Page 32 of Hunted to the Altar (Caputo Crime Family #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

N ina

The penthouse is too clean.

It smells like lemons and money and everything I can’t stomach right now.

I sit on the couch, knees pulled to my chest, the hospital band still on my wrist. My hair smells like iodine and metal. I want to shower but I can’t move yet. My body remembers what the anesthesia erased. It twinges. It throbs. It grieves.

I stare at the band around my wrist. At the name printed neatly in black ink. Mrs. Caputo.

It mocks me.

Samuel walks past me once. Then again. Then again.

He’s pacing. Every step heavier than the last. He won’t look at me. His mouth moves like he’s arguing with someone who isn’t there.

He pours a drink. Spills half of it. Doesn’t wipe it up. Just stares at the glass like it betrayed him .

The silence stretches. Tightens. It becomes its own thing, a presence in the room. Smothering us both.

I speak first.

"Say something."

He doesn’t.

"Samuel. Say something."

He looks at me finally.

And his eyes are vacant. Like he’s not all the way here.

"I did this," he says. His voice is flat.

My throat tightens. I shake my head.

"Don’t."

"I did. I stressed you. I caged you. I?—"

"Don’t do this. Don’t make it about you."

That lands.

He flinches, then nods, slowly, like it hurts. Like every part of him is breaking and he doesn’t know how to bleed right.

He sinks onto the couch across from me. His elbows on his knees. Head in his hands.

"I didn’t know how to protect you," he mutters. "All I ever do is hurt what I try to keep."

I should comfort him. Should say something to ease the guilt splitting his chest.

But I can’t.

Because there is a pit where my center used to be.

And right now, I don’t want to be held. I don’t want to be fixed.

I want to sit in this pain until I understand what it means.

I stare out the window at the city lights, blurry through the thick pane of glass. I wonder how many other women are out there tonight, feeling the same hollow ache. Wonder how many of them were told "it’s common" or "you can try again" as if a replacement could be made from blood and bone.

We sit in the silence. Him with his guilt. Me with my loss.

I still don’t cry .

I won't—not in front of him.

Because if I do, I’ll break.

And I need him to see that I survived this.

Even if it kills me.

Even if every part of me wants to fall apart.

I close my eyes. I count to ten. I count the things I still have. My breath. My hands. My name.

I open them again and stare down Samuel Caputo—the man who swore to protect me and ended up being the sharpest blade pressed against my heart.

I survived you, too.

And you will never know how much it cost me.

Later, in the quiet of the penthouse bedroom, I sit alone with the weight of it. The grief comes in waves—sharp, stabbing ones that knock the air from my lungs. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep the sobs back. I rock myself.

Anger creeps in. Not at Samuel. Not at the doctor. Not even at myself. But at the world. At the irony. At the cruelness of being given something just to lose it before I ever had a chance to protect it.

But then comes... acceptance. Or maybe something close to it. Something shaped like surrender.

Maybe—just maybe—this was mercy.

Not for me.

For them.

For the child who would have been born into a life of hiding and violence, born into a war that neither side knew how to end. Born into my trauma. Samuel’s obsession. The danger that followed me like a second skin.

I don’t know if I believe in God. But tonight, I thank someone for taking them before they had to know this pain. Before they had to look me in the eyes and wonder why I never smiled right. Why I flinched at kindness. Why their father paced like a predator and loved like a weapon .

Maybe this was the kindest thing the universe could offer me. A clean break. A breathless mercy.

And that truth breaks me more than the loss ever could.

I wipe my eyes. One tear. Just one.

No one will ever see it fall.

I don’t know how long I sit in the dark before the memory comes.

It’s not dramatic. Not loud. Just a moment—quiet and barely there. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth. The mint turned my stomach. I gagged so hard I dropped the brush in the sink and stared at the mirror like it had betrayed me. My skin looked strange. My eyes too tired. My body too still.

I knew, right then. Before the test. Before the symptoms. I just... knew.

And for a second—just one—I let myself feel it.

Hope.

I’d placed a hand on my stomach and whispered, "Not now. Please. Not now." But a corner of my heart had already started carving space. I imagined a heartbeat. A name. A reason.

And now it’s gone.

Later, after Samuel disappears into another room, I sit alone in the bathroom, knees pressed to the cold tile. The mirror doesn’t show me anything I recognize. Just swollen eyes. Smudged mascara. A woman trying not to fall apart.

I finally let it happen.

The tears come slowly, burning tracks down my cheeks. There’s no sobbing. No wailing. Just a quiet, brutal unraveling. My body hiccups through the grief in sharp, shallow stabs. I press a towel to my mouth so no one hears me break.

This is the part no one prepares you for.

Not the blood. Not the emptiness.

The silence after.

The quiet in your ribcage where something once lived.

Back in the bedroom, I take off the hospital bracelet .

It resists—snagging against my skin like it doesn’t want to let go. The plastic creaks. I pause. Think about ripping it. Tossing it. Burning it.

But instead, I fold it.

Place it in the back of the drawer. Beneath the socks I never wear.

I don’t know why.

Maybe I need to remember that this happened.

Maybe I need proof that I felt something real.

Even if it didn’t last.

Even if I wasn’t allowed to keep it.