Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
"I'm telling you, the three of us need to unionize," Bianca says, leaning back on the couch with her wine glass. "Form a proper girls' alliance. These men think they run everything but we all know who actually keeps things functioning."
Alessia laughs and tops up her own glass. "What would we even call ourselves?"
"The Wives' Council? The Mafia Wives Coalition?" Bianca grins. "I'm open to suggestions."
I'm curled up in the armchair with my wine, finally feeling something close to relaxed for the first time in days.
My wedding is so near but I'm not thinking about that right now.
Right now I'm just sitting with my sister-in-law and Bianca, pretending life is normal, that I'm a normal woman having a normal evening with friends.
"We should do this more often," Alessia says, looking between us. "Actually get together. Talk about things that aren't business or security or—" She waves her hand vaguely. "All the constant crisis management."
"Yes," I agree immediately. "Please. I need more of this and less of everything else."
Bianca raises her glass. "To the girls' alliance. May we actually remember to schedule the next meeting before six months passes."
We all raise our glasses, clink them and drink. There’s a big smile on my face when I hear the car. It zooms in so fast, dust follows it from a mile away, the engine loud and urgent in a way that makes my stomach drop before my brain can catch up.
What the hell?
The front door slams open.
"Get the doctor!" Rafael's voice, is booming and deafening. "Now!"
I'm on my feet before I decide to move, the glass falling from my hand and shattering on the floor, but I don't hear it break because I'm already moving toward the front hall.
Bianca and Alessia are right behind me.
We round the corner and I see them.
Dante and Rafael supporting someone between them, half-carrying, half-dragging, and it takes my brain a full second to understand what I'm looking at because it doesn't make sense, it can't be—
Enzo.
Covered in blood.
So much blood.
His shirt is soaked through, dark and wet, the fabric clinging to his torso, and there's blood on Rafael's hands, on Dante's arms, on the marble floor where they're tracking it, Enzo's head is down, his feet are barely keeping up and he's not supporting his own weight and oh god oh god oh god—
"What happened?" Matteo's voice, appearing from somewhere, moving fast toward them.
"Ambush at the factory," Rafael says, breathing hard. "Knife wound. He's lost a lot of blood."
They're moving him toward the sitting room and I'm frozen in the hallway watching them, watching the blood drip on the floor, watching Enzo's head loll forward. My chest is caving in, the air disappearing from the room, and I can't breathe, I can't think, I can only see red.
So much red.
"Isabella." Alessia's hand on my arm, firm and grounding. "Breathe."
I can't breathe.
They get him to the couch and lay him down, his eyes are closed and his face is pale, so pale, paler than I've ever seen anyone look who wasn't dead, and the thought makes something break loose in my chest.
"Where's the fucking doctor?!" Matteo demands.
"Five minutes out," someone answers.
I'm moving before I decide to, crossing to the couch, Dante sees me coming and shifts to give me room as I kneel beside Enzo, my hands shaking so badly I can barely reach out to touch him.
His hand is hanging off the edge of the couch.
I take it.
His fingers are cold. Limp. He doesn't squeeze back.
"Enzo," I whisper, my voice cracking completely. "Enzo, please."
Nothing.
Dante has his hands pressed against Enzo's side, applying pressure to the wound, and I can see the blood seeping through his fingers, dark and relentless, and I think I might be sick.
"Just how bad is it?" Matteo asks, crouching on the other side of the couch.
"Very bad," Dante says flatly. "Deep penetration. He's been bleeding for almost forty minutes."
Oh my God.
Forty minutes of blood loss while they drove back here, while I was sitting in the other room drinking wine and laughing, completely unaware that Enzo was dying.
"Stay with us," Rafael says, and it takes me a second to realize he's talking to Enzo, not me. "Come on, Bianchi. Stay conscious."
Enzo's eyes flutter but don't open.
I squeeze his hand harder and lean closer. "Enzo, can you hear me? Please. Please stay with me."
The front door opens again and the doctor rushes in with his bag, already assessing the situation as he moves, and people shift to give him room, but I don't let go of Enzo's hand.
"Someone tell me what happened," the doctor says, already cutting away Enzo's shirt.
"Single knife wound, lower right side, deep," Dante reports. "Approximately forty-five minutes ago. Conscious until ten minutes ago."
The doctor nods and keeps working, his hands efficient and practiced. When he pulls the fabric away and I see the wound my vision goes spotty at the edges.
It's deep. So deep. The edges ragged, angry and still bleeding despite all the pressure, I can see too much, can see things that should be inside staying inside, and my stomach turns over violently.
"Isabella." Alessia's voice again, closer now. "You need to sit back. Let him work."
"No."
"You're in the way."
"I don't care."
A hand on my shoulder. Matteo.
"Isabella," he says quietly. "Come sit in the chair. You can still see him from there."
I don't want to move. Moving means letting go of Enzo's hand and letting go feels impossible, feels like giving up, feels like the only thing keeping him tethered to consciousness and if I let go he might slip away completely.
But Matteo's hand is firm, gentle and insistent, I let him guide me to the chair beside the couch, close enough that I can still reach out, still touch.
I take Enzo's hand again the second I'm seated.
Still cold. Still limp. Still not squeezing back.
The doctor works quickly, cleaning the wound, assessing the damage, his face calm and focused in a way that I want to find reassuring but can't because calm means routine and this shouldn't be routine, Enzo bleeding out shouldn't be something anyone is calm about.
"Talk to me about blood loss," the doctor says.
"Significant," Rafael answers. "We put pressure on it but it didn't slow much until the last ten minutes."
An IV goes into Enzo's arm. Fluids. Antibiotics maybe. I don't know. I can't focus on anything except his face, grey and slack and wrong.
I run my thumb over his knuckles and try to will warmth back into his skin ,to will life back into his body.
"He's stable," the doctor says after what feels like hours but is probably fifteen minutes. "Pulse is weak but steady. Blood pressure is low but not critical. I need to close this wound and get him on fluids, but he's not in immediate danger."
Not in immediate danger.
The words don't process correctly. They should feel like relief, but they just feel like words, empty sounds that don't match the reality of Enzo pale and bleeding and unconscious in front of me.
"Will he wake up?" My voice comes out smaller than I intend.
The doctor glances at me. "Eventually, yes. Right now his body is in shock and trying to compensate for the blood loss. He needs rest. Could be hours before he regains consciousness."
Hours.
Hours of sitting here watching him breathe and waiting and not knowing if he'll wake up the same, if there's damage we can't see, if the wound is hiding something worse underneath.
The doctor keeps working. Stitching. Bandaging. Checking vitals with systematic precision.
I don't let go of Enzo's hand.
Across the room, I can feel Matteo watching me. I've known my brother my whole life and I know when his attention is fixed on something, and right now it's fixed on me.
On the way I'm holding Enzo's hand.
On the way I haven't moved from this chair.
On the way I looked when I saw him covered in blood.
He knows something. Has figured it out. I can feel it in the quality of his silence, in the way he's not asking questions, in the careful neutrality of his expression.
But he doesn't say anything.
And I can’t bring myself to care right now.
The doctor finishes his work and sits back, stripping off his gloves.
"He needs to be monitored closely for the next twenty-four hours," he says, looking at Matteo. "Someone should check on him every two hours. Watch for fever, infection, excessive bleeding. Any changes, you call me immediately."
"I'll do it," I say.
Matteo's eyes flick to me briefly, but he doesn't comment.
"All right," the doctor says. "I'll show you what to watch for."
He walks me through the warning signs, the things that would mean calling him back immediately, the difference between normal healing and something going wrong. I listen with fierce concentration, absorbing every detail like my life depends on it.
Like Enzo's life depends on it. Because it does.
When he's done, the doctor packs his supplies and looks at Matteo. "I'll be back in the morning to check on him. Call if anything changes before then."
Matteo walks him out.
The room empties slowly. Rafael and Dante leaving to debrief, to deal with the aftermath of the ambush, to handle whatever needs handling. Alessia and Bianca hovering uncertainly before Alessia touches my shoulder gently.
"Do you need anything?" she asks softly.
"No. I'm fine."
"Isabella—"
"I'm fine." I don't look away from Enzo. "I just—I need to sit with him."
She exchanges a look with Bianca that I pretend not to see, and then they leave too, and it's just me and Enzo in the quiet room.
I pull the chair closer to the couch and take his hand again, this time with both of mine, holding it between my palms like I can will warmth back into it through sheer force of contact.
His chest rises and falls. Steady. Mechanical. Alive.
I watch him breathe and I think about the factory, about him getting stabbed, about forty minutes of bleeding while I was drinking wine, and something in my chest cracks wide open.
"You promised you'd come back," I whisper to him. "You promised."
He doesn't answer.
I hold his hand and I wait.