Chapter 33 Matteo #2
“Boss?” Valerio’s voice threads quietly into the room. “Daniele is here. He’s speaking with one of the nurses about your wife’s care.”
I nod, eyes fixed on Beatrice’s unmoving form. “Give me a minute. I… I just need a second.”
I’m not ready to put on the mantle yet—not the king, not the unshakeable father. Daniele will tell me it’s okay to grieve, that I don’t need to be strong for him. But the syndicate rests on my shoulders. I am a king, and if my head lowers, the crown will slip.
“Okay,” Valerio murmurs softly. “I’ll tell him he can come in five.”
I have no idea what time it is. The windows are sealed behind blackout curtains. I could have been sitting here minutes or hours.
Time doesn’t move in rooms like this. It dissolves.
When I finally force myself to stand, I lean down and kiss the back of her hand. I breathe her in, what’s left of her scent. It’s faint, diluted by antiseptic and steel, and the familiar lavender that always clung to her skin is gone.
Something inside me shatters, but I rub the grief from my eyes, straighten my spine, and flip the switch I’ve relied on my entire life. The man who feels can break. The man who leads cannot.
Exactly five minutes later, the door opens.
My son walks in.
He’s already seen her, but the subtle widening of his eyes tells me that no second viewing makes this easier. It’s a sight neither of us should ever grow used to—or ever could.
“Papa.” He steps inside, gaze flicking from me to her, then anchoring back on me. “Any change?”
I shake my head, still holding her hand like a lifeline. “Not yet. Valerio is finding more specialists. We’ll get her the help she needs.”
He nods, jaw tightening, and walks to her bedside. When he takes her hand, something in him fractures. He rubs her knuckles with a gentleness that would break her if she were awake—because she would never believe this grown man was the same boy who used to race through hallways without fear.
“She looks like her,” he murmurs, voice distant, “but also not like herself, at the same time. The last time I saw her, she tried to make me stop worrying. I could tell she didn’t look good. I should have—”
“No.” My voice comes out sharp. “Don’t do that to yourself, my boy. This is not your fault. You did not kill your mother. You couldn’t have known she was suffering.”
I exhale roughly.
“I hate that she kept it from me, but your mother has always been the suffer-in-silence type. Even if she had a spear through her chest, she’d wave it off.”
He nods because he knows this is the truth.
“But I should have forced her,” he says quietly.
“We both know,” I reply, hollow laughter slipping out, “that we can’t force this woman to do a single thing she doesn’t want to.”
My wife is stubborn in all the ways that made me fall in love with her. Now I need that same stubbornness to keep her alive.
Silence stretches—heavy, suffocating.
Then my son speaks again, voice low, steady, and far too old for his age.
“What will we do? We’ve been going in circles, Papa. I know you’re a man of honor, but I think… the code needs to be set aside here.”
I look at him. Truly look. And I see myself. My heir. A man forged far earlier than he should be.
“I know,” I say. “And I will handle it, Danny. All of it. But right now… we focus on your mother.”
He nods solemnly. His eyes drift across her face, a soft, distant smile tugging at his lips.
“Do you remember the first time we went to the cabin?”
A faint smile breaks through my grief. “Yes. She loved that place. Always loved the lake nearby. She said she felt the most at peace there.”
“I want to take her there when she’s better,” Danny says quietly. “She’s always happier there.”
I hum in agreement.
“Do you remember Uncle Marcello?”
He nods. “I do. Mama and I were just talking about Maria the other day. They’re settled in Italy now. Happy.”
“They are,” I say, my thoughts drifting to the many conversations Marcello and I had over the years. “And I want that for you both. Safe and happy.”
“Papa?”
The question in his tone sharpens my spine. He senses something. “Is there something you and Mama aren’t telling me?”
Silence stretches between us.
“Papa,” he presses, firmer this time.
I exhale slowly, choosing my words. “After your mother gets better… things will need to change. For her sake. For all of ours.”
“But—change how?” His voice tightens.
“We’ve let this world take too much from her already,” I say quietly. “I should’ve protected her better. I should’ve ended this sooner.”
His jaw sets, hardening. “Papa… don’t start talking like everything you built is suddenly a burden.”
“It’s not the empire,” I tell him. “It’s the war around it. The toll.” A beat. “I won’t let it touch her again.”
“But it will,” he snaps—not out of disrespect, but fear. “As long as Giacomo breathes, it will. This isn’t about walking away. This is about finishing it.”
There’s fire in his eyes now.
He steps closer, voice low, unshakable.
“Giacomo will be dealt with, that I can promise you. Even if I have to do it myself.”
“No.” There is no room in my tone for argument. “You are not going toe-to-toe with that devil. Do you hear me? This ends with me and him.”
“Then end it, Papa.” His voice is low, steady, dangerous. “Stop wasting time and put a bullet in his head.”
My grip tightens around my wife’s limp hand.
I stare at my son—and for a moment, I’m looking at someone else entirely. His eyes burn with a hatred so sharp, it steals the breath from my lungs. A flash of something hot and poisonous.
Something I’ve seen before. In another man.
Giacomo.
“You always told me that a Davacalli doesn’t cower. But all we’ve been doing for months is cowering.”
He drops his mother’s hand and circles the bed to stand beside me, shoulders squared, jaw locked.
“I am your son, and my blood is your blood. We don’t run. You taught me that. And my vow to my mother is stronger than the vow I made to the syndicate. We need to keep her safe.”
I grind my teeth. “Daniele, watch your tone. I am your father—and still the head capo.”
“Then act like it,” he hisses. “Put a bullet in his head. Tonight. Kill him and end this.”
I turn, ready to snap back—but then I feel it.
A faint, unmistakable tightening around my fingers.
My breath fractures. “Amore?”
Danny’s head whips down. We both stare, frozen, every muscle locked, our lungs suspended in the space between hope and terror.
“Papa?”
“She squeezed my hand,” I breathe. “I—I felt her squeeze my hand. Come on, amore mio… do it again. Please.”
Seconds stretch, impossibly long.
One. Two. Three.
Her body jerks violently upward—unnatural, uncontrolled—then slams back down.
The monitors explode in alarms. Tubes rip free, blood spilling. Her body convulses, thrashing, uncontrolled.
“No—no, no—” The world tilts, blurs.
“CODE BLUE!” someone screams from down the hall.
The room floods instantly—white coats, gloves, voices barking orders. They shove us back, swarming her like a collapsing star.
“Mama!” Danny’s voice cracks and he lunges forward. I catch him around the waist, hauling him back as he fights like a wild animal.
“NO! Mom! Mom! Please—Papa, let me go! SAVE HER!”
“Danny—Danny, calm down—” My voice breaks as I drag him into the hall.
“BP is dropping!”
“Oxygen’s tanking!”
“Clear the line—move—move!”
My son thrashes in my arms, sobbing, reaching desperately toward the bed. “Mom! MOM! Please!”
I lock him to my chest, the way I did when he was a little boy having nightmares. But this—this is the nightmare.
“DO SOMETHING!” I roar at a nurse sprinting past with IV bags. “SOMEONE SAVE HER!”
No one answers me. They are too busy trying to keep my wife alive.
Danny collapses against me, shaking, breaking apart in my arms. I hold him, hold us both, but the floor might as well be gone. Everything tilts, spins, falls away beneath my feet.
My breath comes in thin, useless bursts.
The air is gone.
The world is gone.
My axis—my center—my sanity.
Who am I without her?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.