Chapter 25
CASSIA
Lorenzo stands at his brother’s bedside like a man who’s forgotten how to move.
I watch from my chair in the corner. Watch him reach out and take Dante’s hand. Watch his mouth form words too quiet to hear. Watch the weapon become human.
Human. Afraid. Broken open in a way I don’t think he’d ever let anyone see.
Then he straightens. Puts the mask back on. Turns to Giada.
“I’ll be back before dawn. There’s cleanup.”
Giada nods. She doesn’t ask what that means. None of us do.
Lorenzo pauses at the door. Looks at me.
“Stay with him.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He’s gone before I finish speaking.
I press my palms flat against my thighs. Breathe until my hands stop trembling.
Giada works through the night. Now that she knows what she’s fighting, her movements are different. Purposeful. She adjusts medications, checks readings, makes notes in a chart I can’t read from here.
“Tetrodotoxin,” she says, half to herself. “Blocks sodium channels. Causes paralysis, respiratory failure.” She pauses over a reading. “If we hadn’t known what it was, he’d be dead by morning.”
Giada’s hands pause over Dante’s chest. A shadow flickers across her face. Not exhaustion. Darker. Her eyes go distant.
“Giada?” I push myself out of the chair. Touch her arm. “What is it?”
She shakes her head. Blinks.
“Nothing. I need to cross-reference the compound profile.”
“Against what?”
She doesn’t answer. Just returns to work, her movements sharper than before. More urgent.
I want to push. Want to demand an answer. But Dante’s monitor spikes. His heart rate climbing. Giada moves in a breath, adjusting his IV, watching the numbers until they settle.
Whatever she’s thinking will have to wait.
I store it. The look on her face. Her non-answer. The haunted shadow in her eyes.
Later. I’ll ask later.
I pull my chair closer to the bed. Take his hand. His skin is clammy. Cooler than it should be. But not cold. Not anymore.
He looks smaller like this. The powerful Don, the man who commands rooms by entering them, reduced to this pale figure beneath white sheets. Tubes in his arm. Machines breathing for him.
His face is slack. No tension in his jaw. His hands rest open at his sides, fingers uncurled. The furrow between his brows that I’ve memorized, the one that deepens when he’s calculating, when he’s holding back, when he’s fighting himself. Gone. All of it gone.
“You don’t get to die.” My voice sounds strange in the quiet. Too loud. Too desperate. “Do you hear me? You don’t get to leave me here alone.”
The monitor holds its rhythm. Steady. Slow.
“I didn’t come this far to lose you.”
I press my forehead against his chest. Feel it rise. Fall. Rise again. Count the seconds between each breath.
I lift my head. Bring his hand to my lips. Press my mouth against his knuckles and hold it there until the trembling in my jaw stops.
“Don’t make me a widow before I’ve even been a wife. Don’t you dare.”
Around midnight, Nonna Rosa appears.
She carries a tray. Sandwiches. Tea. Things that require eating, which is impossible right now.
She doesn’t speak. Just sets the tray on the side table. Touches my shoulder with her weathered hand. Looks at Dante for a long moment.
Then she bows her head. Crosses herself. Whispers in Italian, too low to catch. A prayer. Or a command. With Nonna Rosa, it’s hard to tell the difference.
When she looks up, her eyes are wet.
“He’s strong, that one.” The words come out rough. “Too stubborn to let go. Like his Papa.”
I nod. Can’t speak.
She squeezes my shoulder once. Then she’s gone.
I don’t touch the food. Neither does Giada. The tea goes cold.
Around 2:00 a.m., a shadow fills the doorway.
Marco.
He doesn’t come in. Just stands at the threshold, hands shoved in his pockets, watching his brother breathe.
He looks young in the low light. Too young for any of this.
“The call logs,” he says, voice rough. “They mattered?”
I turn in my chair. “They were the final piece. You found the Benedetti connection. Without that, we might not have caught him in time.”
His posture shifts. Not relief. Not pride. But a tightness loosens in his shoulders.
“I should have brought it to Dante sooner.” His jaw works. “I knew something was wrong. I should have pushed harder.”
“You brought it to me. And I brought it to him. And now Romano is handled.”
Marco’s throat bobs. He knows what that means.
“Good.”
He looks at Dante one more time. Then he nods at me. At Giada. And he’s gone. Back to whatever post Lorenzo assigned him.
The hours blur together. Dante’s breaths mark time. Fourteen per minute at midnight. Twelve at 1:00 a.m. Thirteen now. Every number a lifeline. Every number proof that he’s still here.
Giada moves around the bed like a ghost. Checking vitals. Adjusting medications. Making notes. She hasn’t sat down since Romano’s name was spoken. Hasn’t stopped. Hasn’t let herself stop.
Around 3:00 a.m., she grows still. Stares at the monitors. At the numbers I can’t read.
Then she exhales. Long and slow.
And she sits.
Collapses into the chair beside mine, legs folding beneath her like they’ve given out at last. Her hands are shaking. Not a lot. Just enough.
She couldn’t let them shake before. Not while she was working. Not while his life depended on her steadiness.
“He’s stable.” Her voice is hoarse. Scraped thin. “His heart is strong. The toxin is clearing his system.”
I wait.
“He’s going to make it.”
I keep holding his hand.
“Thank you.”
Giada looks at me. Her eyes are bloodshot. Her face is pale. She looks like she’s aged ten years since dinner.
“You gave us Romano.” Quiet but fierce. “You traced everything. Found the connections. Handed us the enemy.” She shakes her head. “You saved him too. Don’t forget that.”
The urge to argue hits me. To say she’s the one who kept him breathing. She’s the one who fought the poison hour after hour while I sat here.
But I don’t. Because maybe we both did.
I squeeze Dante’s hand. Stand on legs that have forgotten how to hold weight.
“I’ll get coffee.”
The compound kitchen is dark and silent. I find the coffee maker by memory. Go through the motions without thinking. Grounds. Water. The hiss and gurgle of brewing. My hands are steadier than I expected.
When I return to the medical wing, Giada hasn’t moved. She’s staring at Dante’s face. At the color returning to his cheeks.
I hand her a cup. Sit beside her.
We don’t speak. Don’t need to. Two women who fought for the same man. Two women who refused to let him go.
The coffee is bitter. Too strong. Neither of us complains.
“You haven’t slept,” Giada says at last.
“Neither have you.”
“I’m used to it. Medical school.” A ghost of a smile. “You’re not.”
“I’ll sleep when he wakes up.”
She nods. Understands.
The monitor’s rhythm has changed. Stronger now. The intervals between beats tighter, more certain.
“We both saved him,” I say.
Giada looks at me. Her mother’s eyes in her father’s face. Exhaustion etched in every line.
“Sisters do that.”
My eyes sting. I can’t speak.
Sisters.
“Sisters,” I repeat.
Giada’s smile wavers. And then it fades. Her eyes go distant. Haunted. Looking at a ghost I can’t see.
“Giada?”
She blinks. Shakes her head.
“Sorry. I’m just tired.”
But it’s not nothing. I saw that look earlier. When she was cross-referencing the compound. When she wouldn’t answer my question.
The look isn’t for Dante. It’s for someone else. Someone I haven’t met.
I don’t push. Not now. Not after everything. But I tuck it away for later. Another piece of a puzzle I don’t have the edges for yet.
The first gray light of dawn creeps through the windows.
Dante’s hand twitches in mine.
I look down. Hold my breath.
His fingers curl. Weak but deliberate. Finding mine.
The numbers on the monitor blur. Nothing matters except the pressure of his grip.
“Giada.”
She’s already moving. Checking the monitors. Leaning close.
His eyes flutter. Don’t open. But they flutter.
“He’s coming back.” Giada’s voice is tight. “It might take hours. But he’s fighting.”
He’s fighting.
I bring his hand to my lips. Kiss his knuckles.
“That’s it,” I whisper. “Come back to me.”
The monitor beats on. Steady. Strong.
I don’t let go.