make the guilt go away. I just have to end everything with Landon now before I sin any further. I think back to just hours ago when Landon kneeled down on one knee. That was ridiculous. We haven’t been together long enough to think of marriage. But he did. He must have, to have already gotten a ring. A ring I didn’t even bother to glance at.
 

I try to imagine now what the ring would look like. Was it large and expensive? A princess cut maybe? Or did he choose something small and simple? I’ll never know. Just as I will never know what it would have been like to say ‘yes’ instead of ‘no.’ Because if it wasn’t for Ethan, I would have said ‘yes,’ even though he was crazy to ask so soon. Because one crooked grin springing to his face would have made me melt.

A knock sounds on the door breaking up my daydream just before a nurse enters. “How is your pain?” she asks Ethan.
 

“I don’t have any pain,” he says smiling at me.
 

“Uh-huh,” she says. She takes out her stethoscope and starts checking his breathing.
 

“All your vitals are fine, but I’m going to up your pain medication so you can sleep,” she says.
 

Ethan just nods. She starts administering the medication through his IV, and Ethan quickly drifts off to sleep. I sit on the edge of the bed watching him as he breathes. This man. This stranger is my husband. He’s
my husband.
I promised to love him every day until death do us part. But my heart has changed. It betrays Ethan. I gave it to Landon, and I don’t know how to get it back.
 

I just have to find a way to fall back in love with Ethan. That shouldn’t be that hard since I loved him before. I can see he’s an attractive man, even with the bruising and scars. Right now, he looks a little rough around the edges, but from all of the pictures I’ve seen of him, I know he likes to wear a clean-cut, professional look. As I stare at him lying in the bed, my heart doesn’t speed up. It doesn’t recognize him, but maybe after spending more time together, it will.
 

Maybe I’ll remember everything. Who I am. What my wants and dreams were. Everything. And if not, Ethan knows my past. He can answer all my questions. He is the key to finding myself again.
 

I stare down at my own broken body. Scars that have healed over tattoos making my skin look rough instead of smooth. My leg is gone. And while I’m not ashamed of it, it’s a struggle for anyone to find beautiful. My memory is gone. What does Ethan even have to love about me? What can he find attractive now that I’ve changed so much from the woman I was before?
 

“Can I get you anything before I go? A blanket and pillow maybe?” the nurse says.
 

“That would be great. Thanks,” I say. The nurse turns to leave.
 

“Wait,” I say, realizing I do have questions for her.
 

She pauses at the door.
 

“Can you tell me Ethan’s prognosis?”
 

“His prognosis is good. All the tests we have run indicate that he will make a full recovery. He has some broken ribs, but the surgeons were able to control the internal bleeding. No brain damage. No long-term damage. The only thing we have to worry about now is infection and getting him strong again. He’s a lucky guy. Tomorrow, we should be able to move him out of the ICU and into a normal room. You’re going to get to keep him a long time.”
 

I frown. I shouldn’t be upset that Ethan is going to be fine. I should be ecstatic.
 

The nurse pauses and looks back at me. “It’s going to be okay.”

I sigh heavily. “God, I wish people would stop saying that.”

She chuckles and waits until I meet her gaze. “It’s all people know to say when there are no words to make it better.”
 

I try my best to smile at the kind woman, but I’m afraid it still looks like a frown. “It doesn’t make me feel any better, though.”