Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 126682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Dante studies me from the safe distance he’s taken, his gaze guarded. “She’s premature. They’re keeping her in an incubator, but the nurse will explain everything. All you need to know for now is that she’s healthy.”
“I want to see her. Is it a girl?”
“Yes.” His smile is stilted. “They had to do an emergency cesarean. That’s why you have to keep still. You mustn’t tear your stitches.”
“At what time was she born?”
“Ten past five this afternoon.”
I look at the drawn curtains. “What time is it now?”
It’s a mundane question, but at the same time, it feels important.
“Close to seven,” he says.
Three hours since we got married. “Saverio?”
He averts his eyes briefly before meeting mine again. “He’s still in the operating theater.”
Alive.
He’s alive.
That’s all that matters.
“Here?” I ask.
Dante nods.
I try to wet my cracked lips, but my tongue is dry. “I want to see him. I have to see him.”
Dante takes my hand. A part of me vaguely registers how furious Saverio will be that he touches me. They have these unwritten rules. Then why is he breaking them?
“His injuries are extensive, Anya. He has second degree burns and multiple gunshot wounds. Damage to his right knee from shrapnel. One of the bullets entered his kidney. The rest…” His voice breaks. “Christ. The rest we don’t know yet.”
I stopped breathing at second degree burns. I don’t listen to the rest. I can’t.
“You have to be strong,” he says, giving my hand a squeeze. “For him, for you, and most of all, for your baby.”
“Take me to him.” I grimace with pain as I throw back the covers and swing my legs over the side of the bed where the rail is lowered. “Now.”
Dante grabs my arm. “You have to listen to me. You can’t go to him. We can’t. He’s in surgery.” He dips his head. “The doctors, they’re doing everything they can.”
He’s alive, but it’s not all that matters. He can still die.
I collapse under the weight of that thought. It’s like the blast all over, the knowledge tearing me from limb to limb.
Dante comes around the bed. “There’s nothing we can do for now but be strong and wait.”
Be strong.
Wait.
It feels as if I may need a straitjacket. I want to fight like a lunatic. I want to claw my way through every person standing in my way until I’ve seen my baby and Saverio, but the logical part of my brain still functions. Understands.
“Here.” Dante sweeps an arm beneath my knees and lifts me back onto the bed. “You have to keep still.”
The skin of my stomach burns. My muscles protest when he pushes a pillow behind my back.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
Helplessness and anguish assault me.
He hands me a cup with a straw. I drink, battling to swallow the water.
“How many?” I exhale a shaky breath. “How many dead?”
His jaw bunches. “Too many.”
“Who?”
He pauses for a second, his nostrils flaring as he finally says, “Luigi, Giorgio, and most of their men.” He adds in a strained voice, “The assailants targeted the people on their side of the church first.”
Dear God.
I don’t know how to process that. “The priest?”
“He has minor injuries.”
I look him over. “You?”
“Got lucky. I kicked over the communion table and took cover behind it. I got away with just a few scratches.”
“No gunshot wounds?”
“I rolled under the pew and leopard crawled my way to the attackers, but they threw the first grenade before I could get to them.”
“You kicked away that grenade. If not for you—”
“I did what anyone would’ve done.”
I sink deeper into the pillow, scrutinizing my arms. They’re bruised and covered in scrapes, but no bones feel broken.
“You have some contusions but nothing serious,” Dante says.
Because Saverio took the bullets and absorbed the blast. He covered my head and my body with his to save my baby and me.
“Saverio…” I swallow back tears. “He could’ve gotten out. He could’ve taken cover. Like you. If he didn’t—”
“Saverio acted the way he saw best,” Dante says harshly. “He protected you because he wanted to. That’s all there is to it. You’re not going to help him by going on a guilt trip.”
I look away.
“The feds are questioning everyone,” he says. “They’ll interrogate you too.”
I turn my face back to him quickly.
“We take care of our own justice.” He crosses his arms. “You know what to say.”
“That I don’t know anything.”
“I’ll be right here if you need me.”
Gnashing my teeth, I say, “I know who did it.”
He only watches me, his dark eyes gleaming with rage.
“Raphael Morelli,” I spit out.
The family don’t shed blood at weddings. Only one man is dishonorable enough to disregard the most sacred rule of their kind. Raphael and Elena should’ve been there, but they cancelled at the last minute. It’s no secret that Raphael and Saverio are enemies. Raphael has always been keen on taking over Luigi’s territory. Since the day he arm-wrestled Luigi into letting him manage Obsidian, their second biggest nightclub, he’s been out for blood. He manipulated Luigi and undermined Saverio at every chance he got. War isn’t only evident in bloodshed. It’s mapped out in an organization’s accounting if you know how to read the books. And if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s interpreting the numbers.