Chapter 26
DANTE
“What’s happening? What’s wrong with my wife?”
In the back of the ambulance, Frankie’s delicate hand is cold and limp in my grip.
She’s hooked up to a heart monitor and a blood pressure cuff, the soft blip, blip, blip of the monitor making my own blood pressure soar.
The paramedics arrived fast, but they’ve been wearing grim expressions since first laying eyes on her and haven’t said anything encouraging about her condition.
She’s been in and out of consciousness since they got her on the stretcher.
I’ve been willing her to live the whole time.
She won’t open her eyes long enough to look at me.
She won’t answer any questions. Every now and then she comes to enough to realize she’s in pain, and I hear her moaning.
But no matter how encouragingly I squeeze her hand, she doesn’t squeeze back.
Every time she knocks out again, I’m afraid she’s dying.
The female paramedic performed an exam in the house before they wheeled Frankie out to the ambulance.
I asked the medic what was going on, but she couldn’t give me a straight answer.
Not about Frankie and not about the baby.
She said a doctor would know more. She also said they don’t have a monitor in the ambulance to check the baby—so we have no way to really know how dire the situation is until we reach the hospital.
When we arrive, the ambulance backs into the bay outside the ER and a team rushes out to meet us. I’m still hanging onto her hand.
“You can let go now, sir. We’ve got her.” A nurse reaches for my hand and gently encourages me to let go of Frankie. But I can’t.
I can’t let go.
“Sir,” she says a bit more firmly. “You need to let go now so we can take her.”
“No.”
Because letting go might mean letting go forever. What if she and the baby don’t pull through?
The paramedic looks into my eyes. “It’s okay, Mr. Bellanti. They’re going to take good care of her. I promise.”
I can’t do it. My vision blurs, and my chest hitches.
The stretcher has been lowered on its wheels and the team is waiting outside the ambulance, ready to take her inside. They’re all looking at me, trying to be patient. I know my wife needs to go with them. Yet I can’t allow myself to be separated from her.
One of the medics says, “Mr. Bellanti, it’s urgent that we get your wife into the ER so she and the baby can receive a more complete exam. I need you to let go now, or I’m going to have to call security.”
“Nobody wants to call security, sir,” the female paramedic says softly. “I promise I’ll come get you as soon as the emergency room doctor is done looking her over.”
They pull the stretcher away, detaching her fingers from mine, and then drop the wheels to the ground to roll Frankie out of the ambulance. I watch the team push her through a set of glass doors that slides open automatically and then closes again. My wife is gone.
After I climb out of the ambulance, I just stand there, frozen, feeling completely and utterly lost. Memory after memory of Frankie floods my mind.
The way she looked in her dress on Halloween.
Her laughing with Greg on the sales floor.
The light scent of sun that always clings to her hair.
The way she made me feel when we made love on the beach.
The way I’d laughed with her. Really, truly laughed.
The more I think back, the more I realize that I’ve never been fully myself until she came into my life. And now all of it—my wife, our happiness, our future, our child—might be taken away from me.
I’m not sure how much time passes before Clayton appears at my side, clapping me on the back with a masculine half-hug.
“Dante. One of the paramedics said you might be out here.”
“Where’s Charlie?” I ask.
“Inside. We followed the ambulance in Bryant’s patrol car. She’s mostly okay, but she’s still waiting to be seen by a doctor and checked out in case she has a concussion. Bryant’s in there with her.”
Idly, I make a mental note to send the Napa PD and the EMS team very large crates of wine this Christmas. Then I realize Clayton’s still talking.
“…said he’s going to have to talk to them about the incident and take down their official statements for his report, but he’s made it very clear to the detective that the two men were killed in self-defense during a home invasion. There won’t be any charges, he says.”
I shake my head. “Wait. Two men? There were three. Where’d—”
“Armani and Marco have him,” Clayton says, lowering his voice. “He’s in the Deep Cellar. Bryant doesn’t know anything about there being a third, and he assured me he’d steer Napa PD in the right direction as far as the crime scene is concerned.”
“Good man,” I say.
“He also said if one of our wives mentions a third man in their statement…he’ll go on record saying it’s likely head trauma or PTSD. Officially, only two men were found at the scene. Any evidence will corroborate that.”
So a very big crate of wine for Officer Bryant in particular, then. With a lot of green paper lining the box as well.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Clayton tells me. “The guy’ll talk, name some names, we’ll start connecting the dots. This’ll all shake out.”
I want to believe him, but the truth is, my fear and rage and panic in this moment has little to do with any outside threat to the Bellanti family—and everything to do with my wife being in an ER bed right now, her life and the life of our child hanging in the balance.
I start to pace, setting off the sensor on the automatic doors and whipping my head to check if it’s someone coming out here with news about Frankie. But of course it isn’t.
“What the hell is taking so long? It’s an emergency room. I thought they were supposed to move fast.”
Clayton hesitates and then shrugs to himself. “I’ve been here, you know.”
“I…heard something about that,” I admit, stopping to look at him. In fact, Frankie had mentioned Charlie and Clayton losing several pregnancies.
He nods. “I don’t know what’s going on in there, and everything may be 100% okay—I hope they are. But if the worst does happen with the kid…you can get through it. Together.”
I feel his hand bracing my shoulder, and for a second, I can almost hear my father’s voice in my head: Don’t show any emotion. Don’t show any weakness. Don’t let anyone know what you’re thinking or feeling.
Shut the fuck up, Dad.
Reaching out, I put an answering hand on Clayton’s shoulder, acknowledging the offer of support with a nod.
Just then, the ER doors slide open and we both look over. Charlie is being pushed out in a wheelchair, her face battered and bruised and steeped in sorrow. The nurse leaves her as we rush over, Clayton sweeping his wife out of the chair and up into his arms.
“What’s going on with Frankie? What did they say?” I ask, frantic.
“Nothing,” Charlie says, turning her face toward me. I can see her eyes glistening with tears. “I still don’t know anything yet.”
Sobs wrack her body and Clayton tucks her head under his chin, gently holding her.
My eyes fall to the bandages wrapped around Charlie’s wrists. Frankie had marks there, too. Raw and almost bloody from her efforts to get out of her bindings.
Rage begins to tick in my brain. These women had fought for their lives. Frankie had been kicking and screaming at the man on top of her, and his hands had been all over her, touching her, pressing her down and—
“…Mr. Bellanti?”
I hear my name coming from far away. Clayton nudges me, drawing my attention to a nurse standing in front of us. She looks like she’s been waiting for me to respond for some time.
My breath hitches in my throat and I struggle to swallow it down. “Yes?”
“You can see her now, Mr. Bellanti. She’s asking for you.”
My legs go weak. I hang onto Clayton’s shoulder, and Charlie pulls me into a hug.
“She’s—she’s alive?” I ask over Charlie’s head.
The nurse just smiles. “Come with me.”