47. Vivi
VIVI
The first thing I notice is the noise. Cars honking outside. Church bells ringing. Planes flying overhead. The din of a lot of bodies being in the same confined space.
City sounds.
Then there’s the beeping. Regular, like a pulse. It echoes the throbbing in my arm.
I’m trying to figure out why the right side of my body hurts so much when voices seep through the background din. Low male murmurs.
Opening my eyes takes effort. A ridiculous amount, but eventually two shapes form on the other side of the room. I blink, bringing them into focus.
A man standing, talking.
A larger one, hunched in a chair, head in his hands.
The one standing says, “We’ve run the test a third time. The results are the same.”
The one sitting hauls his shoulders up to his ears, fingers dragging across his scalp as he takes in the news.
“I know it has been two weeks, Signore, but the signora isn’t showing any signs of distress.
There are no indications the injury will cause long-term damage.
Her body has been under a lot of strain.
Her mind too. But her vitals are strong.
Her injuries weren’t life-threatening. She’s been in and out of consciousness, but she should wake fully soon. She just needs rest.”
“And the poison?” the other man says. “There’s no lingering trace of it?”
The man standing looks at something in his hands. Some sort of tablet. “I can confirm that all traces of the arsenic are out of her system. Doctor Santi’s treatment was successful. And as for the?—”
“Basta. Stop.” The man hunched in the chair cuts him off. “You need to be sure, doctor. I want you to think very hard and be absolutely certain before the next statement comes out of your mouth.”
“There are no absolutes in medicine, Giovanni.” The doctor puts a hand on the larger man’s shoulder. “But the blood work has come back. It’s still very early days, but the result is clearly positive. Your wife is pregnant, and all signs indicate that both mother and baby are doing well.”
Mother and baby. Mother and baby.
The beeping sound I heard before picks up pace. Getting faster and faster as the doctor’s comment sinks in.
The men stop talking. Two sets of eyes fly in my direction.
The doctor approaches, looking at the monitors beside my bed, noting things in his tablet.
The second man stands so abruptly his chair crashes backwards, the modern metal frame clattering against the ground.
The beep on the monitor jumps.
“Calma, Signora. Everything is well.” The doctor gives my hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m very glad to see you awake. I am Doctor Galli. Do you remember your name?”
My tongue is thick, throat dry. “Vivi,” I rasp. “My name is Vivi Salviati.”
The doctor’s face stays neutral.
The other man, my husband, makes a sound. Half anger, half pain.
Doctor Galli casts a look over his shoulder.
“At this stage in the signora's recovery, it is very important for the signore to remember that she needs peace and quiet. As little stress as possible.” The doctor makes one last note before tucking his tablet away. Smiles at me. “We’re very happy to have you back with us, Vivi. You gave us quite a fright, but all is well now. Your arm is healing nicely, and?—”
Giovanni growls, cutting him off.
The doctor does a remarkable job of keeping his irritation under control. “It seems your husband would like to tell you the rest. I’ll be back to check on you later.”
I watch the doctor leave. Stare at the door long after he’s gone. I can’t seem to make myself look at the other man. My husband.
Giovanni, on the other hand, hasn’t taken his eyes off me for a moment. I’m not even sure he’s blinking. “Bella.”
There’s too much feeling in that one word. An amalgam of hope and fear, longing and disbelief.
My chest gets tight. The beeping on the monitor doesn’t like it any more than I do.
Then Giovanni is beside me, kneeling on the hard hospital floor, his hands dwarfing one of mine. The one on the side that doesn’t hurt.
He kisses my palm. My wrist. I know it’s impossible, but I swear I feel dried tears on his lips.
As I regain full consciousness, I’m bombarded by memories, questions.
Images of an underground cell.
Blood on a marble floor.
Francesca pointing a gun at my head.
“Millie!” Exhaustion drops away, panic taking its place.
I jerk out of Gio’s grasp, grimacing as I wrangle my body into some sort of sitting position.
He reaches out to help. I shift away. “What happened to Millie?” It’s getting easier to talk, my vocal cords warming up. “To Francesca, I mean. Is she okay?”
Giovanni sighs. “Francesca is fine.”
“She’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“No.” It’s quiet but razor sharp. “It had nothing to do with God, Vivi, and everything to do with you. I still can’t believe—” Whatever he’s about to say dies. Gio drops his head to the hospital bed, hands mangling the sheets.
He’s careful not to touch me, not to hurt me, but it’s obvious that there’s a reckoning happening inside him. A war of emotions that’s threatening to turn him inside out.
His shoulders are shaking as he grinds his forehead into the bed. “You saved her, bella. She was going to shoot you,” he groans. “I couldn’t let her do that. But I couldn’t get to you in time, couldn’t cover your body with mine, so I did the only thing I could. I shot her. Except… Fuck!”
Gio’s head whips up. The smudges beneath his eyes are dark. There’s a beard covering his face. His hair is too long, skin too sallow. He’s disheveled, exhausted. Tormented.
“Except…?” I touch a finger to his cheek. Watched in stupefied horror as that tiny point of contact breaks my husband in two.
The tears come faster than he can blink them away, thickening his voice and charting damp trails over his cheekbones before disappearing into his silver-flecked beard.
A weaker man would hide his heartbreak.
My husband has never been weak.
Selfish, controlling. High-handed. Wrong. Really fucking wrong. But never weak.
“Except, what?” I repeat.
Gio cradles my jaw in one hand. So carefully his whole body is shaking with the effort.
“You got in the way. You saved her, Vivi. Knocked her down. She never had a chance to fire her gun. And you took the bullet that was meant for her.” True anguish floods his face.
“Why did you do that? Why protect her after what she did?”
“How could I not protect her?” I look at him, as calm now as I was when I pulled Francesca to the ground. As certain that I couldn’t let her die. Not after everything that had happened. “I failed her before. I couldn’t do it again.”
“Jesus, Vivi. When I saw you go down…” Gio’s voice cuts out. “I was so fucking scared. So fucking terrified that I’d lost you. Killed you. I’m so sorry, amore mio. So fucking sorry.”
Confession made, Gio holds his breath. Watches me. Waits for me to deliver his sentence.
But I don’t have it in me. Not when I register how much my arm actually hurts. “Where did you shoot me, exactly?”
Gio curses. “Your upper arm. It was a through-and-through. No damage to the bones or tendons. It will take time to heal, but you should have your full strength back in time to hold our?—”
The hospital room door flies open before Gio can finish his sentence.
I’m caught, heart in throat, desperate to know what he’s about to say next, when three women walk into the room.
They’re whispering intensely, arms full of flowers and balloons and what looks like an enormous stuffed bear. When they see me awake in bed, they stop short.
Then, the one in the back, the shortest of the trio, pushes forward on a barely contained squeal. “Vivi!”
“Oh my God—Elena!?”
Gio shifts out of the way just in time to make space for my sister. She hovers a second before carefully pulling me into a gentle hug. “It’s really you,” she’s whispering. “Holy shit, I can’t believe it’s really you.”
“You realize,” says one of the other women, “it’s been her the whole time, right? Just because she’s awake, she hasn’t suddenly become a different person.”
“Dana, filter!” Hisses the third woman. “Now’s not the time.”
Elena pulls back, and I see Sera and Dana smiling at me from the foot of the bed. Between the three of them, there’s so much joy and relief in the air it’s impossible not to smile back.
“You look better,” Elena says.
“You look…older.” Fundamentally, I understand my sister isn’t a little girl anymore, but it’s hard to reconcile the eight-year-old I used to know with the eighteen-year-old standing in front of me.
But as I look closer, I recognize the unique reddish-brown gleam of her hair.
The blue eyes that have always been several shades darker than mine.
The scar on her forehead from a bike accident she had when she was six, the strip of silvery skin smaller but still visible.
A huge lump lodges itself in my throat. “You look…beautiful.”
“You too, Vi.” She swipes away tears, kisses my cheek. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You, too. But when, how—?” I look between her and Gio. “When did you get here?”
“About a week and a half ago. A few days after you were admitted.” She looks at Gio, who hasn’t lifted his eyes from my face. “Your husband got me here as fast as he could.”
“It should’ve been sooner,” he mutters. “I should’ve done it a month ago.”
“Yes, well,” Dana chimes in. “You were still being an asshole a month ago. Quite frankly, I’m surprised you pulled your head out of your ass long enough to do it at all.”
Elena, Sera, and I look at her in unison.
“Dana!” Elana gasps.
Sera’s giving her a look that says she thinks the woman is insane.
“What?” Dana asks. “I’m just saying what everyone is thinking.”
Gio curses but otherwise ignores her.
Despite my aching body, my head is pivoting between all of them, a tickle building in the back of my throat until I can’t help it. I burst out laughing.
Everyone is staring at me, expressions ranging from surprise to concern to confusion.
But the longer I laugh and the clearer it becomes that I’m not about to burst into tears or explode into manic screams, the room relaxes.
I even catch Gio’s lips hint at a smile.
My laughter devolves into hiccups and, eventually, I’m so tired it’s a struggle to stay sitting upright. Gio senses the shift immediately. So does Elena. They both start fussing over me, tucking in covers and smoothing down sheets.
Dana and Sera get the hint, gather up their things.
“Wait,” I rasp. “Don’t go yet.” It feels so good to have everyone here. To be surrounded by family. Friends. I’m not ready for it to end.
“We’re not leaving, leaving,” Sera assures me.
“We’re just going back to the villa so you can get your rest.” Her smile is reassuring.
“You didn’t think you could get rid of us that easily, did you?
Besides, we have to help Aurora with a little craft project.
She’s determined to have it finished before you get home. ”
“Aurora—how is she? Is she okay?” I glance around, scanning faces. “She didn’t get hurt that day, did she?”
“No, bella,” Gio confirms. “Ro is fine. She wanted us to tell you that she misses you and can’t wait for you to be back on the island.”
I relax, looking from my sister to Dana, to Sera. Three women I want to get to know so much better. Might actually have the chance to, now. “You’re really staying at the villa? Do you know for how long?”
Dana is about to answer, but Gio interjects. “They’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like, bella.”
Dana mutters. Gio sends her an exasperated look. “Not that I’m speaking for them, obviously. They can do that themselves. I’m just stating for the record that their rooms at the Villa d’Osso are available for as long as they’d like.”
My sister gives my husband a cautious smile.
Sera says something about being happy to say as long as Alik can stand to be away from home.
Dana makes a comment about being in close proximity to Elio that makes Gio’s eyes narrow.
The whole scene is unexpected. Comical. And makes my heart so happy it physically hurts.
The machine next to me notices, the beeps getting slightly erratic.
At that sign, Gio ushers all the women out. There’s lots of waving and blowing of kisses and promises that we’ll see each other soon at the villa. Dana is saying something about boats that makes no sense at all, but Elena pushes her out before I have a chance to ask what she’s talking about.
I listen as their chatter vanishes down the hallway, my smile fading more and more the fainter it gets.
Then it’s just me, Gio, my monitors, and the deafening silence.