“You.” Danny’s green eyes meet mine. “He knows what matters now.That’sgoing to bring him back.”
I want to believe him. God, I want to believe that love is enough to keep someone alive.
“I want to be in his room,” I tell Danny. “When he gets out of surgery, I want to be there.”
Danny nods. “I’ll talk to the doctors. See what I can arrange.”
“No.” I push myself up in the bed, ignoring the way my chest protests. “I don’t think you heard me, Danny Grasso. I’m not asking. I’mtellingyou. Move me to his room. I don’t fucking care what strings you have to pull or who you have to threaten. I’m not spending another goddamn minute in this room while Luca is somewhere else in this hospital.”
For a moment, Danny just stares at me. Then a slow smile crosses his face. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, pride in his voice. “I’ll take care of it.”
It takes two hours of arguing with hospital administrators, but Danny makes it happen. By the time Luca is wheeled out of surgery and into a recovery room, I’m already there, waiting.
They’ve set up a second bed for me, right next to his. It’s close enough that I can reach out and touch him and can watch his chest rise and fall with each breath and reassure myself that he’s alive.
But when I see him, I want to cry. He looks terrible.
His face is bruised and swollen, his right shoulder heavily bandaged. There are tubes and wires everywhere—IV lines, monitors, oxygen. The steady beep of the heart monitor is the only sound in the room besides my own ragged breathing.
“The surgery went well,” the surgeon tells me. She’s a severe-looking woman in her fifties with sharp eyes, her hair still tucked under her surgical cap. “We repaired the damage to his shoulder. There was extensive soft tissue injury, but the bone wasn’t shattered. He’ll need physical therapy, but he should regain most of the function. The leg wound was clean, through and through. The chest wound…” She pauses. “That one was touch and go. The bullet nicked a major blood vessel. But we got it. He’s stable now.”
“When will he wake up?” My voice trembles. His injuries sound like he could have died. Rage courses through me, so hot the room feels warm. Romano is so fucking fortunate he’s dead because I would have killed him myself for what he did to Luca.
The surgeon shrugs. “It could be hours, or could be a day or more. His body has been through significant trauma. The anesthesia, combined with the blood loss and physical stress…he needs time to heal.”
Time. We have time now. Romano is dead. The threat is gone. We have all the time in the world for Luca to heal.
So why does it feel like time is running out?
The surgeon leaves, and Danny settles into a chair in the corner. He doesn’t say anything, just sits there like a silent guardian. I’m grateful for his presence, for not being alone with my fear.
I reach out and take Luca’s hand. It’s cool and limp, so different from the strong grip I’m used to. But I can feel his pulse beating against my fingers, steady and strong. I press a kiss to his palm.
“You listen to me, Luca Marchetti,” I say softly, my thumb stroking circles on the back of his hand. “You don’t get to die on me. Not now. Not after everything we’ve been through. You promised me forever, and I’m holding you to that.”
He doesn’t respond or move, but I was expecting that. The monitors keep beeping their steady rhythm.
“I need you,” I continue, my voice breaking. “I need you so much. So you need to wake up, okay? You need to come back to me.”
Still nothing. Just the beep of monitors and the quiet hum of hospital machinery.
I settle back in my own bed, never letting go of his hand. “I’ll wait,” I whisper. “However long it takes, I’ll be right here.”
29
GIULIANA
The first day passes in a blur of medical checks and worried watching. Nurses come and go, checking vitals, adjusting medications, making notes on charts. Danny brings me food I can barely eat. Viktor stops by briefly, his pale eyes assessing Luca before nodding once and leaving.
Luca doesn’t wake up.
The second day is worse. Every hour that passes makes the fear grow. What if he doesn’t wake up? What if the trauma was too much? What if I’m going to spend the rest of my life talking to someone who can’t hear me?
I start reading to him.
It’s Danny’s idea, actually. He appears with a stack of books from god knows where—thrillers, mysteries, even a few romance novels that make me raise an eyebrow.
“Romance novels?” I ask him, holding a paperback up of a woman in the arms of a man, her head thrown back in ecstasy.
