Then I just stare at her beautiful face, my vision fading slowly.Until I’m out in the dark garden again, watching her golden hair shimmer in the overhead light.If my eternity will be spent that way, watching her, then I’ll die a happy man.A very happy man.
Chapter40
GIANNA
Maria is weeping softly nextto me, men are talking, my father is calling my name, telling me to come to him, that we can go home now.Just a few weeks ago, I hoped and prayed I would one day hear him say that to me.
Now I can’t even look at him.Now I hate him for what he has done to me.
The heat of Matteo’s gaze, the sunshine of his presence is fading.Fading into night.The endless night of forever.
I can’t face that endless night.
I won’t.
A tall brunette in a blood-stained doctor’s outfit rushes past the men gathered in the kitchen all around us.Her face is pale, stained with streaks of blood, but her eyes are alive, burning brightly.
“Give me some room,” she says to me.Not gently, not harshly either.
She’s joined by a man I think I saw at the bikers’ party.Tall, arms and shaved head covered in tattoos.He hands her a pair of sterile gloves from a bag and puts some on himself.
Then they cut open Matteo’s shirt, exposing the extent of the wound near his heart, which is still gushing blood.Maria pulls me back, whispers that I should let them work.
I can’t bear to look at Matteo bleeding.I can’t bear to look away.
Our child growing inside me seems alive too, seems to look on as I look on, watching the two work on trying to keep Matteo alive, praying with me.They’re sticking him with injections, massaging his heart, keeping pressure on his wound, bandaging it up.
The hope flaring in my chest, the hope that they’ll save him grows as hot as a bonfire, then as hot as the sun.
The room seems totally silent now, I feel like I’m alone with Matteo.Just me, him, and our unborn child.Urging him to fight, to hold on, to live for us.
But he’s not opening his eyes, and his face is growing paler and paler.And even the renewed hope the doctor’s arrival lit in my heart is slowly starting to fade.
She rocks back on her heels and wipes a lock of her hair off her forehead, leaving another streak of blood there.
She glances back at me.“He’s stable for now, but he needs the hospital and surgery.”
“Let’s go then,” Blade says.Isabella is standing beside him, pale as a marble statue, shaking slightly.I didn’t notice them come in.
“Fast, let’s move,” Rogue says.“I’ll call the hospital and tell them we’re coming.They still owe me a few favors.”
“And me,” the doctor says.
Then Blade and a few other men lift Matteo.I run after them, but my father catches me in his arms.
“What’s wrong with you, Gianna?”he asks.“This man abducted you.He destroyed your life.”
I turn to him.“This man is the love of my life.And the father of my child.”
Then I push him away and run to Matteo, take his hand in mine, and don’t let go until we’re at the hospital entrance where a team of masked doctors and nurses takes him from me.
He’s still breathing.His heart is still beating.There’s still hope.
Hope that our child will know his father.
Hope that I’ll feel the sunshine of Matteo’s gaze again.
Hope that we’ll finally get our happy ending after all that we lost and sacrificed.That all the pain will be worth it in the end.That all the bad things will be washed away by years and years of happiness and joy.
