He frowned, lifting her eyelids to check her pupils. "I need to run some tests. Blood work, at the very minimum. This level of physical response suggests her body is under severe strain."
"Do whatever you need to do. Cost is no object."
He nodded, preparing a syringe. "I'll need privacy."
I hesitated, reluctant to leave her side.
"I'll call you the moment I know anything," he assured me.
I stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind me. Enzo stood waiting, face grim.
"Boss?"
"Double the security. No one gets in or out without my explicit permission. And I want hourly updates on Antonio's movements." I paused, the weight of the ultimatum settling on my shoulders. "He's declared war."
"Consider it done."
I leaned against the wall, suddenly exhausted. Antonio's ultimatum echoed in my mind:Give her back to me or kill her yourself.
She'd collapsed from sheer terror after hearing what awaited her. The fear in her eyes when she'd realized there was nowhere left to run—it had been my fear too. The fear of losing her to my brother's cruelty.
She'd taken the knives because she was afraid. Because I'd made her afraid. I'd taken her freedom, her agency, her dignity—all in the name of protection. But in doing so, I'd become just another man who sought to control her.
Fuck!
If she survived this—when she survived this—things would be different. I would be different.
Antonio thought he was forcing my hand with his ultimatum. But he'd made a critical error. He'd shown Sophie exactly what kind of monster he was. And he'd shown me exactly what I stood to lose.
She was not just leverage anymore. Maybe she never had been.
CHAPTER 6
Sophie
The world came back to me in fragments. First, the antiseptic smell. Then, the soft beep of a monitor. My eyelids felt weighted, but I forced them open, blinking against the harsh overhead light.
White walls. Metal equipment. Not my luxurious prison bedroom.
"Easy," a voice said before I could fully orient myself. An older man with salt-and-pepper hair and kind eyes approached the bed.
My head felt stuffed with cotton, thoughts moving like molasses. "What happened?"
"You collapsed in the garden. Mr. Ricci brought you here." He checked something on a monitor beside my bed. "I'm Dr. Rossi. We've been running tests while you were unconscious."
Tests. The word sent a spike of anxiety through the fog in my brain. "How long was I out?"
"About six hours. We've been monitoring you closely." He glanced at a tablet in his hands, then back at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. "Ms. Winters, I need to discuss your test results with you."
Something in his tone made my stomach clench. "What's wrong with me?"
Dr. Rossi pulled a chair closer to the bed, his movements deliberate. "Nothing's wrong, per se. Your blood work came back with some unexpected findings."
Through the window in the door, I could see guards stationed outside—more than usual. One of them kept glancing at his phone, his expression tense.
"Your condition explains the fainting spell," Dr. Rossi continued, lowering his voice. "You're pregnant, Ms. Winters. About six to eight weeks along, based on your hormone levels. Still relatively early, which explains why you might not have noticed symptoms yet."
The words hit me like a physical blow. Pregnant. The room tilted, and I gripped the bed rail to steady myself.
