Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Valentina
Austin, Texas
The private waiting room outside the surgical wing smells faintly of antiseptic and expensive coffee.
Not the sludge that sits in pots in public waiting areas, but something darker and richer, the kind brought in quickly once hospital administrators realized exactly whose helicopter had just landed on their roof.
Even so, the scent does nothing to calm the tightness coiling through my chest.
The room itself is quiet, insulated from the rest of the hospital behind thick glass doors and discreet security posted in the hallway beyond. Someone had the sense to move us away from the chaos of the emergency department the moment Dante was rushed into surgery.
Two of Moretti’s soldiers stand outside those doors now while another remains at the far end of the corridor.
Protection. Privacy. Control. Everything men like Dante expect even when they are bleeding on a stretcher. Especially when they’re bleeding out on a stretcher.
I pace the length of the room again.
It’s four steps to the window and four steps back.
The polished floor reflects the movement of my heels in short, restless flashes of light.
I stopped sitting twenty minutes ago. Sitting makes the waiting worse. Standing still is worse than that.
My hands are clean now.
A nurse insisted.
Even though she knew who I was, even though I said I didn’t want anyone to check me over, she was going to do her job. The woman’s kindness and compassionate care almost undid me.
She checked me over as quickly as possible, talking in soothing tones while she checked my pulse, my blood pressure, and my injuries.
She said there appeared to be nothing seriously wrong with me, other than minor cuts from flying glass. Gently she added that the bruises would hurt and that I’d be sore for a few days and that I should take good care of myself.
I tried to smile.
But how could I with the way my heart was breaking?
At her urging, I’d washed my hands. Then I’d done it again.
Even though his blood is gone from my skin, I can still see it in my mind.
The memory presses against my ribs like a bruise.
I force myself to breathe slowly. In. Out. Control is everything.
Panic solves nothing.
The surgeon had spoken to me personally before they took Dante upstairs.
Nothing had been a surprise, though the words ricocheted in my mind. There’d been a gunshot wound, along with a significant amount of blood loss.
They were taking him into surgery immediately.
I’d nodded once, signed the authorization forms without hesitation, and asked exactly three questions:
Where was the bullet.
How much blood he’d lost.
And which surgeon was operating.
The man had answered each one carefully.
Respectfully.
The moment he finished, I’d taken out my phone and called Bella first.
Because if anyone could reach Matteo quickly without starting a panic across half the organization, it would be her.
And if the press were to get hold of the information, she would be ahead of the story.
As I’d talked, my words had come out calm and precise, even as my stomach twisted into knots.
There’s been an ambush.
Dante’s been shot.
He’s in surgery in Austin.
That was forty-seven minutes ago.
I know because I’ve checked the clock six times since then.
Time moves strangely when the man you married is lying on an operating table.
Especially when you are beginning to realize just how much that man matters to you.
The realization is unsettling.
And impossible to ignore.
The soft mechanical hum of the ventilation system fills the room.
Footsteps echo faintly in the hallway beyond the glass doors.
Then—
The doors open.
Three men step inside.
Even if I had never met them before, I would know exactly who they are.
Morettis.
Matteo enters first, and he moves just like Dante. They’re the same height and have the same quiet, contained violence beneath the surface.
Only Matteo’s eyes are colder.
Beside him is Nico, already scanning the room with the calm, analytical focus that makes him one of the most dangerous men in Texas.
Dario follows a step behind them, his jaw set tight enough to crack bone.
They stop the moment they see me.
Their eyes drop briefly to the faint bruising along my arm.
Then back to my face.
Assessing.
Measuring.
The room goes still.
Matteo’s voice breaks the silence.
“Where is my brother?”
There is no accusation in the question. Only something far worse. Fear.
It hasn’t been long since he’d been in this situation, while his father died.
I bring him up to date with the small amount of information that I have.
Every time the double doors at the end of the corridor swing open, my heart slams violently against my ribs.
But it’s never a doctor.
Never a nurse.
Each time the doors open, hope surges through me like a physical force. Each time they close again, it drains away just as quickly.
The four of us move to a far corner.
As I tell them the story, the weight of it settles even harder on me.
He was conscious when they loaded him onto the helicopter, barely.
His face had already gone pale beneath the harsh floodlights as the medics worked over him, their voices urgent and controlled while they pressed gauze against the wound and secured the stretcher straps.
His hand found mine once.
Just once.
His fingers had been slick with blood when they closed around mine, the grip weak but unmistakably deliberate.
His voice came out rough and low.
“Stay.”
As if I would go anywhere.
The memory tightens my throat.
Because he hadn’t asked if I was hurt.
Hadn’t asked what happened.
His first instinct—even while he was fighting for his life on the side of a Texas road—had been to make sure I didn’t leave.
Now, in front of his family, I press my palms against my eyes, standing there, breathing in the sharp chemical scent of the hospital air and trying to force my racing thoughts into some kind of order.
“He threw me underneath him.”
Everyone standing in that circle knows exactly the same thing. Dante took the bullet that could have killed me.