25. Gabriella
25
Gabriella
H ave you ever woken up from a deep, dreamless sleep, momentarily disoriented and unsure of where you are? The kind of sleep that makes you question whether you’ve lost an entire day or a week.
That’s how I feel when I open my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, accompanied by the steady beeping of a machine and the sound of low murmured voices. Slowly, I turn my head toward the window, noticing the sun—setting or rising? Without a clock, it’s hard to tell.
“She’s awake.”
Suddenly, my family converges on me, their excited laughter and relief overwhelming my senses.
“Gabriella?”
“Oh, thank the Lord.”
“Are you okay?”
“How do you feel?”
I lift my hand and whack my face with a hard brace that extends all the way to my elbow. What the hell?
“One at a damn time, please,” I grumble, my frustration growing when I raise my other hand and see the lines of IVs connecting me to the bags hanging from the hook above.
“You were in a car accident,” Rose explains first, her hands squeezing my blanket covered feet. “Do you remember any of that?”
The memory of a blinding light, the screeching sound metal makes as it collapses under brute force, and the smoky, burnt rubber smell of airbags deploying flash through my mind.
“Yes.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I didn’t see it coming. Is the other driver okay?”
“As far as we know,” Rose answers me.
“And it was an accident…right?” I ask when the unpleasant thought of how it may have been orchestrated crosses my mind next.
“As far as we know,” Michael repeats his better half’s words, only his I don’t trust completely.
Rose frowns at my brother before looking back at me. “Enzo and Evie are looking into it, but so far, all signs point to an accident.”
“That’s good.”
“What were you doing out so late, Gabriella?” Raphael asks. He stands on the other side of the bed, next to Lily, who is busy reviewing what I assume is my medical record on a hospital tablet. She notices me looking at her and reaches out to squeeze my shoulder with a reassuring smile.
“Could it have had something to do with Dimitri Volkov?” Michael asks, growling out the name.
I glance at Rose, wondering how much, if anything, she’s told my family. When she shakes her head subtly, I know it’s nothing. So how?
“Who?” It’s a lame question, and he knows it.
“Really, Gabriella?” Michael steps back, slipping his hands in the pockets of his pants, like he needs to hide them or risk doing something stupid with them. “When we got here, he was holding your hand and then he kissed it before he left.”
My eyes snap to Rose. “Dimitri was here?”
Raphael curses softly under his breath and pushes away from my hospital bed. He bows his head and shakes it in frustration.
Michael looks at Rose in shock. “Did you know about this?”
When I say Rose is the other half of my brother’s soul, I’m not joking. She completes him, balancing out his impulsive nature with her voice of reason, while also understanding that sometimes the demons that haunt him need to come out and play every now and then.
“I only just figured it out,” Rose answers him in a vague, roundabout sort of way.
“And were you planning on telling me?” Michael continues, his voice low and angry.
Rose twists to face his challenge with a raised brow. “You know what, dear? I didn’t think it was really all that important, given everything this family has gone through in the last two weeks alone.”
My poor brother. He’s incredibly intelligent, except when it comes to shutting his big mouth when he should.
“All that important?” he repeats in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “My little sister seeing that Russian ice prick scum isn’t all that important?”
Something dangerous crosses Rose’s face when she takes a deep breath and straightens her spine, leveling my brother with a pair of sharp green eyes. “Excuse me?” she asks in an even tone. “Recovering from gunshot wounds, nearly drowning and losing Dominic is, to me, a little more important than who your sister is seeing. A man who seems to love your sister very much, by the way.”
“He does?” The question slips from my mouth in a whisper.
Rose looks back at me, her gaze softening as she smiles. “He hasn’t said it out loud, but I know the look.”
“You know the look?” Michael scoffs.
Rose rolls her eyes in my direction, and I stifle a laugh because my idiot brother really doesn’t know when to quit.
“Michael, dear,” Rose starts, her tone morphing into something sickly sweet. By the time Michael notices the change, it’s too late. He swallows hard when Rose looks back at him. “Your little sister is recovering from a car accident in the hospital right now and being grilled about the man she’s seeing seems a little unnecessary, as she does. Don’t you agree?”
“Of course, mi flora ,” he agrees with a relenting nod.
Rose walks over and rises on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek before she whispers something in his ear. The smile that tugs on his lips tells me he may be in the doghouse, but not for long.
Lily clears her throat, and we all turn our attention to her. “May I talk to Gabriella alone for a moment?”
I frown in her direction. Is there something in my chart?
Raphael kisses the side of her head and then grabs his brother’s arm on the way out. Rose starts to follow, but stops when I call after her to stay. I don’t know why, but I feel like she should stay to listen. I want her to stay.Lily nods that it's okay.
Once we’re alone, I look at Lily. “What is it? And please don’t sugarcoat it or anything. Just spit it out and—”
“You’re pregnant.”
My heartbeat monitor beeps louder and quicker, exposing my body’s response as I remain silent.
“Holy…shit,” Rose speaks what I can't say.
“Yeah,” Lily agrees. “Your hCG values don’t lie. They even did the test twice to be sure and have ordered an ultrasound once you’re awake.”
Pregnant.
Again.
But I was just in an accident. The beeping from my heart monitor increases even more.
“Gabriella, are you okay?” Lily reaches for me and places two fingers on my wrist, above my pulse point.
“Talk to us,” Rose urges me, her voice full of concern and bordering on mother mode.
“Is it okay?” My voice breaks with a fierce possession building in my chest over a baby I just learned existed.
“Well, we won’t know for certain until the doctor performs an ultrasound—”
“Go get the doctor,” I order. I don’t care who does, just that someone gets me a doctor with an ultrasound machine capable of checking on the baby.
“I’ll go,” Lily offers and disappears out the door right away.
My eyes fall to my covered stomach. Nearly six months ago, I suffered one miscarriage. Am I doomed to have another? I raise my hand to the flat area and pray that my touch is enough to keep him or her safe.
“Is it Dimitri’s?”
I raise my eyes to Rose. There’s no judgment or anger or disappointment in her eyes, but only concern and curiosity.
“Yes,” I whisper, my eyes falling away from her again.
“I’m assuming, based on your surprise, that he doesn’t know?”
I shake my head.
“Do you want to keep it?”
Snapping my gaze back to Rose, I say immediately, “Of course I do.”
Rose smiles slyly. “Just checking. So why the sad face then? Are you worried about what your family will say?”
“Yes,” I admit. If I had this news a week ago, I would have said no. But now? Dimitri’s engaged to Sophia Mikailhov. When they marry, my baby will be considered a bastard. No matter how loved he or she is, it doesn’t change that simple fact.
Before Rose can ask why, there’s a knock on the door, and a second later, Lily reappears with an older woman pulling an ultrasound cart behind her. I catch my brother’s curious gazes in the open door for a moment before Lily shuts it in their faces.
“Hello, Ms. DiAngelo. My name is Doctor Mary, and I’m here to check on your little one.”She directs me to lie down and then places my feet in the bed stirrups because a pregnancy this early has to be done vaginally.“I want to warn you that this early in a pregnancy we may not see much of anything, but we should be able to at least tell where in the uterus the fetus has implanted and take some measurements to determine your conception and delivery date,” Mary explains as she inserts the wand and then clicks on the ultrasound machine with her other hand. “Depending how far along you are, we may catch the heartbeat, but if we don’t, please don’t worry, it just means you’re a little too early in your pregnancy to hear it.”
The last time I had an ultrasound, there was no heartbeat. The thought that this baby may not have one terrifies me, even if she reassures me it’s too early to hear it.I nod mutely, keeping my eyes glued to the black screen.
As the doctor shifts the wand around to catch a good view of my uterus, she asks, “Do you know when your last menstrual cycle was?”
I’ve always been so irregular. I’ve never really given a missed period the time of day because it’s normal for it to be a couple weeks late. Tack on all the stress my family has put me through these last two months and end-of-year finals, a late period isn’t all that surprising. “I think it was mid-November sometime.”
“Okay, let’s see what we have.” The doctor clicks a few buttons, and my eyes shift from her to the screen, back to her and then back to the screen, looking for any sign of sorrow on her face. When she smiles and points to a black bubble that looks like it’s floating in the larger black spot on the screen, my anxiety eases a little. “There’s your little one. And I think…” She clicks a button and the soft, rapid whooshing of a heartbeat comes from the speaker. “There’s the heartbeat. Strong and healthy.”
Tears fill my eyes at the comforting sound.
“Oh, wait,” the doctor says and the panic returns to steal my breath.
“What is it?” Rose snaps.
“No way,” Lily comments in awe, her eyes on the screen.
“There’s two heartbeats.”
“What?” Rose and I say at the same time.
The doctor takes a screenshot of the first black bubble and then shifts the wand to find another bubble nestled close by. “There’s the other one. Again, a nice strong and healthy heartbeat. Congratulations Ms. DiAngelo, it looks like twins.”
I sit in quiet shock as Rose punches the air in excitement and Lily talks with the doctor while she takes a few more measurements. After she removes the wand from between my legs, she hits a button and a string of ultrasound photos print out the side of the machine.
When she hands them to me, I stare down at the two little black bubbles with tiny grains of rice inside them. The first pictures of my little miracles. I wonder what they'll look like. Will they have my dark hair and hazel eyes or Dimitri’s steely blues? Will they be boys, girls, or one of each? There’s so much to think about, but for now they rest deep inside me, warm and safe, and I plan on keeping them that way.
“Your doctor will give you a better due date with your next ultrasound, but based on your last period and the babies measurements, I’d say you’re about five weeks pregnant, making your due date mid-August.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll put in an order for prenatal vitamins to be included in your discharge paperwork. Do you have any questions for me?”
My eyes shift to Rose, who is peering down at the black and white photos in my hands. She doesn’t know about the miscarriage. But I need to know.
“Will a previous miscarriage be a risk to these babies?”
Rose gasps and from the corner of my eye, I feel her and Lily stare at me in surprise, but I can’t look at them. Not yet.
“When was the miscarriage?”
“July. I wasn't far along.”
The doctor nods sympathetically. “I see. Well, hundreds of women have gone on to have several healthy pregnancies after a miscarriage. Of course, there’s a higher risk of miscarriage in the first trimester and that risk is slightly elevated with twins. However, stressing about it will do you no good. Let your body do all the work. Your only job is enjoying the pregnancy and loving those babies when they’re born.”
When the doctor leaves us, Lily pulls a chair up and sits down while Rose shifts to the edge of the bed. I finally meet her sad expression.
“You were pregnant before?”
I nod. "It was a surprise."
"Dimitri's?" Rose asks.
"Yes, but after the miscarriage, I ended things with him."
“Why? Did he not want the baby?”
“No. I think he would have. It’s just that at the time he couldn’t be there with me when I needed him the most and I don’t know, it was just all too much."
"And now?"
"We started things up again after he saved Enzo and I from your dad’s guys.”
"So, what's wrong?"
"Everytthing." Fucking tears. They return and fall mercilessly down my cheeks, revealing how emotional I am by it all.
“I don’t understand. He was here, waiting for you to wake up tonight.”
“Yeah. As an engaged man.”
“Wait. What?” Rose’s mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water, like she’s unable to process the information.
“To who?” Lily asks.
"Sophia Mikailhov."
“Sophia Mikailhov? As in Michael’s ex-wife Sophia?”Rose asks.
“One and the same.”
Rose scoffs. "No way. How do you know?"
"When I went to him last night, I overheard him."
"Why would he do that?"
I shrug and mumble, “I left before he could explain.”
Rose latches on to the guilty tone in my voice. “Because he didn’t want to explain or because you didn’t give him the chance?”
Throwing my non-injured arm over my face, I groan deep. “Because I didn’t give him the chance.”
“Gabriella,” Rose reprimands me like the mom she is.
“What?” I toss my arm away and sit up, leveling her with a look. “I was mad. I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s been hiding from me. What he’s been refusing to tell me. What if he’s been seeing her and me at the same time?”
Rose snorts. "I highly doubt it. Have you met her?"
Her question is rhetorical but still makes me laugh.
"Rose is right," Lily jumps in, trying to reassure me. "If you saw how the man was looking at you when we arrived, there's no one but you."
"Besides, you know better than anyone that politics runs our world," Rose adds. "Dimitri may be engaged right now to Sophia, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to marry her. The way I see it, you’re a better catch than that box blonde will ever be, and her father would be an idiot to ignore that.”
I stare at her as I make sense of her words. “You’re…talking about marriage between Dimitri and me.”
She nods, her eyes bright with excitement, like she’s just figured out the meaning of life and is busy making wedding plans already. “I am. Think about it, Gabriella. Since no one knows about you two, they don’t even know it’s an option. But it is.”
Glancing down at the photo of the twin babies, I chew on my bottom lip while I consider her words. It makes as much sense as it is an insane option. If there’s even a chance that we can be together…don’t we deserve to fight for it? Don’t the pair of lives we created deserve that?