"Stay with me." Giulia's face appears above me, and I can see the blur of tears streaming down her cheeks. "Luca, please, stay with me. Don't you dare die on me. Not now."
I want to tell her I'm not going anywhere. I want to tell her I love her, that I forgive her, that everything was worth it if it led us here.
But the words won't come. My mouth won't work properly, and the darkness at the edges of my vision is spreading, consuming everything, pulling me down into something that feels like sleep but deeper.
The last thing I see before the darkness takes me is Giulia's face, beautiful and terrified, her lips moving as she forms words I can’t make out. And the last thing I feel is her hand in mine, holding on like she can keep me alive through sheer force of will.
And then there's nothing but darkness.
30
GIULIA
Luca's knees buckle beneath him. He goes down, and I go to my knees next to him, reaching for him as I call out his name. I can feel the warmth of his blood soaking through my clothes.
"Luca!" His name tears out of my throat as I try to shift him and see his face. "Luca, stay with me. Please stay with me."
His eyes are open but unfocused, his breathing shallow and rapid. Terror shoots through every nerve in my body. The wound in his side is still bleeding, and it looks like too much blood.
Romeo appears above us, his face grim and streaked with soot, his left shoulder dark with blood from his own wound. He drops to his knees beside Luca, his hands immediately going to the injury and pressing down with a pressure that makes Luca gasp, and his eyes flutter.
"We need to move him," Romeo says, his voice tight. "Get the car to the east entrance. Carlo, clear the route. We're taking him to the nearest safe house."
Soldiers materialize around us, moving with a quick, focused purpose that feels surreal against the backdrop of bodies and smoke and the acrid smell of gunpowder that's thick enough totaste. Someone wraps something around Luca's torso, pulling it tight enough that he makes a sound that's half groan, half whimper. The vulnerability of it breaks something inside me.
It all feels like a movie, like none of this can be real, everything moving too fast and too slow all at once. But it is real, and every time that hits me again, I’m terrified I’m going to lose him.
"I'm here," I tell him, my hands on his face, trying not to think about what it means that his eyes have fluttered closed. "I'm right here, Luca. You're going to be fine. You have to be fine. Do you hear me? You're not allowed to die."
The words tangle in my throat, choking me. There's too much to say and no time to say any of it. His skin is going pale beneath the blood and dirt, and his breathing is getting more labored with each second that passes.
Romeo and another soldier lift Luca between them. I scramble to my feet, my legs shaking so badly I nearly fall, and follow as they carry him through the warehouse toward an exit.
The night air feels sharp and clean despite being near the docks after the heavy, smoke-filled interior of the warehouse. I shiver as we walk toward the black SUV waiting with its engine running and rear door open. They maneuver Luca into the back seat carefully despite the urgency of the situation, and I climb in after him. His head ends up in my lap, his blood soaking into the fabric of my ruined clothing, and I press my hands against the makeshift bandage wrapped around his torso, trying to stem the flow even though I have no idea if I'm doing it right. It makes me feel like bursting into hysterical sobs—I can plan a dinner party flawlessly, but I don't know how to save the life of the man I love.
Romeo slides into the front passenger seat, barking directions at the driver. The warehouse falls away behind us as we speed through streets that are mostly empty at this hour. The city passes in a blur of streetlights, and I can't look awayfrom Luca's face, cataloging every change in his breathing, every flutter of his eyelids.
"Stay with me," I whisper again and again, the words becoming a mantra. "Please, Luca. Please stay with me. I need you. The baby needs you. You can't leave us. Not now.”
I imagine his hand moves against mine, but I know it likely didn’t. He’s unconscious, and I don’t know if he’ll ever wake up again. My heart feels like it’s cracking apart inside my chest.
The drive takes twenty minutes, and every second stretches into what feels like hours, magnified by Luca's increasingly shallow breaths and the spreading warmth of his blood against my hands. By the time we pull up to a nondescript brownstone in a neighborhood I don't recognize, my entire body is shaking with adrenaline and terror.
The door opens before we’re even fully parked at the curb, and a man in his sixties with silver hair and sharp eyes appears, already pulling on latex gloves. Behind him, the interior of the house is lit up like an operating room, and I can see medical equipment that looks far too sophisticated for a residential setting.
"Gunshot wound, left side," Romeo says as he and the driver pull Luca from the car. "Took the bullet maybe twenty minutes ago. He's lost a lot of blood."
The doctor nods once and gestures us toward the house. "Bring him to the back room. Quickly."
I feel like my legs will barely support my weight as I follow, covered in Luca’s blood. The house is warm and smells like antiseptic, and the room they take him to has been converted into something that looks like a surgical suite, complete with an operating table, monitors, and equipment I can't begin to identify. They transfer Luca onto the table, and the doctor immediately cuts away the makeshift bandage, revealing the wound beneath. It's worse than I imagined—a ragged hole in hisside that's still bleeding sluggishly, the edges torn and angry. The sight of it makes my vision swim, and my stomach heave.
"The bullet's still in there," the doctor says as he examines the wound. "Looks like it missed the major organs. But he's lost a significant amount of blood, and I need to get in there to assess internal damage and remove the bullet."
"Will he—" My voice breaks on the question, and I have to swallow hard before I can continue. "Will he be okay?"
The doctor glances at me for the first time, his expression neutral. "I won't lie to you—he's in serious condition. But the wound is survivable if we act quickly. I need to prep him for surgery immediately." He turns to Romeo. "Get her out of here. She shouldn't see this."
"No." I bite out the word, suddenly terrified at the thought of being forced to leave and never seeing him alive again. "I'm not leaving him."
