Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chloe
Enzo was still unconscious.
I sat on the bench outside the operating room with Emily in my arms, Enzo's blood all over my clothes.
The blood had dried into a dark brown, stiff against my sweater. Every movement released the faint scent of rust. My hands were still shaking. I didn't know how long it had been since we arrived at the hospital, but my hands just wouldn't stop.
Luca stood at the other end of the hallway, back against the wall, phone pressed to his ear as he spoke in low, urgent tones. I couldn't make out the words, but the heaviness in his voice hung thick in the air outside the operating room.
Emily had fallen asleep in my arms. She'd cried for a long time, but I'd been holding onto Enzo so tightly I barely noticed anything else. She'd finally exhausted herself. I held her close, clinging to her like she was the only thing keeping me from falling apart completely.
Just thinking that Enzo might leave me forever—it nearly drove me insane.
The time crawled by, brutal and endless. Finally, a nurse pushed through the operating room doors. She had a clipboard and pen in hand, stopping in front of me.
"Family?"
"Yes."
"Need you to sign the surgical consent form."
She handed me the clipboard. I looked down at the paper covered in dense print. I couldn't focus. The words swam in my vision. But a few phrases came into sharp relief.
Massive blood loss. Organ damage. Risk of cardiac arrest during surgery.
I knew exactly what that meant. My hands shook harder. The pen slipped twice between my fingers before I could steady it. I signed my name—crooked and barely recognizable. After I handed the clipboard back, the nurse glanced at where I'd signed, nodded, and walked away.
The door closed again. The red light above the operating room glowed.
Fear finally swallowed me whole.
My chest felt tight, painful. My breathing came short and shallow—every breath felt like not enough oxygen.
My teeth chattered. I curled into a ball on the bench, my arms tightening around Emily until she frowned in her sleep.
Only then did I realize I was holding her too hard. I loosened my grip slightly.
Would Enzo die?
No. He wouldn't. He was an unstoppable force—how could he die in a place like this?
I tried to comfort myself, but another voice whispered back: But he was shot.
The bullet hit his stomach. Before the ambulance took him away, his face had turned white, then gray.
His lips had faded from red to a shade of purple-blue I'd never seen before.
But even when he'd gotten that bad, he'd still held my hand. He hadn't let go.
More tears fell. They hadn't stopped since we got to the hospital. I didn't know how many tears I had left, but they just kept coming.
I stared at the red light, counting the seconds. Waiting had become a form of torture.
Then I thought about all the time we'd wasted. All the accidents and lies between us. If we hadn't wasted that time, if I'd forgiven him sooner, if he'd learned to express love earlier—maybe we wouldn't be here now.
If Enzo died, all that wasted time could never be recovered.
By the fifth hour, a nanny Luca had called had taken Emily. I sat there in a daze until the operating room doors opened.
A doctor in green scrubs came out, mask pulled down to his chin, sweat on his forehead. He scanned the hallway, spotted me, and walked over.
I stood up. My legs had gone numb from sitting so long—my knees nearly buckled. Luca strode over from the other end of the hall and stood beside me.
The doctor's expression was grave.
"The patient lost a massive amount of blood. He went into cardiac arrest during surgery. We performed emergency resuscitation and got his heart beating again, but his condition is extremely unstable right now."
He handed me a sheet of paper. Critical condition notice.
All the strength drained out of me as I took it. Luca reached out to steady me, his hand gripping my elbow hard—probably because he could see I was about to collapse.
The doctor went on about follow-up care, but I didn't hear a word.
What gave him the right to die? He couldn't die. He sure as hell wasn't allowed to die.
I realized I was clutching the critical condition notice so hard my nails had left crescent marks in the paper. I loosened my grip, folded it, and shoved it in my pocket. I didn't want to see those words anymore.
Luca came over and handed me a cup of coffee from the vending machine.
I took it but didn't drink—just let the warmth seep into my frozen hands.
Luca didn't offer any comforting words. He wasn't in much better shape than me.
He just sat down in the chair next to mine, hands clasped on his knees, staring at that red light with me.
Hour eight.
The red light went out.
I shot to my feet the instant the doors opened. Two nurses wheeled out a gurney. I saw his face—gray-white, completely bloodless. Tubes everywhere. IVs in his hand. Oxygen in his nose. Thick bandages around his abdomen with faint red seepage at the edges.
Enzo's eyes were closed. He was so still he didn't look alive.
Enzo Falcone. The Don who ruled New York. The man who made the entire underworld tremble. The man I'd once hated to my core and loved to my core—now lying on a hospital gurney, fragile enough to die at any moment.
They wheeled Enzo into a private room. Luca finally relaxed slightly—he seemed to have business to handle. He posted guards at the door, told me "Call if you need anything," and left.
The door closed.
Just me, Enzo, Emily—who the nanny had brought over—and the beeping of the heart monitor.
I put Emily in the crib beside the bed. She was still asleep, mouth slightly open, breathing steady. Then I walked to Enzo's bedside.
I looked at his face. I'd looked at it countless times. But never like this. Never this afraid. Because right now, there was no trace of life in that face. It was pale to the point of translucence. His lips were gray-purple. The veins showed through his eyelids.
I pressed my forehead to the back of his hand. Tears fell onto the sheets, soaking dark spots into the fabric.
"I forgive you."
As those words left my mouth, I felt a strange lightness. All the things I'd been clutching—the anger, the resentment, the fear, the distrust—fell away the moment I spoke.
All my stubbornness had come from thinking he didn't really love me. That I was just a toy to him.
But he'd shown me his love in his own way. In the most painful way possible.
"You hear me, Enzo? I forgive you. I love you. Emily and I can't lose you. So you wake up."
The heart monitor beeped steadily. No change. No response.
"I'll do anything. Just wake up." My fingers tightened around his hand. "We've already wasted so much time. The church, the villa, the flower shop—all those days we spent tormenting each other, pushing each other away. All wasted. I don't want to waste any more. Not even one day."
Tears streamed down my face, dripping onto the back of his hand.
"You promised me you'd come back alive. You said so. You've broken so many promises—you don't get to break this one. Enzo Falcone! Wake up!"
Only the monitor answered me. I bit down hard, tears pouring out, until I finally lost the strength to hold myself up and collapsed to the floor.
"Deal."
My head snapped up.
Enzo's eyes had opened a crack. His dark pupils looked dull in the harsh light, but he was looking at me. The corner of his mouth curved up—barely, weakly—but it was definitely a smile.
I stared at his face for three full seconds, making sure I wasn't dreaming.
"When did you wake up?" My voice came out high and shaky. "When did you come to? How much did you hear? Why didn't you say something? Why did you just let me cry?"
"Just now." Enzo's voice was so weak it sounded like he was using his last bit of strength to speak. Each word separated by a labored breath. "Woke up and heard you talking. Wanted to hear you say those things so badly. For a second, I thought I was in heaven."
He paused. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed with difficulty.
"But heaven probably doesn't hurt this much."
"You asshole." I wiped my face with the back of my hand. "You damn bastard. You almost died, and the first thing you do when you wake up is mess with me? How twisted are you?"
Enzo weakly lifted the hand full of IV lines. His fingers trembled as they touched my face. His fingertips were cold—cold enough that touching my feverish cheek felt strangely soothing. He used his thumb to wipe away a tear at the corner of my eye, the gesture so gentle it barely had any pressure.
"Stop crying." His voice was so quiet the monitor almost drowned it out.
I didn't argue back. We'd have endless time to fight. But right now I had something more important to do.
I leaned down and pressed my lips to his.
I poured everything into that kiss—all the emotion, all the times I'd said I love you. He didn't have the strength to match my intensity, but his lips moved slightly. Responding.
From the crib beside us, Emily let out a sleepy mumble, like she was dreaming.
Her sound made me pull back from Enzo's lips. I glanced down at her, then turned back to him. His gaze moved from my face to Emily's direction, then back again.
"Emily okay?"
"She's fine. We're both fine."
Enzo closed his eyes, a relieved smile crossing his face.
"Good."
I wanted to say something else, but Enzo's eyes had already closed. He'd fallen asleep again. It nearly startled me, but the curve on the heart monitor stayed steady. His chest rose and fell slowly—each breath shallow, but at least he was breathing.
I dragged the chair to his bedside and sat down. One hand held his. The other rested on the crib railing. My fingers touched the edge of Emily's swaddling blanket, feeling the slight rise and fall as she breathed.
Left hand—Enzo. Right hand—Emily.
They were still here with me.