My hand finds my Glock before conscious thought, the metal warm from my body heat. The safety clicks off, the sound impossibly loud.
"Toccala e sei morto." Touch her and you're dead.
Marco stops, genuinely surprised by the barrel now aimed at his center mass. "You'd draw on your own blood?"
"Apparently, I would." The promise comes out steady, certain, my finger resting on the trigger guard.
We stand frozen, two brothers separated by a hospital bed and the woman who's shattered everything we thought we knewabout loyalty. The moment stretches, violence hanging in the air like cordite before a firefight.
"You're choosing her over blood," Marco observes, but there's something in his voice now: understanding, maybe, or recognition of the same insanity that made him steal Valentina from her own wedding.
"Yes." Simple. Absolute.
He studies my face, sees something there that makes him step back from Emma's bed. "Father would have shot you for less."
"Father never loved anyone the way I love her."
Marco's expression shifts, decision made. "I'll keep this secret for now. But the Hewsons pay for their deception. They used our family as pawns."
The Glock returns to its holster, safety clicking back into place. "They will pay. Especially if they sent these photos. Once we understand their game completely."
"The blackmail network…"
"I don't fucking care," I say, squeezing so hard on my crystal glass that it sings. "Emma is fucking dying, here. Nothing else matters."
Marco's voice carries warning. "Every hour we wait, our enemies gather strength."
"Every hour she stays unconscious, I lose more control." The admission costs me something. "I need her awake to think clearly, to plan properly. Without her…"
Marco looks at Emma then, really looks at her. Sees the servant girl who's broken his brother so completely I'm willing to war against our own allies.
"The family meeting is tomorrow," he says finally. "If she's not awake by then, we'll need contingencies."
"If she's not awake by tomorrow, there won't be a tomorrow."
The words hang between us, not threat but promise. Marco understands: if Emma dies, I follow. The Rosetti bloodline will lose a son to one servant girl's broken heart.
After he leaves, I return to Emma's bedside, pressing my lips against her hair. The strands still smell faintly of jasmine beneath the medical scents, ghost traces of the woman who traced constellations on my chest.
"I'll find who sent those photos," I whisper against silk strands that feel too fragile. "I'll discover if Tommy's really dead or if this is another manipulation. And when I have answers, when I know who did this to you, I'll decorate the city with their skulls."
My fingers find her pulse again, still weak, still fading. Dr.Castellano says she's stable but we both know the truth: she's choosing whether to come back, and every hour she stays unconscious is another hour she chooses death over me.
The Glock's weight against my ribs isn't for protection anymore. It's for whoever tries to separate us again. Including death itself.
I slide my hand under the sheets, finding the bruises I left on her hip, pressing down until I feel her pulse flutter beneath my fingers. Mine. Still mine. Even unconscious, her body remembers who owns it. The marks are fading to yellow-green now, but I trace each one. She's still here, still warm, still breathing.
I press harder against the bruise, watching her eyelids flutter, some deep part of her responding even in this darkness. Her pulse quickens under my touch, just slightly, but enough to tell me she's still in there somewhere. Still fighting whether she knows it or not.
"Every person who knew about your deception and used it against us. Every member of the blackmail network still breathing. Every soul who contributed to breaking you. Everyperson involved in Tommy's death. Every asshole who sent you those photos." My mouth finds her ear, lips brushing skin that's too cold. "They all die screaming your name until you wake up to make me stop."
25 - Emma
“You fought.” Alessandro’s voice cuts through the fog, and I realize he’s been watching me breathe. His fingers press against my wrist, checking my pulse. The words crack when he continues: “The doctors said you were gone, but you fought to stay.”
My throat burns from the stomach pump, and everything tastes like acid. But he's here, this beautiful, haggard man who commands armies, and he's been reduced to counting my heartbeats.
"For you," I whisper, the admission scraped raw from my damaged throat.
