70. Nicolai
CHAPTER SEVENTY
NICOLAI
Her hand goes slack in mine.
I don’t breathe. Don’t blink. The world narrows to the pale curve of her lips, the stillness of her chest.
No. No. No.
Antonio’s shouting, several doctors are barking orders, and the staccato beat of hurried footsteps echoes off the walls. Someone pulls at her gown, and her skin is soaked with blood. Antonio grips my shoulders, pulling me back. “They need to work, Nico.”
I barely hear him. My focus is on her and the eerie stillness of her body. She’s barely breathing, and she’s so cold. Too cold.
“Wake up,” I whisper, pressing her hand between mine and trying to force my warmth back into her.
Someone yells for fluids and more blood. My knees almost buckle when I hear the word “surgery”. And there are too many words being thrown at me that I don’t understand. Colliding with the pounding in my skull.
Her lashes flutter briefly, and it gives me hope.
“I’m here,” I tell her. Squeezing her hand in the hope that she knows I’m here. “Stay with me.”
She doesn’t answer.
A nurse tries to push me out of the way, and I break two of her fingers without looking. I’m so angry that bile rises in my throat.
This is all my fault.
“Prepare an OR. We need to stop the bleeding.”
I collapse against the wall with a knife clutched in my hand. Watching as they thread lines into her veins and prepare her for surgery. Her skin’s as colorless as a corpse.
Antonio mutters about blood loss, transfusions, and possible organ failure. I block him out. Focusing on the beep-beep-beep of the monitor.
The nursery calls twice. I hang up. I follow the gurney as far as they’ll let me, trailing them through the hall, past the double doors. But they stop me cold.
They won’t let me in.
I try to push past security and the doctors who pretend they understand. But Antonio’s there, his grip is relentless. “They need space, Nico.”
I nearly break his jaw, but then I realize he’s only doing his job.
Instead, I end up in the waiting room, pacing back and forth. Mateo’s watching me, afraid I’ll lose my shit, and I don’t blame him. When I grab a chair and shove it against the wall, he doesn’t flinch. Just sighs and disappears for a while, returning with a coffee I don’t drink.
I spend the next few hours pacing again and count the scuff marks on the floor that are surely there because of me.
Antonio updates me periodically, and I shake my head like I’m listening. But I don’t understand a damn word.
Hours pass by, and I don’t remember sitting down, but my elbows are on my knees with my fingers curled into fists.
“Nico.” Mateo’s voice is quiet. “They’re moving her to recovery.”
She’s alive.
I don’t wait. I shove past Mateo, past the nurses, past anyone stupid enough to get in my way.
Her hair’s tangled and damp, clinging to her skin like she’s been fighting in her sleep. As I sit beside her bed, I grab the cloth they left and gently wipe her face. My hands are shaking as I try to fix her hair.
She’d call me weak if she could see me now.
Hours pass, and still nothing.
Antonio’s voice plays on a loop in my head. “The blood loss was extensive. She might not wake up for days. And if oxygen was cut off too long…”
I shut it down before he can finish. I can’t hear the rest. Not yet.
Her wedding band sparkles under the fluorescents, reminding me of what she once told me. “Love is a cage, Nico.” Right now, I’d burn down the fucking world to keep her safe in one.
Just before sunrise, she slowly opens her eyes.
I blink; certain it’s just exhaustion playing tricks. But I look again. She’s awake. Watching me.
I lean in, our heads pressed together, because I need the connection more than air.
“Nico?” Her voice trembles. I’d rather she be screaming at me than sound so fragile. My grip tightens on the bed rail. I want to break something. But all I can do is hold on.
“You almost died.”
Her cracked lips curl slightly. “Hell wouldn’t want me.”
“Don’t.” I press my lips to her neck, feeling the faint pulse against my lips. “Don’t joke.”
She turns her head, scanning the room. “The baby?”
“He’s in the nursery.” My thumb brushes her knuckles. “You don’t get to see him until you’re out of the woods.”
She tries to sit up, fails. Machines protest. I push her down gently, hating the dampness in my eyes. “Stay still. For me, moglie . Please.”
A smile tugs at her lips. “Control freak.”
“Yes.” My voice drops to a whisper. “So live. Or I’ll gut every saint in heaven to drag you back to me.”
Her fingers graze my jaw. Cold. Too cold.
“Missed you... bossing me.”
I press her hand to my chest, anchoring both of us to the rhythm of my heart.
“I wasn’t scared.”
“Sure, you weren’t.” Then she’s out again. I count her breaths, just to make sure she doesn’t leave me.
Five hundred and sixty-three later, a nurse stands in the doorway. “The baby needs?—”
“Later.” I don’t move.
Luna has a long road ahead of her, but this? Her breath on my cheek? It’s a start. And the heart monitor’s continual beep is music to my ears. Luna sleeps fitfully beside me, her face turned toward mine, and I drink her in.
I’m fixated on the IV line that trails from her arm, pumping blood into her veins.
The dark and twisted side of me finds this ironic, how much life she needs now, after how much I’ve taken.
I tell myself those men were far from innocent.
That I was doing what had to be done. But maybe this…
maybe this is the price. Maybe the universe finally decided to make it personal.
When her eyes snap open, they’re lucid, cutting through the morphine haze. She doesn’t ask where she is. She doesn’t need to. Her gaze darts to the empty bassinet the nurses wheeled in hours ago, a taunting symbol of what’s missing.
“Where is he?” Her voice is hoarse but ferocious.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, fingers steepled to keep them from shaking. “Nursery. They’re monitoring him.”
“Bring him. Now.”
Her command isn’t up for debate. I could refuse. Should refuse. The doctor warned that stress could lead to a relapse. That her body’s still teetering between recovery and collapse. But denial has never worked with Luna. She’ll crawl out of this bed and go get him herself.
“Don’t move or I’ll handcuff you to the rails.”
Her laugh is a dry rasp. “You can try.”
I wanted to call the nursery to bring him, but she insisted I get him myself. She said something about bonding with my son, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing since I feel so disconnected after everything that’s happened.
The nursery reeks of disinfectant and citrus, but beneath it all, the sweet scent of new life.
A row of bassinets line the wall, with swaddled shapes of all sizes.
The nurse tenses when I approach; her grip tightens on the clipboard.
She’s young, mid-twenties, her scrubs dotted with cartoon teddy bears.
“Caputo,” I say, and she flinches like I slapped her.
The baby’s smaller than I remember, his face pinched and red beneath a blue striped hat. When the nurse passes him to me, he feels weightless. But his eyes open as I adjust my hold, blue and unblinking, and something primal twists in my chest.
“He’s been fussy,” the nurse murmurs. “Wouldn’t take the bottle.”
I ignore her, patting his bottom as I walk back to Luna’s room. His heartbeat thrums against my palm, and I misstep when he grabs my finger. My son.
Luna’s arms are already outstretched the moment I enter the room. Without hesitation, she loosens the swaddle when I place him in her arms. Inspecting every inch of him. Her fingertips trace the faint bruise on his temple from the forceps, and her mouth tightens.
“They hurt him,” she snarls.
“He’ll never remember, and you’re both alive. That’s what matters.”
She doesn’t lecture me, since she’s focused on the baby’s face as he nuzzles into her chest. When he latches onto nothing, his tiny mouth working in frustration, she lets out a sound I’ve never heard from her—half laugh, half sob. “You’re impatient,” she whispers. “Just like your father.”
I twitch uneasily, the reference to father clawing at old wounds. My own father’s face flashes—cold with a belt buckle glinting in the dark. I force it away. “We need to pick a name. Before the paperwork arrives.”
Luna’s thumb brushes the baby’s cheek. “Your grandfather’s name. Marcello.”
“No.” The rejection is automatic. Marcello died choking on his own blood, betrayed by his men.
Her gaze flicks up, challenging. “Then you choose.”
They say a name shapes who you become, how you see yourself, how the world sees you. It’s more than an identity. It’s a single word that will define every battle he’ll fight. I step closer, studying the baby’s features. His stubborn brow. The delicate slope of his nose.
“Sandro,” I say finally.
Luna stills. “Short for Alessandro?”
“ Sandro . Just Sandro.”
She knows what I’m avoiding. Alessandro was the brother I lost at twelve, his body dumped in the river for a debt that wasn’t his. A name I haven’t spoken in twenty years.
The baby stirs, his little fist curling around Luna’s index finger. “Sandro Caputo,” she whispers.
“It’s just a name,” I say, too roughly.
“Liar.” She leans back against the pillows, fighting exhaustion.
They take the baby away at dawn. Luna fights it, her nails digging into my thigh as the nurse takes him from her arms.
“Routine neonatal screening,” she says, already turning away. Luna’s breath quickens, her monitor beeping a frantic tempo.
“Nico...” she unravels.
“He’ll be back.” I gesture to Mateo to follow since I make it my mission to be by her side until she goes home.
She doesn’t sleep. Neither do I. We exist in the gray space between sunrise and survival, the stillness broken only by the rustle of her adjusting the sheets, the creak of my chair as I watch the clock.
“You held him,” she asks, her voice raw with emotion.
“Briefly,” I say. It’s the truth, but it’s not the whole of it. In that brief moment, I held everything I never thought I’d deserve. And I’m terrified I’ll lose him.
“You didn’t drop him.”
“Would’ve been a poor start to his training.” Her laugh is faint but real, and she reaches for my hand, her fingers icy.
“He’s not a soldier, Nico.” I trace the lines on her palm.
“He’s ours. That’s worse.” The truth hangs heavy between us, but she doesn’t argue.
They bring the baby back at ten, screaming. Luna lights up; she’s tired but captivated with this little human. I don’t blame her. I’m mesmerized as I watch the two of them bonding while she sings him a lullaby. The scene feels foreign, fragile.
She catches me staring. “Your turn.”
“No.” The word slips out before I can stop it.
“Nico,” she scolds. Reluctantly, I take him. He feels heavier now, or maybe I’m just aware of him in my arms. His cries turn into whimpers as he presses his face against my heart.
Her smile splits me wide open like she’s reached inside and found the part of me I thought was dead.
“See? He knows you.”
I can’t answer, since I’m holding my breath. His eyelids flutter closed, and its simplicity strikes me. How my hands are stained and violent, and yet I’m cradling someone so defenseless.
“We’ll keep him safe.” Luna’s voice cuts through the quiet.
“We’ll try.” I adjust my grip, the baby’s heartbeat a fragile echo of my own.
It’s the closest I’ll come to hope.