Chapter 6 Isabella #2
For a beat, Nico doesn’t move. He stands in the doorway like a sentry, eyes sweeping the corners of the room before settling on me again. That same unreadable tension sits in his jaw. Like he doesn’t want to leave but knows he should.
“I’ll be right outside,” he says.
It shouldn’t make me feel steadier. But it does.
He steps back, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
The doctor’s smile returns as he sets his bag on the bed. “You can sit, dear.”
I lower myself carefully onto the mattress, my breath catching as pain ripples along my side.
“Ribs?” he asks knowingly.
“Yeah. Mostly the left.”
He nods, already pulling out a small penlight. “Let’s start from the head down.”
His touch is practiced, gentle, the kind of gentleness that comes from decades of doing this. He checks my pupils, asks me to follow his finger, checks my breathing, palpates along my ribs with expert precision.
I hiss when he presses a tender spot.
“Mm-hmm,” he hums, sympathetic. “You’ll be sore for a while, but nothing feels cracked.”
Relief washes through me slowly, warm and unsteady. I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been bracing for the worst.
“You’re lucky,” he adds. “Another inch lower and he might have done real damage.”
I swallow hard. “That’s comforting.”
His eyes soften with understanding. “You’re safe now. These boys may cause trouble, but they’re very good at stopping it too.”
“Boys?” I echo.
He laughs under his breath. “I delivered Nico and his brothers. Known them since before they could walk. I’ve stitched them up more times than their father cared to count, God rest his soul.”
Something in my chest tightens, curiosity, intrigue, something more personal. “Were they always like this?”
He gives me a look full of mischief and affection. “You mean intense? Impossible? Overprotective?”
Heat rushes up my cheeks. “Maybe.”
He chuckles again. “Some things don’t change with age.”
I hesitate, then ask carefully, “What was Nico like? As a kid?”
He pauses packing up his instruments, smiling as though he’s thinking of a memory he won’t share. Then he shakes his head, kind but firm. “Now that,” he says, “isn’t a story I could tell, even for a pretty face like yours.”
I gape faintly. “I wasn’t…. I didn’t mean….”
He pats my hand, eyes twinkling. “I know what you meant. But confidences are confidences, dear. And these boys have trusted me with theirs since they were small enough to hold in one arm.”
Warmth spreads beneath my ribs, mingling with the ache.
The loyalty in his voice is… grounding. Unexpectedly so and speaks to an affection and loyalty that surprises me from what I know of the Mancini men.
But then nothing of what I’ve seen so far is what I expected from mafia sons, or at least alleged mafia.
He finishes packing his bag. “Take it easy for a few days. No sudden movements, no heavy lifting, and try not to take any more punches tonight or deliver any.” He hands me two pills I take with some water sitting by the bed.
A shaky laugh leaves me. “I’ll do my best.”
There’s a soft knock before the door opens. Nico stands there, filling the doorway with that same tense, contained presence.
“Well?” he asks.
“She’s bruised but intact,” the doctor replies. “Nothing broken. She’ll be sore, but she’ll live. I’ll leave a prescription for pain meds with you, and you can collect them in the morning. But for now, rest and ice.”
Nico’s exhale is subtle, almost silent, but something in the room shifts when he releases it. As though a tight rope inside him loosens by half an inch. “Good,” he says.
The doctor pats my shoulder, then heads out. Nico follows him down the hall. I stand slowly, moving to the doorway just in time to hear the quiet exchange.
“Thank you,” Nico says, low and sincere.
“You boys are going to give me a heart attack one of these days.” The doctor huffs, then adds more softly, “Take care of her.”
“Yeah,” Nico mutters. “I know.”
Their shadows shift toward the elevator. The doors slide open, flooding the hall with cool light.
“Call me if anything changes,” the doctor says.
Nico nods once.
The doors close.
Silence settles over the penthouse like a held breath, warm, deep, and impossibly still.
I press a hand to my ribs, grounding myself in the quiet… and in the truth I don’t want to examine:
For the first time since the night began, the absence of danger is eclipsed by something else entirely.
The awareness of where I am. And who I’m here with.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Thank you,” I say softly.
His eyes flick to mine, unreadable. “You’re safe tonight.”
The words settle somewhere deep, somewhere frighteningly soft.
He turns toward the hall.
“Where are you going?” I ask before I can stop myself.
He glances back. “To order some food for us both.”
“Oh.”
“Anything you prefer?”
I shake my head, not feeling very hungry but knowing if I don’t eat, the pain pills will upset my stomach. “Anything is fine.”
A nod and then he disappears down the corridor, leaving me standing beneath the amber lights, ice pressed to my cheek, ribs aching, skin buzzing with the memory of his hands and his presence…
And a quiet, unsettling truth I can’t ignore: I don’t know what scares me more—that someone tried to kill me tonight…Or that the man I exposed to the world feels like the only solid thing left holding me upright.