Sabrina
Valeria
The past few months have flown by at an unreal pace.
The patents have been filed, production has begun, and the first patients are responding to the treatment beyond our wildest expectations. Everything we fought for finally exists.
I shut down my computer to go meet Dante.
We’re having lunch with Henri today.
A sudden warmth slides between my legs.
I freeze.
Then a short, disbelieving laugh escapes me.
Of course.
I grab my phone.
“Valeria?” Dante answers immediately.
“The baby’s coming.”
Silence.
“I’m on my way.”
*
Sabrina. Seven pounds, fifteen ounces. Perfectly healthy.
She announces her arrival with a strong, vigorous cry, as if making sure no one on the entire floor misses it. The nurses clean her, wrap her, then place her in Dante’s arms.
He says nothing.
I will remember that silence for the rest of my life.
He looks at her with absolute focus, as if nothing else exists in the room—not the doctors, not the machines, not even me.
Just her. Wonder softens every line of his face, that stunned joy, that immediate devotion that steals my breath.
In that moment, I know no one will ever protect her more fiercely than this man.
When the nurses ask him to step aside so they can finish taking care of me, he hesitates for half a second, as if he’s genuinely considering refusing. Then he looks at me, says nothing, and yet I understand everything: I’m here. I’ve got her. I’ll be right back.
From the hallway, I hear him murmuring something to her in a voice I’ve never heard before—lower, softer, tender in a way he may not have known he was capable of. I don’t try to make out the words. They belong to them.
When he comes back, Sabrina is asleep against his chest, small and perfect, completely unaware that she has just reshaped our world. He smiles at me—open, unguarded, happy—then leans down and places our daughter in my arms.
She’s warm. So light. So real. Her tiny fingers curl against the blanket, and I brush her cheek with the tip of my finger. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Dante sits at the edge of the bed and looks at both of us as if he still can’t quite believe we’re here—his family, the one he thought he’d lost before it even existed. He takes my free hand and presses a slow kiss to it. I cup his cheek. Our eyes meet.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too.”
Quiet surrounds us, soft and full. We’ve been through what should have broken us, and somehow, we found each other again.
Sabrina sighs in her sleep. Dante looks down at her and smiles.
“She’s going to rule us both.”
I laugh softly.
“She already has.”