Luca Delgado had finally reached the point where the doctors had stopped using words like critical and miraculous when they looked at him. That alone felt like a victory.
The bullet wound in his side had closed cleanly, leaving behind an ugly, puckered scar that pulled painfully whenever he moved too fast or laughed too hard. The shattered bone in his leg had been less forgiving. Metal pins now lived inside him, cold reminders that he would never again walk quite the same way he had before Brandon's world had slammed violently into his own.
Crutches were his constant companions now.
He hated them.
Still, he could move. That was something. He could stand, shuffle, climb a flight of stairs if he took it slow and accepted the burning pain that followed. Compared to the weeks he'd spent flat on his back, drifting in and out of fever dreams while blood pooled beneath him on concrete, this felt like freedom.
Even so, he had left.
His ex-girlfriend had begged him not to.
