The Thistles of Rose

Prologue

A/N: Last chance! You need to read the first book before reading this one.

♚Luca♚

"Luca," her timid voice squeaked. Slowly, it was as if a snake slithered itself around my body, tightening its hold on me to the point where I couldn't breathe.

My eyes raked her in. The anxiety bubbled in my veins. The snake compressed around my erratic heart.

Her head. No blood. Her chest. No blood. Her belly. Blood. Lots and lots of it.

Oh, fuck no.

Rosa's beautiful, green eyes are misted in unfettered pain when she stared straight at me and my stomach rolled in nausea the more I saw the blood of our baby drenching her hand. She fell and I raced forward, catching her before she hit the ground.

"No no no. Wake up, Rosa. Wake the fuck up!" I shouted, tapping her face restlessly along to the beat of my heavy heart drumming in my veins. She stayed still.

Footsteps came pounding onto the wooden deck and I yelled, "ambulance. Call the fucking ambulance, Marco!"

My eyes wandered to the bastard who caused this mess but he wasn't there. I sighed, painfully, as the anger, shock and hurt ripped in three separate claws along my chest. I just need to focus on my Rosa right now.

"Don't leave me. Please, don't leave me like everyone else in my life," I whispered in a choked cry, pressing my forehead down to hers, "you were different. You were supposed to be different."

She fucking stayed still.

I couldn't do anything as the love of my life laid there, bleeding out our baby from her punctured stomach. I couldn't fucking do anything.

"I can't fucking take this anymore, Marco," I shake my tired head. The memory washes like a wave to the back of my mind, building up to return later leaving a larger amount of damage.

"If she's dead, I'm going to fucking join her," I press the cold metal of my gun to my forehead, clicking off the safety. The metal mechanisms of it echo against the turbulent storm in my head and for a second, it beams a clear path of light.

"Luca," Marco tentatively calls and I raise my head from my hands, glimpsing at him. His eyes are red and his hair is dishevelled in distress, "don't do this. She'll need you."

"What if she's not even fucking alive. Her heartbeat, her smile, her eyes. She is the only thing that is keeping me breathing. She. Gives. Me. Life. And if I don't get to see her again..." I choke up on my words and my eyes bleed with more fucking water, "I'm gone from here. I'm fucking gone."

My throat closes up on me the longer I think about her dead body. Her lifeless eyes, her white skin, the frown on her beautiful, beautiful lips.

"She is my heart and if you rip that out, the body becomes a corpse. I...become a corpse."

My grip on the gun loosens as I stare at the white tiles, distantly and Marco quickly pries it from my hand.

"Mr Armani...Sir," the gritting, quiet whisper from the doctor pulls me back into my agonising reality. He stands quite far from us, shakily holding his clipboard and wandering his eyes around the private waiting room.

The doctor pushes the rim of his glasses up his nose. His stupid, incompetent mouth fucking mumbles some important shit that I can't hear. 

"If you don't speak the fuck up, I will put you in one of those hospital beds my-fucking-self," I threaten him, glaring my red-rimmed eyes straight at him.