He figured that was half of her problem, though he loved her for it.
For now, it was one thing at a time.
That would have to wait.
To anyone passing by, Enric probably looked like a family member waiting in the hall for whoever was in the room. He even seemed distracted, given his attention never once left the magazine, even as people passed him by.
That wasn’t close to being the case.
Mac was but three feet away and Enric hadn’t even passed him a look, but the young man tossed his magazine aside and stood.
“How’s Giuseppe?” Enric asked.
Mac frowned. “Managing.”
That was the best he could offer. As it was, Giuseppe had asked no one be permitted inside his unit room, even his family. Mac understood why, given the scene it would be over the coming days and weeks and even months as his skin was stripped from his body in an effort to make graphs to help heal the burns.
It was not for the faint of heart.
“And Melina?” Mac asked.
Enric smirked, letting out a chuckle. “Just give it a minute.”
Mac’s brow furrowed, but sure enough, he heard the snarl of his wife shortly after a nurse had taken in yet another round of medicines and things.
“She’s not happy to be in here,” Enric noted.
Well, it was what it was.
Mac almost considered running to the coffee shop down the street, just to give his wife a few more minutes to relax. He’d been with her for most of the night and morning, only taking a short break to make a few calls and visit Giuseppe during that time as well.
Still, Melina was not a fun patient to take care of.
He was pretty sure she was every nurse’s worst nightmare.
Enric let out a laugh as though he could read Mac’s mind. “Don’t even try it, Mac. If she asks where you are one more time, I’m going to tell her.”
“Pretty sure I’m the one running this show,” Mac muttered.
“Pretty sure it’s my father.”
Mac flipped Enric the middle finger as he began to move past him to enter Melina’s hospital room.
Enric’s question stopped him. “Did you find out anything?”
Mac hesitated. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Enric, because he did, but rather, he didn’t know if the information was something he was right on. What Giuseppe had told him was a possible theory, and as of now, nothing more.
Mac would have to ask his wife a few details about her car over the last few days.
“It may have been on a timer,” Mac said, “and probably not planted at the club.”
As sick as that thought made Mac.
There were very few places Melina went, and one was the club, another was to his mother’s place, and finally was their home.
If the bomb wasn’t planted at the club, it was very likely that it had been set right under their noses.
That just pissed him off like nothing else.
“Bombs don’t just sit idle like that in cars,” Enric said, repeating what Giuseppe had noted earlier.
“That’s why I said a timer,” Mac offered, giving nothing else.
He strolled into the hospital room, leaving Enric behind. The nurse was still in the room, huffing with her arms crossed as Melina glared at the older woman from her perch in the bed.
“It’s a vitamin,” the woman said to his wife. “The doctor wants it added on because it’s needed.”
“For what?” Melina barked. “To shove more pills down my throat?”
Mac had already heard enough. “Leave the meds, thanks. Please have the doctor stop by as soon as he is able, and I’ll handle it from here.”
If looks could kill, the nurse would have been dead as she left the room.
Mac turned his sharp eye on his wife, letting every ounce of his displeasure pour into the look. Melina barely even flinched.
“What?” she asked.
“Stop being difficult. Take the medicine.”
“They just added random pills to it without explanation!”
Mac sighed, the tremors of an oncoming migraine burning the sides of his temples. He found a seat beside his wife’s bed and found her hand with his own, soaking in her warmth and her life.
Because how easily … how close they had been to losing it.
Mac found Melina staring at him, and he could plainly see how unhappy she was in that hospital bed. She probably felt helpless or useless.
Jesus.
He knew the feeling well.
“Tell me about the car, doll,” he said.
Melina patted the side of her cheek were a few scrapes were. She’d had glass imbedded in those scrapes, and it had been a very painful two hours watching each little piece be pulled out with tweezers.
“I don’t remember,” she told him.
She’d said that over and over again.
Mac kept asking because he hoped she could regain something he could use.
Anything at all.
The human brain was a funny thing in that way. Any sort of hard whack or trauma and sometimes, the moments in which it happened and the time leading up to the event could be lost. His wife remembered all too well the hospital trip and even up until she lost consciousness. She couldn’t remember that night, though.