“I am your son,and my blood is your blood.We don’t run.You taught me that. And my vow to my mother is stronger than the vow I made to the syndicate. We need to keep her safe.”
I grind my teeth. “Daniele, watch your tone. I am your father—and still the head capo.”
“Then act like it,” he hisses. “Put a bullet in his head. Tonight. Kill him and end this.”
I turn, ready to snap back—but then I feel it.
A faint, unmistakable tightening around my fingers.
My breath fractures. “Amore?”
Danny’s head whips down. We both stare, frozen, every muscle locked, our lungs suspended in the space between hope and terror.
“Papa?”
“She squeezed my hand,” I breathe. “I—I felt her squeeze my hand. Come on, amore mio… do it again. Please.”
Seconds stretch, impossibly long.
One. Two. Three.
Her body jerks violently upward—unnatural, uncontrolled—then slams back down.
The monitors explode in alarms. Tubes rip free, blood spilling. Her body convulses, thrashing, uncontrolled.
“No—no, no—” The world tilts, blurs.
“CODE BLUE!” someone screams from down the hall.
The room floods instantly—white coats, gloves, voices barking orders. They shove us back, swarming her like a collapsing star.
“Mama!” Danny’s voice cracks and he lunges forward. I catch him around the waist, hauling him back as he fights like a wild animal.
“NO! Mom! Mom! Please—Papa, let me go! SAVE HER!”
“Danny—Danny, calm down—” My voice breaks as I drag him into the hall.
“BP is dropping!”
“Oxygen’s tanking!”
“Clear the line—move—move!”
My son thrashes in my arms, sobbing, reaching desperately toward the bed. “Mom! MOM! Please!”
I lock him to my chest, the way I did when he was a little boy having nightmares. But this—this is the nightmare.
“DO SOMETHING!” I roar at a nurse sprinting past with IV bags. “SOMEONE SAVE HER!”
No one answers me. They are too busy trying to keep my wife alive.
Danny collapses against me, shaking, breaking apart in my arms. I hold him, hold us both, but the floor might as well be gone. Everything tilts, spins, falls away beneath my feet.
My breath comes in thin, useless bursts.
The air is gone.
The world is gone.
