Chapter 33 Matteo
MATTEO
I’m in a hotel room in Geneva, staring up at a ceiling I haven’t slept under for two nights, when the room’s phone lights up.
Valerio.
I answer before the second ring, expecting news from our French friends.
“Talk to me.”
There’s a beat of silence—too long, too heavy—and instantly I know.
“What happened?” I’m already out of the bed, feet hitting the cold floor.
He makes a sound, low and strangled, like the words are scraping their way out of his throat.
“Valerio.” My voice sharpens. The dread crawls up my spine, cold and suffocating. My mind leaps straight to the worst thing imaginable.
“She collapsed…” he gets out. “She was in the kitchen, then she went pale and just— We kept trying to reach you, but your phone wouldn’t go through.”
My stomach drops. My knees weaken.
“Is… is she—”
“She’s not dead.” His voice breaks. “But they rushed her straight into critical care. It’s been half an hour and no one’s come out since. I—”
He can’t finish. And in the break between his words, I catch it—fear. From Valerio. The man who never shakes. The sound guts me open.
“Matteo, you need to come now,” he chokes out. “She will need you here.”
I’m already moving. Clothes on. Bag open. Sending messages to my pilot and guards.
“Where is my son?” I demand, tugging on my pants. “Who has him?”
“He’s on his way back from L.A. I haven’t told him anything yet.”
I nod—even though he can’t see it. “I’ll handle it. Once I speak to him, he needs to be brought straight to the hospital. I’m leaving now. I should land in six, maybe seven hours.”
Six to seven hours.
I hate the distance. Hate that I wasn’t there. Hate that every time I step away, she ends up in danger.
I should have stayed. I should never have fucking left.
“Got it, boss.” I barely recognize his voice. He sounds… wounded. Unsteady in a way Valerio never is. “I’ll make sure the security is airtight.”
I don’t remember what I say back. I just remember moving—shoving my arms into my coat, grabbing nothing of importance, rushing out of the room and through the hotel corridor like a man trying to outrun fate.
The next hours pass in fragments.
Airport lights. Voices I don’t register. The blur of customs. The hum of the runway. Asphalt streaking beneath the wheels of the convoy.
Inside, I am nothing but static and panic. Outside, I am composed. Hard. Unreadable.
I cannot—will not—let anyone see me unravel. Even if it feels like my entire world is splitting at the seams.
I don’t feel my body. Only the burn in my chest.
And her name pounding through every pulse in my skull.
Beatrice. Beatrice. Beatrice.
My phone buzzes. When my son’s name lights the screen, something in me lurches.
I swipe.
“Papa, what the hell is happening? Enzo just brought me to the penthouse and now I’m being told Mama is in the hospital? How?”
My mouth opens, but my throat is too tight for sound.
“Papa.”
“I hear you, my boy,” I manage, voice fractured. “I don’t want you to panic, but your mother has been admitted to the hospital. I don’t know the finer details yet, but I’m on my way home from Geneva now.”
Each word feels like it constricts my lungs further.
“I don’t want you to worry. Valerio is with her.”
“She…” His voice cracks. “Was it… him? Giacomo?”
“No, my boy.” I force steel into my tone for his sake. “She just collapsed. You know how stressed she’s been these past few weeks. I think it finally took its toll and she—fuck.”
The word splinters out of me. I’m trying to hold it together for him, but the edges are fraying. Fast.
I hear him exhale sharply, then mutter a curse beneath his breath. “She’ll be okay. I’ll take care of things until you’re back.”
“Okay,” I whisper, then end the call and lean back into my seat.
Two hours of sleep in forty-eight. Since leaving the States, I’ve been in and out of meetings with allies, shaking hands, gathering intel, moving pieces on this board that’s suddenly turned into a battlefield.
I should try to rest. I’ll need strength when I’m with her.
But I don’t sleep.
I can’t.
I am not a religious man—not by any measure.
My hands are soaked in more sin and blood than any church could ever absolve. But here… in the thick of my own devastation and desperation, I tilt my head back and stare at the ceiling of the jet.
“Please… I am all things evil in this world. But she… she is precious sunlight. Purity. Save her… please.”
The words scrape out of me.
I have never begged for anything in my life, but for her, I would fall to my knees and plead like a starving man.
I cannot exist without that woman. Without her, I’m nothing.
By the time I reach the hospital, dawn hasn’t broken. The New York air bites at my skin, cold and merciless. The wind lashes across my face as I step out of the car and push through the sliding doors.
Inside, everything feels unreal.
Still. Plastic. Hollow.
The sterile smell of antiseptic burns my nose, and the fluorescent lights overhead stab at my eyes. Every footstep echoes too loudly, like I’m walking through a dream I can’t wake from.
I know exactly where I’m going.
ICU.
As soon as I enter the lobby, I spot my second. His elbows rest on his knees, his head buried in his hands. When the door clicks behind me, he looks up—and he rises instantly.
“Boss.”
He approaches with a heaviness clinging to every step. His eyes are bloodshot, and I don’t know if it’s exhaustion or tears. Maybe both.
“How are you?” he asks.
“How do you think I am?” The words rip out of me. My anger is not for him, but it tears through my throat anyway. “Where is she? Where is my son?”
“Daniele went back to the penthouse to shower and change.” He draws in a shaky breath. “Beatrice… she’s in 312.”
I’m already moving. But his hand clamps around my wrist, stopping me mid-stride.
“Before you go, boss…”
His gaze won’t land on mine. It hovers somewhere near my shoulder, like he can’t bear to look directly at me.
“She’s hooked up to a lot of tubes and machines,” he says, voice strained. “Her… her heart started failing, and when her lungs followed, they initiated ECMO to keep her alive.” He swallows hard. “And…”
I stop. My blood ices.
“What?”
“She hasn’t woken up.”
His voice cracks on the last word. “They… they found an unknown toxin in her blood.”
“Poisoned?”
He nods. “Yes. They’re not sure what the substance is yet, but they’re testing it. Her kidneys are failing, but they’ve started treatment to try to filter her blood.”
This just keeps getting worse.
“How serious is it?” I manage to ask.
He hesitates, then speaks. “Whatever was in her system—it was potent. Her organs are failing.”
“Fuck.”
I rip my hand from his grasp. “Then I’ll get her to whoever is best in the world.”
I don’t care if I have to drag her across continents, I will find someone who can save her.
“Get the doctor who admitted her,” I command, already moving. “And get the best toxicology specialist on the phone. I want answers before the sun is up.”
Valerio doesn’t need more instruction. He’ll handle it.
I reach room 312 and stop. My heart sits in my throat, heavy and violent. I stare at the numbers on the door, steeling myself for whatever waits behind it.
Then I push the door open.
She lies in the center of the room, still as stone, far too pale to look alive. If not for the steady beeping of the monitor, I would think—
No. I cannot let my mind go there.
She looks so small, so breakable—fragile in a way that guts me.
Just like the rooftop years ago, except this time her eyes are closed, and the rise and fall of her chest is the only sign she hasn’t left me yet.
“Amore mio…” My voice is barely a breath over the hum of machines. “Beatrice…”
Nothing. No stir. No flicker.
Of course. She’s fighting for her life—clinging by a single thread—and I am useless to help her.
Bruises bloom along her arms, punctures from IVs and failed attempts to stabilize her blood. My stomach twists, and I have to look away for a moment.
I lower myself into the chair beside her bed, afraid to touch her, afraid I might break whatever fragile tether is keeping her here.
Her skin is cold beneath my fingers. When I wrap my hand around hers, she doesn’t squeeze back.
“Bea…” I don’t even recognize the sound of my own voice. “I am so sorry I wasn’t there. I was out trying to stop all of this, but…”
I swallow hard, watching the machines breathe for her, speak for her, live for her.
She gives no sign. No movement.
Just silence.
“Come on, amore mio,” I whisper. “Don’t do this to me. We are so close to ending this. Come back to me. Please. I can’t live without you… you are the blood in my veins. The breath in my lungs. I can’t live without you. Please.”
She doesn’t stir. The machines keep their steady rhythm, the only thing anchoring her to this world.
I lift her hand and press it to my lips like a prayer. I’d trade every breath I have for a single beat of her eyelashes. One look. One word.
Take me. Not her.
I plead with whatever power lives above or below—any voice in the void—for one act of mercy.
“I told you I’d protect you. That nothing would ever touch you again.” My voice fractures. “I didn’t mean just men like him. I meant everything. I should have been here. I never should have left you.”
Still nothing.
Tears burn the backs of my eyes. I rarely cry—my life was forged without the luxury of softness. This sting gathering under my lids is foreign, unwelcome. I try to blink it back. Now is not the time to break. She is not dead. She won’t be.
She can’t be.
She is my everything. The axis of the world I built. The calm. The chaos. The fire that remade me into something more than my father’s shadow.
If she leaves me, the world will burn and choke on my fury.
I lean in, resting my forehead against her temple. My voice cracks on the plea. “Come back to me. Please, Beatrice.”
I don’t know how long I stay like that—seconds, minutes, a lifetime—before the door creaks open behind me. I don’t lift my head.