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Chapter Twenty-Two

Dante

I ’ve just taken my seat across from one of our biggest investors when my phone lights up on the table. Wife , it reads.

My heart jumps.

I don’t hesitate. “Apologies. Just a second.” I reach for the phone and lift it to my ear, already smiling like a lovesick fool.

And that’s when it hits me how different things are now. There was a time I wouldn’t have looked twice at my phone during a 450-million-dollar negotiation. But now? Now I don’t care. If she calls, I answer.

“Francesca,” I say, my words warm and teasing. “What can I do for you?”

Things have been better. Tentatively, quietly better. She still won’t say it, but I see it in the way she looks at me, the way she touches me. The wariness is fading from her eyes. Her body softens when I touch her. She snuggles close at night, even if she pretends not to remember in the morning.

I want to believe we’re finding our way back to something real.

But my smile dies as soon as I hear her voice, not speaking to me. It’s muffled, tense. Alarm bells go off immediately. “Why are you taking Cherry Lane?” she says in the background.

Cherry Lane? That’s not the way to Alessio’s fencing academy.

“Why are you taking Cherry Lane?”

I shove my chair back, ignoring the startled look from the investor as Bruno rises behind me like a shadow. The phone stays glued to my ear, but I’m not listening for a response. I’m listening for her.

For anything, and then I hear him. “Shut the fuck up!” Fulvio’s voice is full of hate.

Rage slices through me as I push through the restaurant doors, barely registering Bruno hot on my heels.

“She’s in the car,” I growl. “With Alessio. Fulvio’s driving. Cherry Lane now.”

Bruno doesn’t ask questions. He jumps into the driver’s seat as I throw myself into the passenger side. The tires scream as he pulls out, and I hold the phone tighter, my heart pounding.

More muffled sounds. Her voice. Alessio’s.

A scream. A crash. And then, worst of all… silence.

“Francesca?” My voice cracks. “Baby, please answer me.” I shake the phone like that will bring her back, like I can will her voice to return. “Francesca!”

The call drops. No static. No scream. Just empty, dead air.

“Faster!” I roar, but Bruno’s already flying down the road, weaving through traffic like a demon. The streets blur past in a smear of gray and asphalt and fear.

Then we see the car, crushed against a tree on the side of the road, metal twisted like paper. The front windshield is shattered, and the side door is open.

I don’t remember getting out. I only remember running, screaming her name.

“Francesca!”

A little body crouched by the wreck pulls my focus. Alessio. He’s on the ground, curled up beside her, gripping her hand like a lifeline.

There’s blood on him, blood… on my son.

“Alessio!” I drop beside him. “Are you hurt?”

His little face is streaked with tears and dirt. He shakes his head violently, pointing to her. “Mama saved me,” he sobs. “She pushed me down… she covered me… she saved me.”

My vision blurs.

She’s lying there, still and pale, her blouse soaked in red, her curls dark with blood .

My hands hover over her body, not knowing where to touch, afraid that if I do, I’ll break what’s left.

I cradle Alessio with one arm, the other trembling as I reach for her.

Sirens wail in the distance.

I press my forehead to hers, barely breathing. “Stay with me,” I whisper. “You’re strong, remember? You’re so damn strong. Just… stay with me.”

She doesn’t move.

The blood on my hands isn’t mine. It’s hers. And I’d give every drop of mine to take her place.

Bruno kneels beside me, his face stricken. Someone on the side of the road is already calling it in, or maybe they already did.

The ambulance is getting closer. I can hear it now. But it’s too quiet.

Alessio clutches her hand tighter.

“Mama saved me,” he says again, softer this time. Like he doesn’t understand what it costs.

And all I can think, over and over again, is, Please don’t let her die, not like this, not when I just started to believe she could be mine.

The whine of sirens crescendos until the ambulance screeches to a halt beside us. Doors fly open. Boots hit pavement. Shouts blur together: calls for vitals, for a stretcher, for blood type.

They move her so carefully, and still, it feels too rough.

I stand frozen, torn in half, Alessio’s tiny blood-smeared hand still gripped in mine.

“Sir, we need you to ride with her. There’s no time?— ”

I hesitate.

Alessio’s eyes find mine, wide, wet, terrified. His little chest heaves. “Don’t leave me,” he whispers. His voice cracks. “Papa, please…”

Fuck. I can't. I can’t leave him like this, but I can't leave her either.

My heart lurches, splitting down the center.

Bruno steps in, crouching beside Alessio and placing a firm hand on his shoulder. “I’ve got him.”

I stare at him, lost. My fingers tighten around Alessio’s.

“She would want it to be you,” Bruno says quietly.

I turn to him, my jaw tight, eyes burning. “He’s scared.”

“I know,” Bruno answers. “So is she. But she’s unconscious. And if she wakes up, she’ll want you. She’ll need to see you there.”

The medics are calling again, louder this time. One foot in the ambulance, one still on the pavement. I look down at my son, then at my once enemy. At my fucking heartbeat in pieces.

Bruno meets my gaze. “Trust me with him,” he says. “She loves him.” A pause. “And I love her.”

It’s not a threat, just the truth I needed to hear.

I nod once sharply. “If anything happens?—”

“I’ll die before I let it,” Bruno swears.

I let go of Alessio’s hand gently. He clutches Bruno’s arm instead, blinking back tears.

“I’ll be back,” I whisper. “I swear it.”

Then I turn and climb into the ambulance just as the doors slam shut behind me. I barely hear the engine roar to life. All I can see is her, pale, too still, tubes and wires already tangled around her limbs.

I take her hand, and it’s limp in mine. Cold… too cold.

I lift it to my mouth and press a kiss to the back of it. “Francesca,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “God, baby… your hand is freezing.”

She doesn’t move, doesn’t stir.

The medic checks her pulse again, calling out numbers I can’t understand over the blood roaring in my ears.

I press her hand to my chest. “Stay with me. You hear me? Stay.”

My thumb strokes over her knuckles, blue-tinted now, and I can’t stop the shaking. My breathing’s gone shallow, ragged. I don't care. Nothing matters except her eyes opening again.

Please, just open your eyes.

The hospital comes into view in a blur of red lights and sirens.

When we stop, the doors burst open, and the paramedics rush to pull her out. I go to follow, but a nurse holds me back, firm but kind. “You can’t come into surgery, sir. Please?—”

“No. No, no, no?—”

“You’ll see her after. I promise.”

I fight her hold until I realize I’m wasting time. Precious time. So I lean down over her still body, her curls matted with blood, her lips too pale.

I kiss her forehead gently.

“Fight, my love,” I whisper, my tears hitting her skin.

“Fight your way back to me. I swear to god… if you come back to me, I’ll let you go.

” My voice breaks entirely. I grip her hand tighter.

“I’ll sign the divorce papers. I’ll set you fr ee.

I’ll never ask you to stay, not even one more day.

But please…” My head drops to her chest. “Please just live.”

They pull her away. And as I watch the doors swing shut behind the gurney, something shatters in me.

I know, without question, that if she doesn’t come back… my heart won’t survive this. Not really, not ever.

The waiting room feels like hell dressed in white paint and disinfectant.

I can’t sit. I’ve worn a path into the hospital floor, pacing, fists clenched at my sides, her blood dried on my shirt.

I hear footsteps, and when I turn, Vito’s already halfway down the hallway, face pale, eyes wide with questions.

Bruno must’ve called him. Good. At least this blood-soaked revenge is something I can still control.

I meet him head-on. “I want blood,” I say, my voice low, lethal. “I want that son of a bitch in my basement before the day is out. I want to carve his fucking skin off inch by inch.”

Vito swallows hard, nodding once. “You have my word. I’ll find him.”

But I don’t stop. I step closer, my jaw tight. “You know what’s funny?” My laugh is hollow and cold. “I thought it was you.”

He flinches like I slapped him. “What?”

“I thought you were the rat. Feeding my enemies. Selling me out.” My voice cracks, but not with pain—with fury. “You’ve been by my side for years, and I still looked at you and saw a knife waiting for my back.”

His face twists in something like grief. He staggers back a step and grips the back of a chair like it’s the only thing holding him up.

“Inadvertently…” he whispers. “Oh god. Dante…”

My stomach drops.

“What did you just say?”

He lifts his head slowly, his eyes shining with something worse than guilt.

He drags both hands down his face, then grips the back of his neck like he can’t hold the weight of it all.

“I didn’t know what Fulvio was planning. But I knew he was angry. About the reassignment. About Bruno. About you.” He swallows. “I thought it was just bitterness. I didn’t think…” He stops himself and looks at me. “I’ve been… close to him. For months now.”

It hits me like a brick to the chest. Not the truth itself, I knew. I’ve always known.

But hearing it now, after this, when Francesca is somewhere down the hall fighting for her life, and Fulvio is out there with her blood on him…

I raise my hand.

“Don’t,” I say tightly. “I’m not in the fucking headspace to hear your confession right now. Keep it for later. Write it in a letter, scream it at your priest, I don’t care.”

He goes silent. I look at him. Cold. Final.

“Just bring him to me.”

He nods like a man condemned. “You’ll have him before the day is over.”

Before either of us can speak again, the door swings open.

A doctor steps in, wearing pale-blue scrubs splattered with red that make my heart stop.

“Mr. Forzi?”

I step forward. My mouth won’t move. I just nod.

The doctor takes a breath, folding her hands. “She lost a lot of blood. We had to remove the spleen to stop the hemorrhaging. There were two internal lacerations and a fractured rib. She’s stable now, but she’s critical.”

My knees almost give out.

“The next twenty-four hours will be… critical,” the doctor adds. “We’ll be monitoring her closely. If there’s no further bleeding and no signs of infection, we’ll start to see improvement.”

I nod again and swallow back everything that’s trying to break loose inside me. “Can I see her?”

“Just for a minute. She’s sedated.”

Vito stays behind as I follow the doctor down the hall, my heart pounding in my ears like a war drum, every step heavier than the last.

Please, God. Please don’t take her from me .

The room is too white, too sterile, too quiet.

The beeping of machines cuts through the silence in even, impersonal rhythms, but all I can hear is the sound of my own heart cracking open inside my chest.

She’s lying there, so still, she doesn’t look real.

Her skin is too pale against the hospital sheets, her lips dry, parted slightly like she might speak if only she could wake up.

Wires snake from her arms. Tubes down her throat. A bruised patch blooms along her collarbone and temple. There’s blood dried at the edge of her hairline, and I wonder how long she bled while I sat in a fucking meeting.

I move to her side slowly, like if I go too fast, the world might tilt again.

The room lacks warmth. Her warmth. Her laugh. She’s always been the light in the dark, and now that light is flickering, and I can’t lose it.

I take her hand, and it’s still so cold, almost like it’s made of wax. I bring it to my mouth and kiss the back of it gently, again and again, as if I can warm her through sheer will.

“You’re so cold,” I whisper, cradling her hand on my cheek. “You protected our boy. Sweetheart, you saved him.”

I try to smile. It doesn’t come, but the tears do.

“I should’ve known something was wrong. I should’ve followed you. I should’ve—” My voice cracks. “I should’ve protected you.”

Her fingers twitch, barely, or maybe I imagined it.

I lean closer. Press my forehead to her knuckles.

“Francesca,” I breathe out, broken. “Fight. Please. Fight for me. Fight for the kids. For yourself. Just—don’t leave. Not like this.”

I swallow hard and pull away enough to kiss her forehead, careful not to jostle the wires. Her skin is clammy and cool.

“I’ll give you your divorce,” I whisper. “I’ll let you go if that’s what it takes. If that’s what you need to be okay. You can walk out of that house, and I won’t stop you.” My voice cracks again. “But please… please come back. Just co me back.”

I can’t stop crying now. My chest heaves, and I grip her hand like it’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart.

“I’ll give you everything you ever wanted, Francesca. Everything. But just…” My words are barely a whisper. “Don’t die. Not when I’ve only just learned how to love you.”

The machines beep on, cold and indifferent. But I don’t care.

I rest her hand back on the bed and brush my knuckles across her cheek.

“I have to go see Alessio,” I say quietly. “He’s shaking, and he needs to know you’re alive—from me.”

I reach up and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear with trembling fingers, careful not to disturb the tubes.

“But I’ll be back, sweetheart. I swear it. I’m coming back soon.”

I lean down, pressing one last kiss to her forehead. “And I’ll stay with you,” I promise quietly. “I’ll stay until you open those beautiful eyes.”

I step back, casting one final look before I leave the room.

But as I walk away, I know I’m not truly leaving.

Because a part of me stays right there with her… always.