Page 127 of Bellini Bound

Voice rough from days of disuse, she spoke. “My dad. Is he . . .?”

I fought against the rising tide of rage at the mere thought of Logan.

“Alive,” I confirmed, though he wouldn’t stay that way for much longer if I had anything to say about it.

Her brows drew down, a crease forming between them. “And you’re okay?”

Physically, yes. Mentally, not even fucking close.

I stroked her hair. “I’m fine. How are you feeling?”

“Like my entire body is one giant exposed nerve ending.”

“I’ll call a nurse to up your pain meds.” Pulling away, I reached for the remote to press the call button, but she snagged my wrist weakly before I could. Staring down at her, I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Enzo, I have to tell you something.”

Chapter 32

Allie

WhenIcaughtthesorrow lurking in my husband’s hazel eyes, the air in the room shifted, and a sense of foreboding sent a chill down my spine.

“Honey, it can wait until—”

“I’m pregnant,” I blurted the secret I’d been keeping for over a month, too scared to share the news for fear of how Enzo might react. “Ten weeks along. Maybe eleven, depending on how long I’ve been out of it.”

Enzo collapsed onto the chair next to the bed, both of his hands lifting to cover his face.

“I should have told you sooner, but you’ve been so vocal about not wanting kids, and—” My words cut off abruptly when my husband’s hands fell away, and I saw the unshed tears in his hazel eyes.

He reached for my hand. “Allie, baby.” His sharp wince as he uttered that pet name told me everything I needed to know.

An excruciating agony like I’d never known sliced through my heart.

“No. Please, no,” I begged him to tell me that by saving his life, I hadn’t sacrificed that of our baby.

Enzo’s eyes slammed shut, and a stricken expression stole over his face.

A mixture of desperation and denial spurred me on as I yanked on the hem of my hospital gown, lifting it over my legs until I could see the large white bandages affixed to my skin with tape, covering my entire abdomen. Snagging the edge of the adhesive strip with a fingernail, I pulled it away and gasped when I saw the angry, red midline incision, held together by staples that stretched from my sternum all the way down to my pubic bone.

“What did they do to me?” I whispered.

My husband’s eyes sprang open, growing wide when they landed on the war zone of my stomach. He sprang to his feet. “Allie, what are you doing?”

“Tell me,” I demanded. “Tell me what they did.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed on a hard swallow. “You lost a kidney, a few feet of small intestines, and . . .”

“And?” I prompted, needing to hear him say it out loud.

“Your uterus,” he rasped, barely above a whisper.

“No,” I shook my head. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Great heaving sobs rolled through me at the gravity of his words, each sharp inhale sending a lightning bolt of pain through my entire nervous system, and I cried out.

“We need help in here!” Enzo’s shouting for assistance was muted, almost like I was hearing it from underwater as I drowned in the grief of losing our baby and learning we could never have another.

There was a rush of medical personnel into the room, and within minutes, my world went black.