Chapter 27 Dante
Dante
“Amore mio (My love),” I breathe down the line as soon as my wife answers my call.
“Dante, where are you? Is everything okay?”
“I’m sorry to wake—”
“You didn’t wake me,” Arabella responds, cutting me off. “You know what I’m like. I couldn’t go back to sleep when you left. I’ve been pinging off the walls. Something has happened. I heard you mention Lucia’s name on the phone.”
“She’s coming home, Bellezza (Beauty). Dominic is on his way there with her now.”
“Lu-Lu’s coming home?” she breathes, her voice cracking as she speaks.
“She is.”
“And what about Giuseppe and his men?”
I clear my throat. “They’ve been taken care of. She’s safe now.”
I’ve even gone as far as contacting Roberto to intercept the plane when it touches down in Italy.
The bodies and the pilot will all disappear.
I don’t want any more backlash from this.
I want time to enjoy my little girl and my wife without all the uncertainty and tension that’s been hanging over my head for the past few months.
“Oh, Dante,” she cries down the line.
“I have to warn you, Arabella, she’s not in a good way.”
“Oh, no. Is she hurt?”
I close my eyes as images of Romeo’s lifeless body flicker through my mind. “She’s heartbroken.”
“Heartbroken? Why?”
“When she left the airstrip, I was on my hands and knees trying to resuscitate Romeo.”
I hear her audibly gasp down the line. “Romeo is dead?”
“He was when I got to him. I managed to get his heart beating again. We were in the middle of nowhere, so we had to lift him into the back of the car. I continued to work on him as we drove to meet the ambulance halfway. He flatlined a second time before we arrived at the hospital. He’s in surgery now.
He’s lost a lot of blood.” I tilt my head towards the ceiling as I struggle to keep it together.
“I don’t know if he’s going to make it, tesoro (Sweetheart). ”
We don’t usually involve ambulances or hospitals in the Famiglia because it comes with questions and too much attention. The feds are already breathing down our necks, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Romeo wouldn’t have made it otherwise, and that wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.
It was the same when I got shot a few years back. My brother had gone underground with Chloe and Giovanni after a threat of retaliation from the Mortellis was imminent, so he wasn’t around that fateful day, which, in hindsight, I’m grateful for.
He was the one who gave Angelina the order to call triple zero. And I know, without a doubt, I wouldn’t be alive today if he hadn’t. I would’ve died right alongside my father and his men.
Death is part of the deal in the Cosa Nostra. I made peace with that a long time ago. But if things had played out any other way that day, I would’ve missed out on the life I have now with Arabella and Caterina … and that’s something I can’t even begin to fathom.
“Shit. Give me a second,” Arabella says after a brief pause. “I need to sit down.”
I fucking hate that I’m not there to deliver the news to her personally, but I couldn’t leave Romeo on his own. I need to know he’s going to be okay. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to handle it if he’s not.
“Listen. Lucia should be there soon. She’s going to need you. She was a fucking mess when they took her away. I spoke to Dominic a few minutes ago, and he said she’s completely checked out now. I’ve called our doctor, and he’s on his way to the house. He might need to sedate her.”
“Poor Lu-Lu,” she whispers through her soft cries. “Poor Romeo. I will pray hard for him.”
That has a small smile tugging at my lips. “He’s going to need all the prayers, Bellezza.”
“She loves him, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“She’ll be devastated if he doesn’t pull through.”
So will I.
I swallow thickly, trying to dislodge the knot that has formed in the back of my throat.
“I’m going to call Angelina when the sun comes up and see if she’ll come and stay with us for a while. Your sister is going to need all of our support going forward.”
I’ve gone from standing to sitting to fucking pacing as I wait for some word on Romeo’s condition.
I’ve been here for hours. I thought I would’ve heard something by now. I guess I can be grateful that he’s still fighting. If he hadn’t pulled through, surely they would’ve told me.
I come to an abrupt stop when my phone buzzes in my pocket. Arabella continues to message, asking for updates.
Lucia is back at home with her, and she’s not in a good way. Even when her sister told her that we were able to revive Romeo and that he’s currently in surgery, she just stared at her blankly.
Like I predicted, the doctor sedated Lucia when he arrived. Hopefully, by the time she comes around, I’ll have some good news for her.
I glance down at the screen of my phone, and see the message isn’t from my wife. It’s from one of my men.
Frank: We went to the house like you asked, but she beat us to it.
Me: What do you mean she beat you to it?
I sent a couple of my men to Romeo’s mother’s house.
It was a tough call, but I had no choice.
I’ve never liked that woman, but her son has remained loyal to a fault.
He was the only reason I struggled with the decision.
He said he wouldn’t stand in my way, but when it came to the crunch, did he really mean it?
But in the end, she is the reason why her son is now fighting for his life. We could’ve lost him, we still might, and we could’ve lost Lucia as well. I couldn’t in good conscience let that slide.
Frank: She was lying in a puddle of her own puke with an empty bottle of prescription medication beside her.
Me: Are you sure she’s dead and not just passed out or overdosing?
Frank: She’s cold, stiff, and as blue as my fucking balls.
Me: Do I even want to know why your balls are blue?
Frank: I’m in the dog house with the missus again.
Me: What did you do this time?
Frank: I made the mistake of saying her lasagne tasted different in front of her mother.
Me: Dumb move, my friend.
Frank: Yeah, I know that now. The lasagne wasn’t bad, it just didn’t taste like the way she usually makes it. But, apparently, in her eyes, ‘different’ means I can cook for myself for the foreseeable future and sleep alone indefinitely.
Frank: Chicks are crazy. I should’ve stayed single.
Frank: Do you want us to make Romeo’s mum disappear?
Me: No, leave her. I’ll sort it out.
Despite the heaviness in my chest, I manage a short laugh as I slide my phone back into my pocket.
I can picture Arabella reacting the same way, with her sharp tongue and a cold shoulder, but she’s powerless to my charm, so she never stays mad at me for long.
I’m sitting with my head buried in my hands when someone touches my shoulder. My head snaps up to find a man dressed in blue scrubs standing before me.
“Hi,” the guy says. “I’m the doctor who operated on Mr De Luca.”
I run my flattened palms down the front of my trousers as I stand. “Hi, doc,” I say, extending a hand. “How is he?”
He raises an eyebrow. “The operation went well. But he’s ... less than thrilled now that he’s come out of the anaesthetic.”
“So he made it through?” I ask as the weight in my chest lifts a little.
“It was touch and go for a while. He’s still not out of the woods. The wound was deep, and just millimetres from his kidney. He was very lucky. We had to give him six units of blood. He lost a hell of a lot.”
I nod slowly as the relief I just felt dulls.
“I’m concerned that his current state of mind might set him back. He’s demanding to see his wife. He even tried to rip out his cannula to go find her.”
I rear back slightly. “His wife?”
The doctor glances around, almost cautiously. “Yes … is she here?”
“He doesn’t have a wife,” I say flatly.
“Oh.”
I study him. “Could he be hallucinating? Still a bit out of it from the drugs?”
The doctor lifts a shoulder. “That’s a possibility.”
My brother swore I was off my chops after my op, when I got shot. He claimed I said all sorts of ridiculous crap, which I still deny. I don’t remember a damn thing from that night.
“Can I see him?”
“Do you think you’d be able to calm him down. I’d prefer not to sedate him, but I will if needed.”
For some reason, I feel nervous as I follow the doctor into the recovery room where Romeo is. I could hear him yelling from down the hall.
The moment the door opens, he growls, “I swear to fucking God, if you people don’t let me see my wife, I’m going to walk out of here with my bare arse hanging in the breeze!”
The nurse looks exasperated but amused when her eyes dart to me. Romeo’s half-sitting, half-flopping in the hospital bed, one arm flailing weakly while the other’s taped up and strapped, keeping the IV in place.
It’s a sight I can tell you. I’m so relieved to see him conscious and breathing that for a second, I almost feel like I might cry.
I move to the side of his bed, but he hasn’t noticed me yet.
“I love her,” he slurs, head lolling to one side. “So damn much. You don’t get it. She’s so beautiful, so perfect. She smells like coconuts. Mmm, I love coconut.”
I blink, but he keeps going.
“She’s got eyes like … like dark chocolate.
The expensive kind. Rich. Mysterious. Probably imported.
” He pauses, blinking up at the ceiling.
“God, I’d kill for her. I think I did kill for her.
Wait. Did I? Or was that the dog? No, the dog’s innocent.
I remember now, I left Killer at home. That’s his name, you know …
Killer. He’s the best fucking dog. He’s trained to kill, but he’s never actually killed anyone; he would if someone ever hurt me or Lucia, though.
He loves her too, probably not as much as I love her, but close. ”
I blink again. He loves Lucia? Or is he just talking out of his arse?
He finally turns and sees me.
“Dante!” he says with a dopey-arse grin. “I love you too, you know. You’re my best friend. My brother. Fuck, I love you. Not as much as I love Lucia, though.”
I raise an eyebrow, trying not to laugh.
“Glad to see you’re still with us,” I say, watching as the morphine-fuelled nonsense keeps spilling from his mouth.
Romeo leans towards me like he’s about to tell me a secret.
“But don’t tell my wife I said that. She’d cut me.” He chuckles, then winces, probably remembering his stitches. “She’s so feisty, but I love her sass. I love everything about her.”
I pull out my phone and start recording.
“You love Lucia?” I ask, trying hard not to laugh.
“Oh, God. I love her so much,” he says, eyes wide, deadly serious. “She makes my heart go ba-bom, ba-bom every time I see her.” He puts a hand over his chest. “Every time she yells at me, I fall a little harder. It’s like music. Beautiful, angry music. It makes my cock go rock-hard.”
I roll my lips to hide my smile. I’m starting to believe that maybe my brother was right about my post-op babble. At least I’ll have proof of this, so Romeo won’t be able to deny it.
“She tried to bite my ear off, you know.”
My eyebrows jump in amusement. “She did?”
“Yeah,” he says with that goofy grin again. “She locked me outside.” He blows out a long whistle through his teeth. “She was so angry. So, so angry.” His smile stretches wider, proud and unrepentant.
“Why was she angry at you?” I ask, genuinely interested in his answer.
“Because I shot Big-O,” he replies like it’s obvious.
I frown. “Big-O?”
He nods, and I swear his grey eyes are twinkling. “Her vibrator.”
Ah, right. I remember him telling me about that.
He raises his hand, forms a finger gun, and shouts, “Boom! I blew that motherfucker to smithereens.” He leans slightly towards me and whispers, “He had no right giving her pleasure. That’s my job as her husband. But in all fairness, we weren’t married when that happened.”
“You’re not even married now,” I say over a chuckle.
“The fuck we’re not.” He lifts his left hand, clumsily shoving it in my direction. “See my wedding ring?”
“There’s no ring on your finger, mate.”
His eyes widen, and I find myself laughing again. This is gold. I’m not sure if I’ll ever let him live this down.
He holds his hand up in front of his face and squints his eyes. “My ring … it’s gone.”
I’m about to tell him there was never a ring, but the nurse steps towards the bed and places her hand on his arm.
“I took it off before the operation. It’s hospital protocol. Fingers can swell after surgery, and rings can constrict blood flow. They can also interfere with the pulse oximeter.”
The nurse is being very sweet by placating him, but Romeo isn’t having a bar of it. “Give it back,” he growls.
“Mr De Luca,” she says, keeping calm. She probably has to deal with shit like this all the time. “I will personally put it back on your finger when we take you up to the Intensive Care Unit.”
“I want it now,” he replies through gritted teeth.
“It’s not here. Your ring is in a bag upstairs in the ICU with your other belongings … your wallet and shoes. We had to cut your clothes off you, unfortunately.”
That has him softening slightly. “You promise to put it back on as soon as we get there?”
“I promise, Mr De Luca.”