Raising Riker (Hells Saints MC)

by Paula Marinaro

  The sound of crunching metal and squealing tires created a deafening roar until the force of Gia’s screams silenced it. A dozen needles danced their way across her forehead as windshields shattered and glittering bits of blood danced around her like crazed fireflies. The force of the accident threw Gia across the bench seat to the opposite side of the car. At the last moment, she managed to twist her body, doing her best to shield her belly from the devastating impact.

  For what seemed like a very, very, long time, Gia felt the pain of unrelieved agony. It was as if her bones were cracking, spreading and breaking. Gia felt like she was being torn apart from the inside out in great, raging spasms of deep, deep visceral pain.

  In the outer edges of her consciousness, Gia thought she heard the sound of an ambulance’s siren.

  But she couldn’t stay awake long enough to be sure. Gia closed her eyes and then came the great nothing.

  “I can’t believe you let him ride all this way without knowing.” Doctor Gideon looked down his nose at his long- time friend.

  Prosper looked uncomfortable but didn’t say a word.

  Riker felt as though he was about to get hit by a doomsday tank that wouldn’t stop. Once it ran over him once, he knew it would just roll back and keep on coming, running him over and over again. It would destroy him, bit by bit, until he was reduced to nothing but some grey matter and a bleeding heart. He couldn’t let that happen. Not when Gia needed him like she did. Riker stood up from the chair, straightened his spine and looked at a fixed point on the wall. His mouth went dry and his knees threatened to buckle but he stood firm.

  “I want my kid buried next to my pop. Make the arrangements for me to bring the infant home, Doc. No reason why Gia should have to deal with putting her baby to the ground …” Riker‘s voice choked off.

  Doctor looked at Prosper accusingly, but before he could say anything Prosper clapped Riker hard on the shoulder. “Nobody’s burying anybody. Your kid’s as stubborn and hard headed as his old man. Seems he was determined to make it into this world after all. You got yourself a son, Riker. A beautiful little boy.”

  Stunned, Riker fell back down into his chair. “How is it possible that the baby survived? I thought that the air bags…”

  “Gia was driving that big Caddy.” Prosper explained. “That beautiful classic monstrosity is as big as a goddamn boat, and twice as solid. No air bags and no seat belt, and this is probably the one time in a million that that was not a bad thing. Gia was hit full broadside, but she was thrown to other side of the car and that’s what saved both her and the baby.”

  “Aside from the head injury, she has quite a few lacerations from the shattered glass. Gia has also sustained a broken radius from where she must have braced herself.” Doctor Gideon added.

  “Radius? That’s her arm?” Riker asked.

  “That’s right.” Doc Gideon answered.

  “And the baby’s okay?” Riker still found that hard to believe.

  “There were some complications, being the baby is premature, but the main thing is yes. The baby is going to be fine. The impact of the crash caused the placenta to detach. We took the baby c-section. And the infant will have to stay in NICU for a while. but all signs point to the positive.”

  Riker didn’t know how to feel. The surge of joy he felt at the news of his son’s birth and surprisingly stable health status, should have filled him with happiness. Instead, the best he could do was let a little bit of cautious optimism rise up. This was a whole lot to take in and it had been a hell of a day.

  “Can I see Gia now?”

  “Yes. Of course.” Doctor Gideon nodded.

  Prosper moved between Riker and the door.

  “Brother, be prepared.”

  “For?”

  “Gia’s hooked up to a whole bunch of machines and she’s packed in ice.” Prosper told him.

  When Doctor Gideon glared at him again, Prosper grumbled. “It is what it is, Gabriel. You know I’ve got nothing but respect for you, and I like to think that goes both ways. But first you give me shit for not telling Riker, now you wanna give me shit for telling him? Make up my fucking mind.”

  “Your delivery could use some work.” Doctor Gideon said dryly. Then he turned to Riker. “Right now it’s in Gia’s best interest for us to let the machines do the work her body would typically do”

  “Don’t see how that can be true, doc.” Riker shook his head.

  “I know it seems counter-intuitive to the healing process, but when the brain is awake it uses a lot of energy responding to sensory impressions, conscious thoughts and muscle movement. We need to slow down all Gia’s body functions so that it can relax and put its energy into getting Gia better. It’s called Therapeutic Hypothermia. And although we are cooling her down to depress organ functions, Gia is most certainly not packed in ice.” Doctor Gideon paused here and gave Prosper a pointed look.

  Prosper kept his mouth shut.

  “We are keeping her body cool by air filled inflatables. Her body temperature is a stable ninety-two degrees.”

  “Jesus.” Riker shivered involuntarily. “Couldn’t that cause other problems?”

  “We have that under control, son.” Doctor Gideon told him.

  “Well, let’s hope the fuck so.”

  Nothing the doctor said could have prepared Riker for what he saw when he walked into the room. Gia looked like she was caught in some futuristic torture chamber. She was hooked up and plugged into countless machines. Her face was covered in bandages and there was a tube in her mouth.

  But worst of all, she looked…deflated.

  Like half of her was missing.

  The Baby.

  She doesn’t even know she’s had the baby.

  This was his fault.

  All his fault.

  Riker raced to Gia’s bedside. He called her name over and over and over again. When she didn’t respond, Riker began to pace around the room. Back and forth, back and forth, he stomped with the ferocity and agony of a caged jungle cat. He hated everything about hospitals: the cold industrial tiles beneath his feet, the moans of the sick and dying, the tiny rooms filled with the cloying scent of fear and hopelessness. Riker felt like he had just traded one prison room for another.

  But most of all, he hated that Gia was here ⸺but really not here. He hated that she was caught in between the living and the dead. Resting my ass! He thought to himself. My woman is not resting, she is fighting for her life.

  Riker’s whole body tensed with rage. When he pulled back his arm to propel his fist through the stark white, smooth hospital wall, an arm made of pure iron hooked around his and stopped him short.

  A second later Riker found himself in a headlock, Prosper’s voice was a low rasp in his ear. “Calm the fuck down. You wanna put a hole through that wall? Wind up banned from the hospital while your woman needs you? While your son needs you?”

  “This is my fault. I should have been here to take care of her.” Riker struggled to break free. “I had one fucking job to do. I made one damn promise to her, and I blew it.”

  Prosper tightened the hold he had around Riker’s neck until he stopped struggling.

  “Now you listen to me, you stubborn sonofabitch. If anyone is to blame it’s me. This never should have happened on my watch, in my club.” Prosper growled back. “But this blame game you’re playing with yourself? This kind of thinking is self-indulgent bullshit and it’s gonna have to wait. Someone is gonna pay for this, but it ain’t gonna be you and it ain’t gonna be her, and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be that baby of yours.”

  Just then a nurse walked into the room, stopped just inside the door and looked at the two men locked in combat. “Do we have a problem here, gentlemen?”

  “No ma ‘am.” Prosper released Riker.

  The nurse, who had steel gray hair, a robust figure, and an absolute no-nonsense attitude raised a questioning eyebrow at Riker.

  “No. No problem.”

  “Good, because I would h
ate to have to throw you out.” Then she looked imperiously down her nose at them. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t hesitate to give you a good boot if you two forget where you are.”

  Forget where I am? Pretty fucking unlikely

  He moved to the window to try and catch his breath. From Riker’s vantage point, the rows upon rows of cars parked in the lot below made him think of caskets all lined up and ready to go.

  He turned away.

  Medically induced coma.

  What. The. Hell?

  Medically induced prison, medically induced purgatory, medically induced where the hell are you, Gia?

  “Maybe I’m a simple guy, but to me you are either dead or you ain’t.” Riker said to the nurse. “Can she hear? Can she feel? Should I talk to her, should I touch her?” He rubbed a hard hand through his hair. “I have no idea what the hell to do to help her.”

  “We’re helping her. I’m sure they told you how those machines are helping to quiet her brain by limiting the work it has to do while it heals.” The nurse told him. “And you’re helping her by just being here. Every case is different, but research shows that out of all of the senses hearing is the…” Here she hesitated and looked chagrined.

  “It’s the last to go. Hearing is the last to go. That’s what you were going to say.”

  “That’s right, that’s what I was going to say.” The stern nurse whose name tag ironically said Nightingale admitted with a sigh. “But it’s not what I meant to say. What I meant to say is hearing is the….” Nurse Nightingale seemed to search for words she couldn’t find. She had the grace to look abashed.

  “What I meant to say is… talk to her, touch her, hold your wife’s hand, let her know you’re here. Let us do the rest. And Mr. Devlin? We have every reason to be optimistic. I need to have a few minutes with her, why don’t you go get yourself something to eat?”

  “I’ll eat when she eats.” He told her. With that Nurse Nightingale looked at Riker and muttered something that sounded a lot like stubborn exhausted fool, then she pulled the curtain around Gia and went about the business of keeping Gia clean and comfortable.

  Riker leaned forward in the chair. His hands on his thighs. Out of all the places he thought he and Gia would end up, this wasn’t one of them. Prison, yeah. That was bound to happen sooner or fucking later. When he beat that charge, Riker thought he was the luckiest sonofabitch on the planet. But if this was the cost? He would do five life sentences to give Gia back just that one moment in time before the accident.

  The person in the other vehicle had died. Riker had heard them talking at the nurse’s station. He had been just a kid, a seventeen- year- old boy who had taken his dad’s truck out for the first time. There was only one witness to the accident and that was an eighty-two year old woman who was out walking her dog. She reported to the authorities that a man on a motorcycle ran a stop sign. When the young fella in the truck swerved to avoid him, he plowed right through Gia’s car and went on to hit a large oak tree head on.

  The woman could not identify anything about the motorcycle or its driver.

  Prosper let Riker know that he had taken care of notifying Gianni and that Gianni had taken care of notifying the rest of the family. Valentina and Hal were on the way from the airport and Gianni’s flight was due in the next evening. Audrina and Pauli were traveling by train through Eastern Europe and no one had been able to reach them as of yet.

  That’s what Riker thought he had heard anyway.

  Everything was a blur. He had lost track of time and conscious thought. Riker had no idea when the last time he had showered, changed his clothes or eaten was. He quit smoking cold turkey because he didn’t want to leave her to step outside. Riker existed solely on black coffee, and adrenalin. He didn’t talk, he didn’t sleep, he barely breathed. His whole focus was on Gia. He just stayed in the room with her and watched her breathe.

  “Riker?”

  “Hey, Valentina.” He stood up to greet her and to his surprise Valentina wrapped her arms tight around him. Then, because he felt he had to say something, he asked. “How was your flight? How’s Hal doing?”

  “Hal’s good, the flight was good. We’re just glad to be here.” Valentina felt a strong surge of compassion for Riker. “How are you holding up?”

  When he didn’t answer her, she continued on. “They made me wait to come in, so I went up and saw the baby first. Your son is beautiful, Riker. Absolutely beautiful. All that black hair and I think he definitely has the Abruzzi nose.” Valentina said with a sad smile. “He’s had a rough start, but he’s gonna be just fine. I’m sure of it.”

  When Riker still didn’t respond Valentina fell silent. She pulled up a chair, sat next to Gia and held her cousin’s hand in hers.

  “It's too much." He heard Valentina softly say. "This family has been through too much. I'm so afraid for her." She rubbed her forehead. "I sound like such a coward, don't I?"

  Riker shook his head. "No, you don’t. You’d have to be seriously screwed up not to be scared for her."

  That elicited a small, dry laugh from Valentina. "In that case I am definitely not screwed up.” Then she added gently. “I’ll stay with Gia, you can go visit with your son.”

  “We’ll see the baby together for the first time. Gia and me. I’m not leaving her.” Riker said with determination.

  Valentina raised an eyebrow when she realized Riker hadn’t been to see the baby, but when he looked back at her, it was with a challenge. Valentina realized in that moment Riker was calling all the shots. Well, then, so be it. Valentina was too tired, too worried, and too overwrought with emotion to put a chink in Riker’s tightly woven armor. Besides, he almost looked as bad as Gia did. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw was tense, and his fists clenched and unclenched by his sides as he spoke. Riker couldn’t seem to stand still, but shifted his weight on one foot then another, like a boxer getting ready for a fight. All the while an aura of haunted emotion settled like steam around him.

  If Valentina had harbored any doubt about the wisdom of Gia’s decision to marry Riker, it had disappeared the moment she saw his face. Valentina had no doubt that given the opportunity Riker would gladly trade his life for Gia’s.

  On Riker’s part, he was surprised to find that he was strangely comforted by Valentina’s presence. It was a feeling of profound relief to have someone else there who loved his wife as much as he did. Riker slowly felt his body begin to relax. His breath became more even and his shoulders lost some of their tension. Riker leaned his head against the wall, felt his eyes grow heavy, and against all odds finally dozed off.

  He was in a hospital room, but this one was more comfortable than functional, more cheery than sedate, with soft butter yellow walls and a field of daisies visible through the window. A fresh soft breeze perfumed the room with the smell of clean linen. Colorful scatter rugs replaced industrial tiled flooring. Although the machines still sat bedside like soldiers waiting for a command, Gia was no longer hooked up to them. Instead she lay peacefully asleep in a bed covered in white lace sheets, while her head rested comfortably on soft down-filled pillows.

  As Riker looked on, Gia suddenly woke up, smiled serenely at him, and rose from the bed. When she climbed onto his lap, Riker wrapped his arms tight around her and buried his nose in the sweet smell of her hair. But the longer Riker held Gia, the stiffer she became. Her warm, pliant body grew rigid with cold. Suddenly, Riker had the overwhelming feeling that the only thing that was keeping Gia’s spirit from leaving her body was the strength of his arms holding her back. Even so, it wasn’t long before he felt her begin to slip away from him. When Riker tried to reach for Gia, tried to stop her from leaving him, his hand went right through her and caught nothing but thin air.

  As she floated above Riker, Gia’s eyes were filled with despair and her voice was filled with quiet sorrow, “I’m so sorry. So, so, sorry. I’m not going to live through this, Riker.”

  “No!” Riker felt an arctic cold enter and consume his bo
dy until all the warmth was gone.

  “I’ll be gone soon, and I can’t take you with me.” She whispered gently.

  “You think you’re leaving me behind, Gia? Not gonna happen.” But even as he spoke the words, he couldn’t see her any longer.

  “Gia! Gia!” Riker tried to yell to her but there was no sound. The mist grew heavier and colder until he was lost in a void of frigid darkness. Riker was alone and bereft. He felt a sense of despair so deep that it left him shattered. Then out of the darkness came tiny sparks of warm light. They danced around him until the light became whispers and the whispers became words. “Take care of our baby, Riker. Love him enough. Enough for the both of us.”

  Riker awoke with a start. After that first time, whenever he managed to catch a few moments rest, he had the exact same dream.

  “Why the fuck ain’t she waking up?” Riker paced the room. Gia had been off the ventilator and had been given meds to bring her out of the coma a week ago to no apparent avail. She still lay in that same sleep state. It was totally frustrating, frightening, and freaking Riker way the hell out. Her eyes would twitch occasionally, and sometimes Gia might move a hand or finger. But that was all. Gianni and Valentina had been taking turns being Riker’s plus one in the hospital room. Gianni constantly had his rosary beads out, and Valentina did the same. Riker thought about praying, but he refused to acknowledge any god that threatened to take Gia away from him.

  “These things take time.” Doctor Cahill, the physician in charge of Gia’s case, answered him.

  “Calling bullshit, Cahill, she’s been off the shit you pumped into her almost a week.” Riker ran a frustrated shaking hand through his hair.

  “I must agree, doctor, it appears the concerns that I have already discussed with you at length have fallen on deaf ears. I believe that my niece should be awake by now.” Gianni agreed.