30. Niccolò
Niccolò
The cold seeps into my bones from the marble floor, chasing away the burning agony tearing through my chest. The edges of my vision blur into a static gray haze, muting the blaring security alarms and the suffocating stench of gunpowder filling the ruined suite.
I can feel the frantic, slippery pressure of Livia’s hands pressing down on the bullet wound, her desperate sobs vibrating against my collarbone.
"Hold on, Niccolò," she begs, her tears dropping onto my skin, mixing with the blood rapidly draining from my veins. "You owe me a lifetime, you arrogant bastard. You do not get to die on me today."
Her voice is the only tether keeping me anchored to the earth. I try to speak, to tell her to take the hidden cash from the safe and run before the rest of the Falco mercenaries breach the second floor, but my lungs refuse to expand. A wet, metallic cough rattles past my lips instead.
Boot steps thunder into the room, shaking the floorboards. Enzo’s hands goes over Livia’s exhausted hands with his own bruising grip to stem the bleeding. Over the ringing in my ears, I hear Alessio barking commands in the corridor, orchestrating the lockdown with a violent efficiency.
"Lock the western gates and flush the servant corridors!" Alessio roars, the sound accompanied by the unmistakable racking of a shotgun slide. "If you find anyone not wearing our crest, you blow their fucking heads off! Nobody touches this wing!"
I want to commend my brother, to tell him to protect the woman kneeling in the rubble, but the gray static finally swallows the remaining light. The agonizing burn in my chest fades into a numb, creeping frost, and I let the shadows pull me under.
I claw my way back to consciousness through a thick, suffocating fog of medical-grade narcotics.
The transition is brutal, my brain is struggling to connect the fragmented sensations bombarding my nervous system.
The sharp, sterile stench of bleach and rubbing alcohol replaces the sulfuric smoke of the exploded suite.
A rhythmic, obnoxious beeping echoes near my right ear, tracking the sluggish, painful thud of my own heart.
I force my eyelids open, blinking against the harsh, unforgiving glare of fluorescent overhead lights. I am not in the ruined bedroom. The pale gray walls and the stainless steel medical equipment surrounding my bed confirm I am secured in the subterranean trauma wing beneath the estate.
A dull, throbbing ache radiates from the center of my chest, constrained by tight layers of thick gauze and surgical tape. I try to shift my weight, intending to pull the IV needle from the back of my hand, but a voice halts the movement immediately.
"Don't be a fucking idiot, Niccolò. You rip those stitches, and Dr. Evans will have an aneurysm."
I turn my head toward the foot of the bed, the motion sending a spike of nausea rolling through my stomach.
Alessio is leaning against the metal doorframe, his leather jacket coated in dried mud and soot.
He looks like he hasn't slept a single minute since the ambush, his jaw is covered in rough stubble and his eyes are bloodshot.
Enzo sits at a nearby stainless steel table, typing relentlessly on a laptop, his torn suit jacket draped over the back of his chair.
"What is the status?" I croak over the heart monitor.
Enzo pauses his typing, glancing up to meet my gaze. "The estate is secure. We eradicated the Falco strike team, scrubbed the perimeter, and locked down the city. The remaining heads of the Falco family have gone to ground, but we are hunting them."
"How long?" I wheeze, trying to swallow the sandpaper dryness in my throat.
Alessio pushes off the doorframe, walking over to inspect the digital chart hanging at the foot of my bed.
"Seventy-two hours. You spent the first twelve of them on an operating table while Evans dug a hollow-point bullet out of your chest cavity, and you have been floating in a morphine-induced coma for the last three days.
We honestly thought you were going to check out on us a few times. "
Three days.
"The western gates," I force the words out, fighting the agonizing pull in my chest. "They blew the service entrance. The security grid was compromised."
"The grid was practically non-existent for the first six hours after the blast," Enzo confirms grimly, closing his laptop.
"The explosion severed the primary fiber-optic cables.
The gates were wide open, the cameras were blind, and the estate was crawling with emergency personnel and cleanup crews. It was a logistical nightmare."
The gates were open. The cameras were blind.
The realization strikes me with devastating clarity.
Livia had a three-day window consisting of unmonitored chaos.
She had the cash she hoarded in her canvas bag, and nobody would have noticed a civilian slipping past the shattered perimeter while the syndicate soldiers were busy dragging bodies out of the foyer.
She possessed the perfect, flawless opportunity to vanish into the city and protect her unborn child from the monster she believed me to be.
She is gone.
A hollow, crushing void opens up inside my ribcage, an agony far worse than the surgical incisions holding my flesh together.
I sacrificed my own life to ensure she survived the hitman, and she used the resulting distraction to run away from me.
I cannot blame her. I told her I was poison to our bloodline, and she finally believed me.
"I need water," I mutter, turning my head away from my men so they cannot see the devastating heartbreak fracturing my composure.
As I shift my gaze toward the small table beside the bed, my eyes land on a shape huddled in the corner of the room.
The breath leaves my lungs in a sharp, stuttering gasp.
Livia is curled into a stiff, uncomfortable vinyl visitor's chair pulled flush against the metal railing of my bed.
She is wearing an oversized, borrowed sweatshirt that swallows her small frame, her legs tucked protectively against her stomach.
Her face is pale, smudged with exhaustion, but she is breathing in a steady, peaceful rhythm.
She didn't run.
I stare at her, my drug-addled brain struggling to process the impossible visual. The gates were open, the guards were distracted, and yet the woman who tried to flee through the freezing mud a week ago is sleeping in the subterranean medical wing.
I look down. Her small, delicate fingers are wrapped around my uninjured left hand in a fierce, bruising death grip, holding onto me so tightly.
I carefully flex my fingers against hers, the slight movement instantly dragging her out of her exhausted sleep. Livia gasps, her spine snapping perfectly straight as her wide, panicked eyes dart frantically around the sterile room before locking onto my face.
"You're awake," she breathes, the words trembling as she pushes herself out of the chair and leans over the bed railing. "Niccolò, you're awake."
"I am still breathing," I manage to say, my voice sounds pathetic to my own ears.
Alessio clears his throat loudly from the foot of the bed. "We will give you two a minute. Enzo, let's go check the perimeter sweeps. Call us on the intercom if his vitals drop, Livia."
My brother and the Consigliere slip out of the medical room, the solid steel door sealing us in a quiet, intimate isolation.
Livia doesn't watch them leave, her focus remains entirely fixated on the bandages wrapped around my torso.
She reaches out with a shaking hand, her fingertips hovering just millimeters above my skin, terrified of causing me any further pain.
"You stayed," I state the undeniable fact, my chest aching as I search her beautiful, exhausted face.
"Enzo said the grid was down. The gates were breached.
You had every opportunity to walk out of here with the cash in your bag, and nobody would have been able to stop you.
Why the fuck are you sitting in a hospital chair, Livia? "
She drops her hand, crossing her arms over the oversized sweater with defiance.
"Because I am not a coward," she snaps back, her voice ringing with a newfound authority that sends a thrill of pride straight through my veins.
"I watched you step in front of a loaded weapon to shield my body.
I watched you bleed out on our bedroom floor because you decided my life was worth infinitely more than your own.
You think I am going to pack a bag and run away from the only man who has ever truly protected me? "
"I told you I was dangerous to our child," I argue, the self-loathing bubbling back to the surface despite the profound relief of her presence.
"I am a mobster. I invite violence into our home.
That hitman was aiming at your stomach because he wanted to eradicate my bloodline. My proximity almost got you killed."
"Your proximity saved my life," she corrects me ruthlessly, leaning over the railing until her face is inches from mine.
"My father was a pathetic drunk who used his fists to break my mother because it made him feel powerful.
You used your strength to build a fortress around me, and when the wolves breached the walls, you laid down your own life to ensure I survived.
You are not a monster, Niccolò Severato.
You are exactly the kind of man I want raising my baby. "
The conviction in her voice shatters the final remnants of the guilt I have been carrying since the moment I discovered she was pregnant.
She sees the blood on my hands, she acknowledges the ruthless reality of the syndicate I command, and she is choosing to stand beside me regardless of the collateral damage.
"I will burn the rest of the Falco family to the ground," I promise her, the vow slipping from my lips with a lethal, unshakeable certainty.
"I will eradicate every single threat in this city until you and this baby can walk the streets without looking over your shoulders.
You will never have to fear the shadows again, mia regina. "
Livia smiles, a stunning, tear-soaked expression that completely wrecks the remaining defenses guarding my heart. She leans down, pressing a gentle kiss to the corner of my mouth, careful not to jostle my injured chest.
"I know you will," she whispers against my lips, her fingers tangling possessively in my hair. "But right now, you are going to lay here and let Dr. Evans pump you full of antibiotics, because if you try to get out of this bed before you are healed, I will personally shoot you in the other lung."
I let out a weak, raspy chuckle, ignoring the agonizing flare of pain radiating from my sutures.