62. Angelo
62
ANGELO
“No relation, no entry.” The nurses wouldn’t allow Valentin or me to see her. Ana wasn’t conscious enough to object, and Russo waved Valentin away with an amused smile.
“I’m her uncle,” I snarled.
The nurse looked me up and down, her expression unamused. “Lots of folks in here claiming to be relatives.”
I pulled out my passport. “Same last name. Please. I need to know she’s okay.”
She looked at my passport, looked at me, then looked at it again, and sighed so deeply papers fluttered on the desk. “She’s out of the OR and in a private room, but visiting hours are long over.”
She was alive. I paced the waiting room, feeling like a wild animal in a cage, sick with worry, while Valentin worked on his phone, making sure nobody would be pressing charges against our precious angel for blowing up that fucking church.
When Tony and Patti Russo arrived in the waiting room, demanding to see their son, the nurses didn’t have patience for them either, directing them to take a seat and they’d call them when Luca was out of the OR.
“The OR?” Tony shouted. “I want to see my son!”
“Tony,” I said quietly, drawing his attention away from the nurses’ station.
“Patti,” the man growled at his wife, and she squeezed his arm.
“Go talk to Costa,” she said softly, then gave him a gentle push in my direction.
Tony’s face was slack with grief. “What happened?” he asked.
“Ana blew up a church rather than marry Boris Tchérnov.”
“I’ll murder him.”
“Ana already has.”
The surprise on Tony’s face would have been funny if I weren’t so worried about Ana and Luca.
“Sit,” I invited him, taking my own seat in the vinyl chairs of the hospital waiting room.
“How is he?”
“He was conscious when they wheeled him in here.”
Tony pressed his lips together. “And the girl?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice uneven.
Valentin took the seat beside me and took my hand in his, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles but saying nothing.
“Tony, have you met my partner, Valentin?” I asked.
“We have not,” Valentin said, reaching over me to shake Tony’s hand like a fucking American. “Valentin Rochefort.”
The two men sized each other up with me in the middle. “Tony Russo.” He jerked his head toward the nurses’ station where Patti, blonde, beautiful, and perfectly coiffed, quietly charmed the nurses. “That’s Patti, my better half.”
Suddenly the waiting room was full, as Sofia and Ginevra Russo rushed in, each of them with one of their husbands in tow, Sofia with Dante Oscuro, and Ginevra with Rian O’Conner.
“Fuck,” Tony swore. “The circus is here.”
I stood to allow his daughters to embrace their father, only for Oscuro to catch my eye and lead me to the corner of the waiting room. We embraced, exchanging air kisses, and then stood back, taking each other’s measure.
There was a lot of that going around today.
“I’m sorry to hear about Ana,” he said finally.
“He won’t bother her again,” I said, pride in her ferocity filling my chest. She’d murdered an abuser, taken out Valentin’s most powerful business rival, and ended the threat the Tchérnovs posed to Yorkfield’s equilibrium.
“And you? Will you continue to bother her?” Oscuro asked, the air turning menacing with his threat.
I scoffed, stepping forward instead of stepping back. “That’s a conversation between Ana and me, don’t you think?”
Oscuro didn’t back away. “We managed to keep her out of the conflict between the Costas and the Russos, and you dragged her right back in.”
That wasn’t how I remembered it. Cruel guilt wracked me, but that wasn’t this asshole’s business.
“Patti and Tony Russo?” the nurse asked, capturing everyone’s attention. “You can come to see your son, now.”
Valentin beat me to the nurses’ station. “How is Ana Costa, the woman who arrived with him?”
“Still unconscious,” she said.
“Please, anything you can tell me, I beg you.”
The woman took pity on me. “I’ll let you know when she wakes up.”