Chapter 42: Sculpted Sin

Katarina’s POV…At The Hospital ..

I woke choking on salt.

My lungs screamed. My throat burned. My ribs ached like they’d been smashed by a truck.

Water poured out of my mouth as I rolled onto my side, coughing, gagging.

The sky above me spun in a thousand colors.

The wind cut across my wet skin like a blade.

I couldn’t move my left ankle. It twisted wrong under me. My hands scraped against cold rock and sand. My shoulder felt torn open.

But I was alive.

Barely.

Flash.

Glass breaking. Bullets flying. The engine screaming.

Vittorio throwing his body over mine.

The weight of him. The heat of his blood.

The last thing I remembered before the crash was him whispering was“Stay down.”I turned my head. The moon hung over black water.

And there, next to me, was him. Vittorio. Lying motionless, half in the mud. Shirtless. Bleeding.

His skin was so pale, it looked like stone.“Vittorio,” I rasped, crawling toward him.

My fingers brushed his arm. He groaned.

He was breathing. Barely. Then the hea