Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Kristen
Two more hours crawl by.
Nobody speaks. Nobody moves. We sit in this sterile private waiting room like statues. The second coffee Nora brought me went cold an hour ago, untouched on the side table. My hands haven't stopped shaking since I got here.
Vittoria stopped crying about forty minutes in. Now she just stares at the wall, her mascara dried in dark rivers down her cheeks.
The silence is suffocating. Every tick of the clock on the wall sounds like a gunshot.
"Where's Lily?"
Nora's voice cuts through the quiet about an hour in, soft and careful.
"With my mom." My own voice sounds foreign. Hollow.
She nods and doesn't ask anything else.
"Are you working?"
I blink, pulling myself back to the present. Sophia sits beside me now, her honey-brown eyes soft with concern. I hadn't even noticed her move.
"What?"
"A job," she clarifies gently. "Did you find something?"
Right. Normal conversation. Like my chest isn't being crushed by invisible hands.
The door swings open.
Every head in the room snaps toward the surgeon like we're puppets on the same string. The doctor looks at us all.
"He's out of surgery," He announces, his voice professionally neutral.
The room exhales collectively, but he holds up a hand before anyone can speak.
"Things are not clear right now. He lost a significant amount of blood.
" The doctor removes his surgical cap. "The best thing working in his favor was that whoever found him didn't move him at all.
The bullet was lodged in a precarious position near the pericardium—the sac surrounding the heart.
Extracting it without causing additional damage was. .. complicated."
Near his heart. The words echo in my skull. Near his heart.
"Is he going to live?" Pietro's voice cuts through like a blade. No pleasantries. No dancing around the question.
He hesitates. Just a fraction of a second, but I catch it.
"I can't be certain at this time. The next twenty-four hours will be critical. We're monitoring for internal bleeding and cardiac complications. His body has been through significant trauma, and—"
"For your own good, Doctor." Bruno's wheelchair rolls forward, the soft squeak of rubber on linoleum somehow menacing. "Be certain."
I expect the surgeon to flinch. To show some sign of intimidation at the implied threat from a man in a wheelchair who still radiates violence like heat from a furnace.
He doesn't.
He meets Bruno's gaze with the weary patience of someone who's had this exact conversation before. Probably multiple times. With multiple Sartoris.
"I understand your concern." His tone doesn't waver. "I've treated your family for fifteen years, Mr. Sartori. I will do everything in my power to ensure your brother survives. But I won't make promises medicine can't keep."
Bruno's hands grip the armrests of his wheelchair hard enough to turn his knuckles white.
"Can we see him?" Vittoria's voice is barely a whisper, cracked and raw.
"One at a time. He's not conscious, and he needs rest, but..." The doctor's expression softens slightly. "Yes. Family can see him."
Family.
The word hits me like a fist to the sternum. I'm not family. I'm the woman who walked out. The woman who told him she hated him. The woman who—
"Kristen goes first."
Everyone turns to stare at Pietro.
"What?" The word escapes me before I can stop it.
Pietro's dark eyes meet mine.
"He was saying your name." Pietro's voice is flat. Matter-of-fact. "When Dante found him. Before he lost consciousness. He kept saying your name."
The room tilts sideways.
"I..." My throat closes around the words.
"Go." Vittoria's voice is surprisingly steady. She reaches over and squeezes my hand, her fingers cold but firm. "He needs to know you're here."
I look around the room at these people. This family of criminals and killers who somehow became the closest thing to safety I've ever known.
They're letting me go first.
Because he loves you, a voice whispers in my head. And they know it. Even if you've been too scared to admit it.
I stand on legs that feel like they belong to someone else.
Dr. leads me down a corridor.
Please be okay. Please be okay. Please—
The doctor stops outside a door with a small window.
"Five minutes," he says quietly. "He's heavily sedated. He likely won't hear you, but..." He trails off, something almost human crossing his professional features. "Talk to him anyway."
I nod because I don't trust my voice.
The door opens.
And there he is.
Nico Sartori lies motionless in a hospital bed. Tubes snake from his arms. Machines beep a steady rhythm that sounds nothing like his heartbeat should. His face is pale, too pale, stripped of that dangerous intensity that usually makes my pulse race.
He looks breakable.
I move to the chair beside his bed without conscious thought. My hand finds his.
His fingers are cold.
"You absolute idiot," I whisper, and my voice cracks on the last word. "You don't get to die. You hear me? You don't get to—"
The tears come then, hot and unstoppable, dripping onto our joined hands.
"I don't hate you." The confession tears out of me like it's been clawing to escape. "I was angry and scared and you made decisions that weren't yours to make, but I don't—I never—"
I love you.
The words stick in my throat, too terrifying to release into a room where he might not wake up to hear them.
So I just hold his hand.
And I pray to a God I'm not sure I believe in that I get the chance to say them when he can actually hear.
I catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror and barely recognize the hollow-eyed woman staring back. My hair hangs in greasy tangles.
The hot water hits my shoulders and I nearly cry from relief. Two days of plastic chairs and vending machine food. Two days of watching Nico's chest rise and fall, counting each breath like it might be his last.
I scrub shampoo through my hair. The guilt sits heavy in my chest, a physical weight I can't wash away no matter how hard I try.
When I finally emerge from the bathroom in clean clothes Lily is waiting for me on the couch. Her eyes track my movements with that unsettling perception kids sometimes have.
"Mommy looks sad," she announces.
I force a smile. "Mommy's just tired, baby."
"Who's sick?"
I sink onto the couch beside her, pulling her warm little body against my side.
"Someone Mommy knows," I say carefully. "He got hurt."
"Is it Nico?"
My heart stutters. "How did you—"
"Grandma was talking on the phone." Lily picks at a loose thread on her pajama pants. "She said his name."
Of course she did. My mother has never mastered the art of discretion.
"Yes, baby. It's Nico."
Lily's face scrunches in thought. Then she scrambles off the couch and disappears into her room. I hear small feet padding across the floor. When she returns, she's clutching Sir Floppington the Third.
"Here." She thrusts the rabbit at me. "Sir Floppington is a helper. He makes people feel better when they're sick."
My throat tightens. "Lily, that's your favorite—"
"Nico needs him more." Her chin juts out with stubborn determination. "You can borrow him to Nico so he can be okay."
Don't cry. Don't you dare cry in front of her.
"Okay," I manage. "I'll make sure Nico gets him."
I take the rabbit. Its soft fur is worn thin in patches from Lily's constant hugging.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I fish it out with trembling fingers, expecting another update from the hospital. Another "no change" that would slowly kill me.
Vittoria: HE WOKE UP
Three words. Three words that make my heart slam against my ribs so hard I can barely breathe.
"Mommy?" Lily's voice sounds far away. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, baby." I'm already standing, already moving toward the door.
I kiss her forehead, her cheeks, the top of her head. She giggles and squirms away.
"Mom!" I call out, and my mother appears in the kitchen doorway. "I have to go. He's—"
"Go." She nods once. "I'll stay with Lily."
I grab my keys. Shove my feet into sneakers. The rabbit is still clutched in my hand.
"Tell Nico I said hi!" Lily calls after me.
I'm already running.
Nico
Apparently, assholes live a lot longer than they should.
The moment I crack my eyes open and spot Aria sitting by the window, I know things got bad.
Fuck.
My chest feels like someone parked an SUV on it. Every breath scrapes against something raw inside me. The beeping machines next to my bed sound like accusations.
"Nico." Aria's voice cracks. She's at my side in seconds, her hand cool against my forehead. "My boy. Mio figlio."
I try to speak but my throat feels packed with gravel. She presses a button, calls for a nurse, fusses with my blankets. I let her. What else can I do?
After I fully wake up, the entire family cycles through like I'm some kind of zoo exhibit. Pietro stands at the foot of my bed looking like he wants to strangle me and hug me simultaneously. Nora brings flowers that make my nose itch. Lorenzo claps my shoulder and tells me I look like shit.
I could tell them all to go fuck themselves and leave me alone.
But I know what it would've done to me if someone else was in my shoes. If it were Pietro lying here. If it were Vittoria.
So I shut the fuck up.
Now Vittoria sits in the chair Aria vacated, picking at her chipped nail polish. She's been talking for five minutes about something but I can't focus on the words.
"How are you feeling?" she asks. "Honestly?"
"Like I got shot."
She rolls her eyes. "Smartass."
The door opens.
I forget I need to breathe.
Kristen.
She stands in the doorway, grey-blue eyes wide. She's wearing jeans and an oversized sweater that swallows her frame, and she looks exhausted.
She looks fucking beautiful.
Vittoria says something. I don't hear it. The words blur into white noise because Kristen is here, in this room.
My sister squeezes my arm and leaves. The door clicks shut.
Then it's just us.
"Kristen." Her name scrapes out of my throat like a prayer. What else can I say? I'm sorry feels inadequate. I love you feels like a confession she didn't ask for. Please don't leave makes me sound pathetic.
So I just say her name again. "Kristen."
She moves closer. Her sneakers squeak against the hospital floor. She's holding something small and brown and...
A rabbit?
She reaches my bedside and holds it out. Her fingers tremble slightly. "Lily says hi. She wanted you to have Sir Floppington. Says he helps when you don't feel good."
I stare at the stuffed animal.
My throat tightens.
I stretch out my hand and take the rabbit.
Then I tuck it against my arm. The way Lily does. Ears flopping over my hospital gown.
Whatever makes Kristen stay. Whatever she needs.
If she wants, I'll wear a fucking ballet uniform and dance with Lily. I'll learn to braid hair and host tea parties with stuffed animals. I'll do anything. Everything.
Just stay.
Kristen's eyes glisten. She moves closer still, until she's right beside the bed, close enough that I can smell her.
Her.
"Nico." Her voice breaks on my name.
"I know." I don't know what I'm agreeing to. The apology she hasn't demanded. The explanation she deserves. The thousand ways I fucked everything up.
"You almost died." A tear slips down her cheek. "Bruno said you had a death wish. That you walked into that warehouse alone because—"
"Bruno talks too much."
"Is it true?"
I look at the ceiling. White tiles. Fluorescent lights. Easier than looking at her face and seeing what I've done.
"I wasn't trying to die," I say finally. "I just... stopped caring if I did."
Her hand covers mine. Warm. Gentle. Nothing like I deserve.
"That's the same thing, you idiot."
A sound escapes me. Almost a laugh but too broken to qualify. "Yeah. Maybe."
"I don't hate you." The words come out rushed, like she's been holding them back. "I said I did, and I was angry, and you deserved it because you lied to me, but I don't—I never—"
"Kristen."
"You made decisions about my life without asking. Just like Jack. And I couldn't—"
"I know."
"But you're not like him." She swipes at her cheeks with her free hand. "You're nothing like him, and I knew that even when I was angry, and then Vittoria called and said you might not—"
Her voice shatters.
I squeeze her fingers. Weakly. Everything I do right now is weak. But it's all I have.
"I'm sorry," I tell her. The words feel insufficient.
She's quiet for a long moment. The machines beep. Sir Floppington's ear tickles my chin.
"You scared me," she whispers. "When Vittoria called. When I thought you might die before I could tell you—"
She stops.
"Tell me what?"
Her jaw tightens. She looks away. "That I don't hate you."
That's not what you were going to say.
But I don't push. I don't have the right.
"Stay," I say instead. The word comes out raw. Desperate. Everything I swore I'd never be. "Please."
Kristen looks at me. At the tubes and wires. At the stuffed rabbit tucked against my arm like a child's comfort object.
"Lily's going to want proof you're using Sir Floppington correctly," she says. Her voice is steadier now. Almost teasing. "She has very specific standards."
Something unknots in my chest. Not completely. But enough.
"I'll practice."